^^Yikes. That will cost $$$$$!!!
Why can’t he have an exterior clear clean lines outdoor rail like the place next door? Why the iron?
Floating staircases look great…but really…isn’t he over spending on this place? Big time!
So when his daughters can’t go to their dream colleges because of lack of funds, at least he can tell them he gave them a floating staircase.
That’s it @Marilyn he is making a really good attempt at using up all of his liquid assets and making sure that the equity in this home is $0.
I think he is way overbuilding this condo…but maybe the neighbors will be happy…because if he is able to sell at some point…his will be the overpriced comp that is used.
@coralbrook it seems like the “value” when this is done will far exceed what is in this development.
I thought you were talking about the interior balcony railing in the loft…the HOA gets to weigh in on that? If so, too bad that they didn’t complain about all of the botched work inside!
No, that is the railing on the outside. If you look at the photo with the giant truck parked in front of the t-home, you can see that railing. The t-home next door has had a complete facelift with a modernized look. That is the problem: these townhomes are duplexes, and changing the railing on one side of the t-home is not going to work. The neighboring t-home owners both changed theirs. Frankly, if I had extra cash to blow on beautification, I would have spent energy on convincing the HOA that both sides need to be modernized and if needed paid for my neighbors’ railing… but I am not the owner. That is the problem with “common” architecture.
We are stuck with that railing because there are 2 duplexes in the 70s Spanish style and 2 duplexes that are contrasting with contemporary style. Honestly, this guy should have bought the contemporary style, but those haven’t come up for sale in a long time.
Yesterday I got to spend hours drafting up an entire analysis of why the balcony is rotted and needs to be rebuilt, along with a detailed cost schedule. This is because, technically, the HOA is responsible for the balcony and he has submitted the findings to the HOA. I can guarantee that weeks will go by before someone even acknowledges there is an issue. Then a committee with clipboards will have to come over and look at the situation. Then more weeks go by where they go out to get multiple bids or something. Meanwhile, that dang railing is stuck inside the house waiting for someone to make a decision about WHO is going to repair the balcony and HOW they are going to repair the balcony.
Luckily, the owner says he will just go ahead and repair it and fight it out after the fact. We have to get that monstrosity railing back onto the balcony within 5-6 days or it will stop all progress in the house. Right now one guy is suited up with two passes of the grinder over the entire railing, then we have to prime twice, then paint with 3 coats. This is going to be a full time job for at least 5 man days. In the end it would’ve just been easier to put on a new railing!
Craziness
I am drowning in small details that are driving us crazy.
We got the giant balcony railing off and spent 2 days grinding the rust off down to the bare metal. Then I get a frantic call from the owner that the adjoining neighbor called him. They discussed that maybe they both might want to change out the railing to a new glass railing design. Then he calls the HOA president and so we had to stop everything and I had to spend hours presenting design alternatives and costs to the owner and the HOA. Now I am stuck with a 20 ft railing in the living room and cannot proceed any further towards getting that railing back out onto the balcony. We are proceeding with repairing the balcony but he doesn’t know whether he wants tile or deck coating. At this point I cannot start working on the major kitchen structural changes with the large beams because the railing is keeping us from being able to work in the area.
We are trying to finish the bathrooms but he wants fancy Euro wall toilets. Guess what!!! we are in the $1,000 toilet realm. I never ever thought I would be putting in $1,000 toilets! So, of course, all these pieces and parts for the wall toilets are special order and we have to wait for the toilets to arrive.
At this point we are waiting for all kinds of small decisions because we cannot even proceed with the wiring of outlets or anything because he wants to ‘research’ what type of outlets and switches he wants and all kinds of crazy wireless switches that accept a signal from a wireless home automation system.
So he is dead set in building a dumb house of tomorrow? :)) Sigh.
From whom is he planning to hide his capital, one wonders?
Methinks he might have made all these decisions before hiring the contractor who would build them.
“They discussed that maybe they both might want to change out the railing to a new glass railing design.”
Let me guess… the neighbors saw how rotted the balcony was and decided that it would make sense to jump in while a bunch of contractors was here… Good for him. Bad for your team!
“We are installing this cool bathtub with a unique rectangular overflow drain style
https://www.build.com/kohler-k-20201-la/s1313990?uid=3120305”
That’s my tub. I love it.
CB, I just hope you are getting paid in installments.
Having remodeled practically my whole house inside and out, $150K is a laughable budget.
But I also think you need to forget about the things he wants and what it’s going to cost him - or how it may extend the time frame for getting things done. As long as you are getting paid why do you care?
Also, my contractor brings a port-o-potty to job site. Workers should not be using the customer’s bathrooms. JMO.
@emilybee I won’t speak for @coralbrook but condos around here will NOT allow you to bring in a ports potty!
CB…I hate to say it…but this sounds like an awful client. I would be charging him a %age of the actual costs. I mean really…if he is going to get $1000 toilets, you might as well get a %age of that in your fee.
But she seems to have these toilet issues at every house she works on.
Oh totally agree about the toilet issues…but @coralbrook doesn’t usually work on condos. And on your own private property, you can bring in a porta potty. Not so with a condo development…at least, not here.
I think we could bring in a porta potty because I see one precariously balanced on a landing in the exterior stairs at the end unit that has been under renovation for over a year!!
Believe me, the first thing I discuss with a client is “where is the crew going to have a bathroom?? It’s a top priority in my book! Luckily this townhouse had the strange bathroom built in the garage. That is not getting renovated with $1,000 toilets, and we are more than happy to go down into the garage rather than have to use a porta potty
@coralbrook any updates?
PROJECT UPDATE
Sorry it has been so long with an update, but my head is spinning with all the new doo dads continuously added to the scope of the project. I feel really bad because I have another client that is patiently waiting in the wings and I have to keep updating her that her start date is getting pushed out. Not sure how I got into this remodel business!! They are all friends or friends of a friend 
Here is what we have finished, although it is always a moving target:
HOA had a meeting last weekend and the iron balcony railing has to be reinstalled because all 4 owners couldn’t agree to commit to the cost of replacing their balcony railing to a new glass railing. Even though they all love the idea (except the flipper at the end who just spent money putting their railing back on!), they don’t want only one out of the four units to have a different railing for an undetermined amount of time
At the HOA meeting my owner fought hard to get the grills removed from the windows and he won the battle. The flip at the end unit conveniently haven’t put theirs back on again after replacing the windows. So, there will be two units without grills, but that is OK because it is on the sides of the house. Victory! But now I have to figure out how to get them off and where to haul them away for metal recycling. Even harder is going to be trying to patch up the holes in the stucco and match 20 year old paint on the exterior.
Speaking of stucco, turns out that the stucco on exterior is completely failing and just falling off the building. It is some kind of lightweight foamy material that snake oil salesmen were installing in the 70s. In looking at the material it is very similar to blown in drywall or something. Instead of a water repelling substance it looks like a sponge water sucking substance
I was waiting for the HOA meeting to get some of these decisions made because that humongous railing is stuck inside the living room waiting for a decision. Owner called me the minute the meeting was over and said “We are really going to have a tough time with the newly elected HOA president”. Turns out He was voted in as the new president. We should be smooth sailing from this point on Just the other day we had 4 trucks in the parking spots, a semi truck delivering Home Depot stuff and another truck doing a delivery. Hope the neighbors didn’t call and complain to the HOA president
The flip that has taken over a year and is not a style that my owner likes is just about to come out onto the market. I’ll keep you all posted on that one so you can look at the photos.
We have finished all the plumbing and electrical in all the bathrooms except the master bath. We have decided to leave the garage bathroom alone and only replace the broken exhaust fan and try to get it vented to exterior to pass inspection. We cannot continue in the master bathroom because he is throwing curve balls every day. We have the wall mount toilet tank thing ready to install, but now he wants a steam shower with multi sprays, colored lights and who knows what. That means we will have to frame in the structure, run 220 electric and you name it. I told everyone to just stop until his chosen unit shows up with some kind of instructions.
Just this week he has decided he wants a fancy floating staircase and he asked me to do the engineering diagrams to submit for a quote. Uhhhh… I have no idea how to build a floating staircase. Two nights watching You Tube videos and I am now a certified expert Finally after many discussions with the staircase company engineer I know exactly what measurements he wants. But, turns out they will not go any further without a deposit.
Our main issue that is adding thousands and thousands of dollars to the budget is that we are trying to add 2 new bathrooms into a house that only has enough vents going through the roof to support 2 existing bathrooms. Do not want to go up on a 3 story roof and try to cut 2 more vents into the clay tile roof. In addition, we are installing a 24 ft long major 18" beam across the living room and another 11 ft beam into the kitchen in order to open up the kitchen. We cannot cut holes in those beams to run pipes. So, we cannot even get from one side of the house to another. It is a puzzle piece nightmare at this point. I have had to invent soffit walls bumping into the new walk in closet and other creative places to route all this stuff.
Spent two weeks working on a ktichen design solely because there was a 10% off sale that expired on Sunday Nov 11. We don’t even need the dang cabinets to be delivered until January but he was pushing me to get done to save the 10%!!! Now we are going to have a million boxes delivered at the end of November that we will have to stash somewhere. I’ll try to get the kitchen design loaded sometime soon. Problem its it is in a pdf and I need to convert to a jpg to load to Flickr.
Oh, and a brand new 6 ft electric fireplace insert has been delivered. We are capping off the existing gas fireplace (have to get up onto the roof and cap off chimney) and building a big fireplace and hearth on the other side of the living room. Looks like this, but we will be building cabinets underneath and an extended hearth on the sides. Who knows how long this is going to take!
https://amantii.com/tru-view-xl-series/
Budget to date is about $63,000 and rising! My new guess is maybe $160,000 by the time we are done but I cannot even guess what appliances or tile he will purchase.
I loaded a couple of new photos to the group