All good tips and we have done all of them with our past remodels. We also fix everything and one of my superpowers is tracking down, or negotiating, a deal on everything. After having my dream (aka silent and 3 racks) Bosch dw on backorder for 9 months a couple of years ago, I got the exact model that was backordered, brand new, off FB marketplace for $200. Got my LG w/d that was at the time $3K at Costco for $1400 from Best Buy outlet after I talked them down on their marked price. Got my new $1600 30 cubic foot LG refrigerator for $300 after we discovered it didnât cool quite enough (would not get down below 38 degrees) and LG could either not get the repair part or the repair person to come to our house and fix it. After months, convinced them if they couldnât pick it up and replace with the same one (which was by that time backordered) then they needed to refund my $ so I could move on. They did that. I then paid a local repair guy $300 to swap out an electronic sensor and itâs worked perfectly ever since. The same frig is $2K now.
I have found over the years if you are patient, ask nicely and do your research almost everything can be found for much less than the advertised price.
Same here. 1994 house, but no plans on file.
This has been our experience with the few things we have contracted out over the years, and itâs the main reason I am afraid to do the GC work ourselves. I do not mind being patient but I have zero tolerance for being stood up.
We had the trim in our home professionally painted 8 years ago. I am still using our contractorâs number at Home Depot. He doesnât care as he gets the rewards and I am aware that if I took the time to track down a HD manager and ask, I could get the contractor discount too. (on the basis we are DIYer landlords)
We will definitely do this with for most things. I am curious if you bought all the lumber, wiring, plumbing, etc, too? Or was it just the materials you can see?
In our last two kitchen remodels, HD was significantly more expensive for lower grade cabinets and coutertops than our local kitchen cabinet mom and pop shop.
I want to move! We would give up our current home for an updated 1700ish square foot home with a view. We did some interviews with architects just before Covid. After going through our laundry list of must haves and wants the one we liked the best asked us âWhy donât you just move?â Since then, I check the new RE listings every single day. In that time there have been two houses for sale that we were interested in looking at and both of them were not great. This is a small touristy town on an island and very little comes up for sale here.
We have a 2 1/2% mortgage. There are no steps into the main level of the house and the doors and hallways are very wide. We have a large MIL unit (also with a view) on the lower level of our house which we rent out occassionally (the current rent covers our mortgage) and which will be a perfect set up if we ever need live-in caregivers. The light and the passive solar heating we get from our south facing home/lot means our utility expenses are very cheap. We did not intend this to be our forever home, but basically, we got ourselves into a situation where we are a bit âstuckâ. We canât find anything smaller for sale where the price would justify us giving up the potential income or the aging-in-place options.
Time to start making it look and function like our forever home.
Ours was the exact opposite. We wanted to stay, because we just spent $$ updating the bathrooms and there was no HOA in our neighborhood. But an aging dad required that we live in a one story house closer to where he lives, just in case he needs to stay in our place after surgery. Climbing the stairs on the old house almost sent him back to the hospital he just got discharged from. It turns out after putting in new floors and a coat of paint, the house has a far more functioning floor plan than we ever thought. I even have a media room for my video games
I have a friend who recently spent $90k on a kitchen remodel, but his included all new custom cabinetry, high-end appliances like Wolf and a reconfiguration of the space, including demolishing a wall.
The cost of a kitchen renovation is driven by several factors. First, are you reconfiguring the space? If so, you may need to relocate water supply lines and drains, electrical, ventilation duct and gas lines. If you are relocating or demolishing a wall you may get into structural issues. Second, are you buying high end appliances? Iâve seen luxury brand stoves that cost close to $50k. Third, are you installing custom or artisan finishes and fixtures? Decorative tiles for a backsplash from your local tile shop will cost far less than hand painted tiles imported from Italy, or created by a local artist.
I used to manage commercial construction jobs for a living, and I have renovated three houses. Regardless of your scope, here are some hints for minimizing your cost:
Donât change your scope after you have let a contract and work has begun. A scope item which costs $4 in the original contract would cost $8 if you add it after work begins. If you delete that scope item after work begins, you will only get $2 back.
If you are flexible, you might get a better price if you let the contractor slip it in between larger jobs. This is particularly true if you are talking to contractor in the summer and you let him do the work during a slow winter season.
Always get more than one bid. I know this sounds obvious, but it is amazing how many people talk to one guy and write a contract.
Have good drawings or scope description that detail exactly what is to be done. Change orders are your enemy.
Eliminate as many surprises as possible before you let the contract. Do detailed walk throughs. If necessary, move furniture, pull insulation, and even cut drywall to see where lines run. Contractors may bring up issues that need to be addressed during walk throughs; make sure they are addressed in the scope of the project before bids are finalized.
May no longer be relevant, but when we priced new kitchen cabinets for our kitchen (far before Covid), the local very highly recommended custom carpentry company was less expensive than cabinet companies. Plus, we could design any size, and not be limited to the standard 3" modules.
Unfortunately we never remodeled. Fortunately our 50âs kitchen is now âinâ .
I can believe all this. My daughter and SIL own a house built in 1890 and they were told that to add a bathroom upstairs and renovate two existing bathrooms, and plumb and redesign the old kitchen to accommodate a dishwasher, it will cost 250K because the old plumbing will have to be brought up to code. They tried to look for another house, but couldnât find anything updated that met their needs in the area that didnât cost over 1 million. People arenât moving because they have their cheap mortgages that they cannot duplicate under current conditions, so they are hiring contractors to fix what theyâve got. And the contractors can name their price. They have all the power.
This is incredible advice. We planned and budgeted and knew every cost ahead of time- except for one line which ran left, not right. Which of course you donât know until the drywall is open. We compensated for the overrun in other ways, but Jack- this is terrific for anyone who hasnât yet started the planning process.
Any materials they needed I purchased and were shipped to me. The contractors let me used their discounts. The only risk I had were sub contractors - electricians, plumbers, etc. I did have an issue when the general contractor ran off before the job was completed, a subcontractor was not paid and tried to put a claim on me. I felt bad, but I had paid the contractor for the work, so I told the subcontractor to go after the contractor.
Thanks. So, how did it work when you got the original bid? Did they bid labor only and give you a materials list, or did they bid everything and then you told them you were going to supply the materials. Iâm curious, if they bid everything, how much you saved on their estimates for materials?
$19,000 total on an island off the coast of North Carolina where everything is brought over on a barge or ferry. Bought all the materials and hired the subs myself. $1.5M homeâŠ
I had them break down the costs, so I knew how much for labor and how much for materials. They gave me âallowanceâ for materials. I didnât go with the cheapest. I looked for what was reasonable.
We did the same thing when we built our house. Because if my husbandâs work, we had some very very good vendor prices that even the contractor wouldnât have been able to get. SoâŠfor those things, it was labor only, and an allowance for the materialsâŠwhich came to us.
You brought up something I forgot to mention before. Once you are pulling permits and letting inspectors into the house you open Pandoraâs Box, where if you touch building systems you need to bring them up to code. In an old house that might mean replacing systems or performing expensive upgrades. This is not an issue if your house is 20 years old, but if it is 70 years old be wary. This is a reason to deal with contractors who have done jobs in your town; bring this issue up during a walk through and ask if it will trigger scope creep due to existing systems that are not code.
To avoid this problem in the future, require the GC to provide partial and final waivers of lien from himself and all subcontractors. It is a pain in the rump, and small, unsophisticated contractors balk at the request, but larger more professional firms will be familiar with the practice. When I perform walk throughs with contractors I tell them up front that I want waivers so they plan for it. If the contractor refuses, you do not want to do business with him.
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