Actually, BB, the house looks like it might be rather nice, with all those fireplaces and so forth. But there is so much junk strewn about, and people apparently sleeping on every available flat surface, that it is hard to tell!
It looks OK in the photos, but a lot of wood is rotted through. The layout of the place is very weird.
Today is a busy day on the remodel project
All of the drywall is on and we are going to start taping and mudding. There was a LOT of drywall and many small details wrapping the new beams and posts
I have designed the new front porch cover and redid a lot of the trim design on front of house. We have to get the front porch built because the painters are coming next week for exterior painting. We have to replace some fascia and trim wood that is rotten
I’m heading downtown because I have a friend who has abput 80 sq ft of leftover tile and grout she’s giving to me for 50 cents a sq ft and we are going to use that for laundry room
Then all day in truck with the owner out buying the kitchen cabinets. That will be fun
cb, I’m looking forward to hearing about how the cabinet shopping went. It sure seems that you and your crew are moving quickly on this project.
In my opinion we are not ‘moving fast’
We are nearing the end of Week 6 on the project and we still don’t have anything interesting for the owners. We are not to the ‘pretty’ stuff yet. But, we have finished all the structural changes, plumbing and electrical. Electrical work keeps getting additions because I am seeing stuff that needs to get done while we have the walls opened up.
For example, I noticed that there were no exterior electric outlets on the house. The owners really want a new big deck off the back of their family room and master bedroom, so we are thinking ahead on that. We are running a gas line out to the deck area and capping it off for the future. We also tapped into some existing outlets in the master bedroom area and have added two weatherproof outlets on the exterior in the deck area. This will facilitate some nice lighting and any other things they might want in the future.
In addition, the outside of the house was a ghettto mess. The cable company had just strung black cable wire all around the outside of the house that was just hanging down from everywhere. It was an eyesore. So I had the electrician tap in a new line that runs through the attic (where it should be to begin with) to a single location where the owner wants to put their router box. Eventually the cable wire is going to drop down from the ceiling and the router box is going to get located in some cabinetry we are installing in the living room. We don’t need all these stupid black cable lines around the house. He tested the router yesterday in the central location in the house and it works fine to get service in all the rooms of the house. Tore off those black wires!!
Then I noticed that there were two separate phone lines coming into the house from two different telephone poles out in the street. What the hey??? So, I gave the owner a task to call ATT and try to get the boxes and wires removed from the house. They have never used a land line and do not need one anymore. Guess what?? ATT just put him on hold for over 30 minutes while he tried to get someone to place an order to remove their service lines. Then we both researched the Internet and everyone says they will never come out and do it. So, we cut the lines off the house, coiled them up and stapled them high onto the telephone poles. One line was literally coming all the way over to his house over the neighbor’s house. Called ATT and told them… your wires are hanging from telephone poles located at X and Y. They are your responsibility now.
And, there was an old electrical pole sticking out of the roof right next to the new one that goes to their current panel. We ripped that off the house and patched the roof. All in the interest of trying to clean up the exterior as we get ready to paint. We are also replacing some fascia and trim wood that is completely rotten.
Painters coming next Monday but now it is going to rain for 2 days. I’ll put them to work on the inside of the house… if we ever get the drywall ready for paint!
BUDGET TO DATE
A lot of this cost would not be encountered on a typical remodel project. We were dealing with poor workmanship on all the original construction of the house, old wiring and bad cast iron plumbing under the house. A lot of this work would not be included in a regular remodel, so I have tried to break out those costs. I’m just sharing this for people who are interested in the costs for the remodel.
Construction work to fix everything under the covers and insulate $5,000
Construction to open up walls and create open floor plan $2,500
Demolition and Trash Hauling $3,500
Plumbing and Electrical (not including kitchen/bath) $1,000
New Roof $2,000
Addition rebuild, new front porch, exterior repairs - $4,000
Kitchen to Date - $5,130
Bath to Date - $3,300
Total Spent to Date about $25,000
I estimate $37,000 more to be spent I think
Kitchen Remodel
If you don’t count opening up all the walls and putting in all new electrical and plumbing and all new drywall, here are our kitchen costs so far:
Appliances $3,600
Plumbing and Electrical $1,500
And here are the results of our shopping yesterday:
First we went to an industrial area and I took them through my ‘secret spot’ where I get 67% discount on cabinetry and stuff. The owners have chosen IKEA cabinets as their choice. But we are going to do a fun mix of colors in the kitchen. The island is going to have a darker color and the basic cabinet runs are going to be White Shaker. The IKEA grey color cabinets are a basic darker gray with a different door style than the White Shaker. The owners want a ‘beach cottage’ style (from all the pictures they send me) and she is in love with Teal. I knew that there were some Chinese Ready to Assemble cabinets at this place that had an unusal greyish color. The color is more like ‘Harbor’ with a hint of teal in the grey and a ‘brighter’ color.
So, we purchased the following at the industrial place:
Island sink cabinet, Island trash pullout cabinet, toekick and scribe and two side panels.
Large single bowl undermount stainless sink
Cabinet handles
All for $381 including tax!!!
Then on to IKEA where we purchased the white shaker cabinets with crown molding, special under cabinet lighting, corner glass door upper with lighting, and under strip molding to hide the lighting. Lots of panels and extra mechanisms to build the trash cabinet insert in the island.
All for $4,000 including tax
So, we have the entire kitchen cabinetry coming next week for a grand total of $4,400
Total spent to date on kitchen
The cabinet and sink order added to the above cost to date brings kitchen to $9,500
Still have to do the installation, countertops, appliance installation and flooring
Your budget from post #1 was $65K, so it looks like you are right on, even with all the extra work.
Awesome prices, cb. IIRC they’ve already purchased the appliances, correct? So all in, for the kitchen, what are you expecting?
These are the remaining costs for the kitchen:
Countertops - we are going to have two different countertops but haven’t decided on which one yet. She is leaning towards granite on the long run around the stove (to be able to put hot pots down on countertop) and quartz on the island. We have to be really careful that they look good together. Estimate $2,000
Cabinet Assembly and installation $1,500
Appliance Installation $500
Lighting - recessed cans are already installed, but we are going to buy two beautiful pendants for island - $300
Backsplash and install $400
Electrician $160
Garbage Disposal and Faucet / install $450
So about $5,500 estimate to complete
Does not include painting or drywall work in the kitchen which is probably about another $400
Right now I am scrambling to find some more skilled labor to come in and help with ‘texture’. The owners did a hack job on removing popcorn ceilings in the living room and two bedrooms. Somehow the drywall joint tape came off and the ceilings are cracked at the drywall joins. I suspect they got the ceiling way too wet and scraped off the drywall joint tape at the same time they scraped the popcorn off. Then they applied a HORRID texture on the ceiling with spackle or something. The ceilings have to be completely sanded down, drywall joints repaired and then apply a smooth skip trowel.
Not to mention the walls which have some kind of amateur Orange Peel texture that was applied by a hand gun or something. I need to sand all the walls completely down and put on a layer of smooth skip trowel.
They topped this all off with eggshell or satin paint which is highlighting the horrible texture everywhere.
Main problem is that Pig Pen has managed to completely fill up every space in the house with tools, and crap thrown everywhere (this is a common theme on every one of the projects). So… I’m going to have to pay someone to go through the whole house and re organize everything into neat piles in the middle of each room so that we can even get to the ceilings and walls.
And to top it off… the hundreds of cabinet boxes are coming next week and we have to find a place to store them 
That was probably a little premature on my part.
Right…you had budgeted in the $60,000 range. Then later on, you said the grandparents were giving $1000 a week or so to buy things? Is that money included in the budget?
I’m not aware of any money that the parents are kicking in. The owners are giving me Home Depot prepaid cards each week to buy materials so I don’t have to be out of pocket much except for labor payments
The above costs do not include my ‘designer’ fee
It sounds like, thanks to your expertise, they are going to get an amazing transformation for their money. Had they gone the regular contractor route, I can only imagine how much more this project would have cost them.
@coralbrook sorry…I thought you said upstream that someone was giving $1000 a week in gift cards for purchases to do this. Am I making that up?
I remember thinking it was a nice addition to the budget for this project.
Guess that is not in ddition…because it’s the owners!
Yes, sorry about the confusion. The owners buy a Home Depot ‘gift card’ for runs to Home Depot.
I did point out the $500 discount on the island cabinets we got to try to validate my fee:)
I think the value I bring is I’ve already been all over town researching best value for the buck. I don’t waste my time going to 7 different places to look for tile or cabinets or flooring. I go to a specific place depending on what I’m looking for. I think some people spend way too much time getting wrapped up in finding the perfect thing at lowest price.
Well, we didn’t get our two main tasks done this week so guys will have to work tomorrow. I was hoping that the drywall taping, mud, sanding, mud, sanding, texture would get done and the front porch overhang would get done. Both are still not done but I’ve loaded some pictures to the Flickr group.
House is getting pressure washed on Sunday to get ready for painting so we will all be going around the house tomorrow and checking there aren’t any big holes that need to get patched up before the water intrusion.
It’s looking good!!
Wow, CB, this is amazing.
CB, you are doing AMAZING work on a shoestring budget! The parents will be forever grateful at the fabulous house their child will have after you’re done with the remodel!