CB - is you get tired of working on your house, come visit Seattle for a couple of days. I’ve got a bath that needs to be designed… 
I figured I’d squeeze in this long overdue project while waiting for my new funding. New funding probably in 3 weeks but I can guarantee we will spend at least 4 months on my house!!
If you’re willing, I’d love to see your continued commentary and photo links about your home renovation projects on their own thread. I certainly understand that you might want to maintain your privacy, though.
That’s not really fair to those that use the Home Improvement thread. But if you all want to watch a house go from 90s earth tones to bright and light, including trying to squeeze a kitchenette into a small space, I’ll start a separate thread. I’ll try hard not to reveal the property location
Could someone PM me the link to the photos of this one? I lost the link and I’m dying to see the final outcome Thanks!
You’re done a great job, as always! How unfortunate you guys weren’t able to get client to get the pieces needed to complete everything and that he will be left to finish due to his dithering and choices along the way.
cb, you know this guy is going to want you to come back to complete everything. If I were you, I’d charge him your usual rate plus 50%. Sure, you’ll do it, but he’s going to have to pay through the nose for it. Don’t be shy.
I’m the sort who wants to buy all the stuff and get the best price. CB has pretty much demonstrated how much of a pain that is to the contractor and that the savings can get eaten up in lost time and reordering. It has changed my thinking on this issue!
Honestly, I don’t think he saved much money buying himself, but solely because he waited until it became a scheduling emergency and then had to get on the Internet in the middle of the night and make rush decisions. In the end I think he ended up ordering many things that were not the right size, not the right part, etc. The tile selection was the worst case because there were a lot of postponement of subcontractors (and I could not get them to come back for weeks). I think we would have been done about 2 weeks (wishful thinking!) earlier if we could have gotten the master bathroom tile and floor tile on site in a timely manner. And the backordered doors caused another significant delay. I could have ordered those doors about 2 weeks sooner if he would have made up his mind!!
The funny thing is that probably for about 85% of the stuff he ended up purchasing what I recommended, by sending many many links and pictures, to begin with (except for those stupid toilets!!!).
There are some things you can save serious money on by buying on the internet, if your contractor will let you.
I figure I saved close to $20K by buying kitchen cabinets, flooring, the cable railing, a few specific lights, vanities, mirrors, and some specific tile pieces through the internet.
Some things don’t seem worth it for the reasons cb mentions - not being in the business, it’s very hard to know if you are getting the right things in the right sizes with all the right pieces.
When we did the showers, for example, when you point to something in the showroom you wind up with a parts list with about 6 things on it. How are you supposed to know which of the 5 different models of mixing valve go with that model of faucet? It was too much work to try to figure it all out.
Some contractors don’t want you buying your own supplies because they make money on that as well.
I didn’t find significantly better prices for appliances on the internet to make it with the hassle of dealing with it myself. The appliance company took care of delivery and unpacking and hauling away the boxes, and they are there for warranty service (which I’ve already had to do once).
I just finished all of the final accounting. Yikes and double yikes!!! I don’t have a lot of the receipts of the items that he ordered himself, but just with what I managed it came to $2200,350. Here’s a general breakdown:
Demolition and Hauling $7,000 this was very high because a) we could not get a dumpster into the location because of HOA rules and b) there wasn’t even a regular trash service so every piece of trash had to be hauled out
Windows and Doors $7,150 includes all new doors, pocket doors, trim and 5 new windows. Two of the windows were an additional cost with a lot of labor involved when we discovered the rotted area at the top of the front windows
Kitchen $33,000 which includes a huge amount of structural work to open up the walls with very expensive beams. Also includes a lot of re routing of vents and ducting (that was not evident when we did our walkthrough) that was going through the kitchen ceiling. About $9,000 was appliances
Bathrooms $48,000 this is the most outrageous expense in the project. After opening everything up we discovered that the old cast iron plumbing was shot, needed to replumb the whole house, all of the bathroom venting was not to code and we had to re vent everything and tie everything together. And, pretty much rebuild, replumb and run gas to the laundry closet upstairs. I can guarantee that added at least $15,000 to the project. Not to mention the expensive labor to plumb in the steam shower, all of the fancy wall toilets and numerous valves and shower heads. But in the end, he got two additional bathrooms added to the house legally. Also, he used some pretty expensive tile in the master bathroom.
Garage $4,850 this was a stupid expense on his part. He made us tear apart the ceiling and run all kinds of lighting and electrical ‘because he is going to have a workshop in the garage’. I’ll believe that the day I see him build something.
Flooring $13,350 this includes redoing the staircase with new treads and risers and we had to pour a lot of self leveling cement, repair the subfloor and level everything out. When you have carpet there is a lot of forgiveness in the floor, but wood floors require level floors.
Drywall and Paint $21,500 Yikes! This includes $8k to do new drywall where needed (lots), skim coat the entire house to a new smooth texture and a million drywall patches everywhere for a lot of electrical work. Painting out the wood living room ceilings and bedroom ceilings cost at least $5k in a million gallons of paint and labor. And a lot of emergency stucco repair on the outside whenever it rained
Balcony - $6,650 significant repairs, sloping, balcony railing grinding and repainting and the special coating
Staircase $8,850 mostly the glass railing and the railing for master bedroom is included in that cost
Miscellaneous $50,000 This is the lighting, a ton of electrical work, door handles, fireplace build, cleanup , emergency stuff from the rains, etc And project management
In the end I am the first to admit that we did not do this project efficiently. We were always going backwards and reworking something, discovering a huge issue that diverted us, installing things out of order, rearranging schedule because items were not available. Big Lesson Learned. And, I did not manage the customer’s expectations when brand new expensive stuff showed up. We were still opening holes and pulling wires at the end of the project for some new thing the customer wanted.
Here’s an example… we are finally painted and baseboards installed. Suddenly he decides he needs to have a special outlet pulled into the closet so he CAN PLUG IN HIS WATCHES inside the organizer!!! What the hey??? Who needs to plug in watches in the little velvet drawer??? I explained several times that we will have to open up holes in the ceiling, put a junction box in the attic above the closet, and open up the walls to pull a new wire down where he wanted it. Then… we have to patch all the drywall holes, put on joint tape, mud. Then wait for mud to dry, sand and mud again. Wait for mud to dry, sand and prime. Then clean up all the sanded drywall dust off walls and floor. Then repaint the whole wall again.
I’m sorry to say it but I predict that he will hold back the final payment until all of the extra stuff is done.
CB is the finished price $2m or $220k?
cb: Before you started this part of the project, did you tell him how much it would cost? I know it’s difficult to anticipate the cost precisely, but it might have given him pause if you could have said it would cost $8,000 or whatever. He might have instead assumed you just didn’t want to do so much work – not that you were concerned about his cost.
Sorry, $200k
At least i warned him over a month ago that we were heading towards this number
He already sent more than final payment amount. He doesn’t have checks and he just transfers money. I don’t think he pays attention to exact nbr because he always transfers (within 4-8 hrs of receiving the spreadsheet and receipts) a rounded thousand nbr. Now I owe him the remainder:)
And, the townhouse at the end is still for sale over 90 days. They’ve dropped their price 200k. Over 90 days is way too long in La Jolla. They are priced way too high. I’m surprised because it’s a real estate agent and she should know better
@coralbrook well we all know the reason that other condo hasn’t sold is because it doesn’t have lighted kitchen drawers. ?
LOL
Also, no in-shower mood lighting and glass railings for stairways like a premium property should.
If there is an open house at that other place, maybe we will peek at it when we visit San Diego this weekend. lol!