Of those I like the Niebla the best.
I’d go with a carrara or calacatta marble. I often see that with the patterned floors like the ones you have and it looks nice, not too busy. I personally think it would look better than the quartz.
Love the placement of the palms. It gives a more artistic flair to the view.
To get silestone or caeserstone countertops I would have to custom order and pay an arm or leg. I know that I can go to my guy’s yard and find a grey quartz or carrera marble 4ft remnant and have him install it for a good price. If I can find a carerra marble with minimal veining in his yard, that is what I will probably get because it fits the traditional style. Its the best way to get high quality materials at the lowest prices for me.
Another issue is that most of the pre made tops online and at the stores have 3 holes pre drilled for faucet and I’m using a single handle faucet for this bath. And I hate those 'plates ’ that cover the holes. Looks so much nicer without the plates
^^ Walked in a wholesale cabinet shop, saw two close out high quality vanity sets with counter tops and everything for $100 that fits my bath, I otherwise had to pay about $2000 for both, the only thing is that three holes were pre drilled. So I had to find a bathroom fixture that fits.
The reason they were not selling is that the height is 32" and normally it is 36", heck for $2000 difference, I care less
Agree… if I found gorgeous vanities at such a great discount, I’d find whatever faucet fit into them ! However, I think the only place I could set a 32" high vanity for a flip would be in the kid’s bathrooms.
We are remodeling our house to get ready to sell it, and the height of the new vanities is new for me. It is funny how we are so used to 32 inches for the vanities. We are replacing all the vanities to the new 36 inches. Also the new toilets are taller. I know it is now a flip when it is your own house, but we really are trying to appeal to buyers.
BerneseMtnMom … I think it is a great idea to remodel/refresh everything to sell your house. What area of the country are you in? Have you given any thought to who you think your target market is?
Yes, we are updating almost everything, except the kitchen which we redid in 2002 and the basement, which we finished in 2006. We are in the Chicago suburbs in a really good school district, so we think we will get a family, maybe a multi-generational family. We started two months ago and have about one more month to go. Updated houses sell more quickly here and our real estate agent has lots of examples to show us what works here. Keeping our fingers crossed.
I’m going to apologize for my last rant/rage/venting about the engineering drawings. I finally figured out that the 2nd floor framing requirements are on the plan marked ‘roof framing’. So, I think we have all pages submitted correctly to the City.
Thank goodness I’m not the one strapping the walls together!! Obviously I am having a little trouble deciphering every detail on these pages:)
You are still entitled to rant. If the firm had an appropriate standard of client communications, they could have answered your call and provided that info in two minutes, thus preventing numerous days/ hours of undue stress on your part.
Today I found out that if I can get my window order in by Wednesday I can get a 20% off special running right now. So now I’m scrambling going through the inventory of vinyl windows being removed and where they can be used in new areas of the house.
For example, going to take the two plain vinyl single hungs that were in the living room and stick those in the vanity/toilet areas of the jack and jill bathroom. They are a tad too wide, but that just means more light into those bathrooms!
Basically, the house has dark chestnut wood windows along the front and back of the house. The L shaped area facing the back yard will have the tan vinyl windows because there a lot of bathrooms in that area and I don’t want wood windows in the bathrooms.
Then I find out that draftsman did not include a ‘window schedule’ on the plans. I called up to see if he had a schedule so I can follow building code guidelines for tempered glass, where needed. He does not have a schedule and he did not indicate tempered on required windows. Oh boy, I get to go into the building code ‘bulletin’ and try to decipher where needed. I know the basic guidelines but I have a couple of inverse corners near doors that I have to analyze whether the window near the door needs to be tempered.
Oy.
How much do you save by reusing old windows?
Is it worth it?
If I was paying $1M+ I’d probably think that included new windows in the new parts of the house.
I agree.
I’d want ALL the windows to be made of the same material.
And have the same look.
Here is the issue… in the existing part of the house there are newer vinyl windows in the bathroom and there are a couple in the hall bedroom. They are not noticeable. Everything that is noticeable is going to be the wood clad dark windows. I’m only putting vinyl in the bathrooms, the basement and the garage staircase. That’s where I am reusing the existing vinyl windows. These existing windows are only about 4-5 years old and are dual pane low E windows.
I save about $200-$300 a window. Only reusing about 4 windows.
Today I am interviewing 3 different groups of framers. I have one contracting company coming (which would be the safest thing to do… they have a license and insurance coverage), two framers who I would hire directly and I would cover them with my workman’s comp policy and two framers who I am ‘hiring’ through an acquaintance that does construction projects but his framers are not busy right now. I have to pay the boss, not the framers directly. Still trying to figure out if the acquantance has proper workman’s compensation insurance coverage for these guys. He’s being very evasive about answering the question so I am assuming he doesn’t have insurance
given as you are adding an additional story, which can be a disaster if not done correctly by someone with plenty of experience, I’d err on the side on the side of caution and go with the contracting company.
I agree with @menloparkmom. I also would be very concerned that if the others did something that needed to be fixed, you would be stone out of luck in terms of getting them back. Especially with the “acquaintance.” He sounds shifty, and if he starts a project in the meantime…
So far the framing contractor has not even returned my calls. Even though I know this contractor advertises a lot, I’m guessing they are way too busy for my job. I’m worried that they would string me along and not be able to get started or stay focused full time on the job.
The experienced framer wants too much money per hour, not in my budget
The two framers did show up yesterday and walked through the job with me. I believe that they can get the job done but my carpenter and I will have to supervise closely to make sure that the structural details in the plans are followed correctly. These guys did not want to be ‘responsible’ for accurately reading all the complex plans. I guessed I scared them to death when I kept insisting that they needed to be able to read the plans. They don’t want the job.
So I don’t have any framers lined up right now 