It’s really lovely! And all came together so well.
So @coralbrook …what’s next??
SCHEDULE
When we first started, the schedule was roughly 14 weeks, to be completed about Feb 15th. Meanwhile, Dfin and husband have been living with a kitchen in the garage and glamping in the back 3 bedrooms with 2 bathrooms. One of the first things that happened was they discovered, after we tore out the back patio, that their master bathroom shower has been leaking into the concrete slab for awhile. So… that eliminates being able to use that shower! That issue still exists but it will probably require tearing out the shower and doing a new shower pan.
We ended up finishing up about 4 weeks late. Here’s my excuse list 
We had to spend at least 1 week jack hammering out garage, setting posts and drywalling/mudding/painting garage. This was not part of the original equation… required by the City after the structural engineer lady tracked us down inside the building and retracted her signoff, even though our structural engineer had provided all the calculations and design that would have left us OK in the garage.
We spent another 4 weeks, in parallel with other things, rebuilding the staircase. This was an addition to original scope
We hit issues jack hammering and digging the trench for the new powder room. This was just one of those things you cannot estimate until you get into the trenches
We had an issue having to spend time drilling out holes and reconfiguring the ceiling insulation. Had to get an official Construction Change on the permit.
Expanded the flooring, baseboard, door and trim into their bedroom hallway
And, there were a lot of other things that did not necessarily add schedule, but added a lot of extra budget.
And, after all the pounding and nailing into their original house, specifically against the exterior wall of their master bathroom we caused the following damage to their house. This was one of the key things that Dfin and H were worried about before starting the project. They were worried that their recently remodeled master bathroom would get damaged
Corner grout of master shower has cracked a bit and needs about 1 ft of vertical grout repaired
One nail made it into their shower niche tile. Broke one piece of tile but, luckily, they have spare tile from the recent renovation
Granite guys knocked down and broke a small solar landscape light
I cannot remember any other damage but Dfin might remember a lot more issues
When something like this happens, do you have any recourse? Is there an appeals process?
BUDGET
Well, here is where we really went out of whack! However, I just went back through the estimates and realized that my original amount that I said in earlier posts was wrong. I pulled up the original estimate that was created about he time we were going through the plans to get ready for the permit.
ORIGINAL ESTIMATE
Materials - $65,000
Labor and Management - $83,517
Total = $148, 517
Scope of Work
New Addition and Permitted upstairs office and bath - 424 new square feet
Bonus room to bedroom with new wall
New flooring, including staircase
Painting, trim
New windows
New patio doors
New kitchen
Turn hallway into powder room
House went from 3 bed 2 ba to 4 bed /3.5 bath which has added significant value to the property
For some reason my original estimate did not include the new 160 sq ft covered patio with electrical. Not sure how I missed that in the estimate since it was probably added to the plans at that point. That patio ended up costing a pretty penny between building and roofing.
The estimate did include a couple of things that we did not doy. Dfin decided not to put a doorway under the staircase because the amount of storage under the staircase after the powder room got built in was very minimal. Also, we were going to transfer a linen closet that was in the hallway to their bedroom hallway, but that got abandoned in the end.
ACTUAL SPEND TO DATE
Materials = $73,500
This does not include SubZero, Wolf range, some of the tile, lighting, kitchen and powder room fixtures which Dfin has been purchasing like mad herself.
Labor and Management = $108,500
TOTAL = $182,000
That’s a lot of overage!!! and it just crept up on us. As usual I wholly underestimated the trash/hauling/dumpster costs because there was a lot of displaced dirt and trash. I did not estimate for the covered patio which was expensive, staircase build which was expensive, garage… you name it. Also, our kitchen install was a lot more expensive than usual because of a lot of trim and detailed work required for the stove and refrigerator (which had electrical and water placements which were just plain weird)
I’m OK with the material overrun because those were conscious choices and/or required by City. But, I think our labor costs got out of hand
Regarding the City Structural signoff. First, we were so shocked and surprised when she came and found us. I insisted that she had to call our structural engineer to discuss the issue. After phone conversation with engineer he told me he could not convince her otherwise, so we had no choice but do the footings in the garage. Her supervisor was the one that she had consulted after we left the desk so we could not appeal to her supervisor.
Didn’t really give it much thought on whether we could appeal. Even though the house had been standing fine with the bathroom above the garage for 30 years, I wouldn’t know how to fight a structural engineering issue. There is no shear or load on the area (roof trusses on both sides extend past the built area above), just the standing load. But we had to live with the decision.
I truly think that the main issue at the City with the second story was that the week before we went in, a platform inside a gym collapsed during a birthday party. http://fox5sandiego.com/2017/11/11/up-to-20-children-hurt-in-stairway-collapse-at-paintball-venue/ Twenty kids were up on the structure when it fell. So when they looked at our project, saw that it was almost a platform-type structure holding up the addition, all the calculations from the structural engineer who had been on-site assessing the addition, and who had worked for the City for thirty years, were dismissed. The City employee brought up the gym collapse when she came to find us to change her mind.
I love how everything turned out!!! For some reason, I just “wanted” a built-in fridge, and am very happy with the SubZero! IDK, just one of those things 
The other part I just love is that the kitchen is now oriented toward the pool, and the cool accordion window above the sink and hte large sliding glass doors give us the indoor/outdoor feel that had been missing. This just dramatically changes the whole feel of the house! Our bonus room upstairs was open to the rest of the house, but now there’s a hallway, landing, and fourth bedroom at the top of the stairs. Another really dramatic change!
We went from an official 3bd/2ba house (due to the upstairs bath and office not being permitted), to a 4bd/3.5ba house, adding 424 square feet. It brings our house up to the norm in the neighborhood. There were only 4 of our model built in the subdivision in the 80s. Two of the other of the same model have built additions, and the other one burned down in 2003 when half of the neighborhood burned down. After that point, the houses our neighbors rebuilt were VERY nice and in most cases even larger than the previous ones. My hubby called our lone small house left on the block the “pool cottage” of our street. Now it’s still on the edge of being the smallest at around 2700 square feet, but the bed and bath count are perfect! We also have an unusually large flat lot that will help sell the house when it’s time.
We first contacted CB in July of last year, and began work at the end of October. It’s been a journey! Now we need to bring the pod back…have the exterior painted…buy some updated furniture. Hubby and I had already agreed at the beginning that the sofa from the family room and the sectional from the living room both needed replacing. I DID just order some cute swivel counter stools from West Elm this morning. Yay!
Even though we did go way over budget, there’s no way we could have done this much work with the first two contractors I contacted. And all the costs were really transparent and fair.
Shoot - now we have to get the master bath shower fixed again. OH WELL.
Thanks so much, both of you, for letting us follow along!
I would LOVE to see pictures of the whole house once you have it furnished. I know this is your personal home, and not a flip…but one thing I have loved seeing is how furniture and accessories fit into Cb’s newly renovated homes.
So…maybe…if you don’t mind…when you get the nice new furniture…
@thumper1 I need to commit to showing furnished pics so that it places pressure on me. As CB knows, I am not known for my decision-making skills
That’s not really fair …just kidding. But my homes are staged, clutter free and people don’t really have to live in them
I’m pretty sure that not one of us have a kitchen that doesn’t have some small appliances like toaster and coffee maker cluttering the countertop. My staged kitchens have a beautiful flower arrangement, carefully staged tray with wine glasses and some decorative dish towels. It’s not real:)
And all the staging furniture, rugs and accessories all magically show up on one day and get placed perfectly. As we all know…doesn’t happen in real life. You finally buy some stuff and it gets delivered 4 weeks later, you don’t really like half of it so it might go back. Then you have to just “settle” because you need a TV console ASAP and it takes 2 years to find the right art for the walls and on and on. It never comes together like that magazine image you had in your mind:). The biggest culprit is ‘settling’ for something. I know I have a bunch of stuff in my house that was supposed to be “temporary” until I could find the perfect item.
Unless, of course, you hired the fancy designer and gave them a blank check…OR Joanna Gaines from Fixer Upper just did your house and staged everything perfectly…but the reality is you have to buy all that stuff from her at additional cost.
Right now Dfin and H are sitting on 2 lawn chairs with a single table lamp resting on a patio side table. Pretty sure they are going to have to get some seating and a table pretty soon.
So when Dfin gets ready to take a photo…make sure H grabs everything off the counters and you set those nice tulips for an accent. And then when you snap a pic of the new breakfast table, make sure he scoops up all the clutter back into the kitchen
LOL…you can tell CB has been hanging out in mine and hubby’s finely-cluttered shared home office the last few months And I’m starting to embrace the minimalism of the two lawn chairs!
Also, I always wonder what Joanna’s houses look like after the cameras depart and the real furnishings/decor move in!
A man was coming to photograph our beautiful butcherblock countertop. I held back on putting anything on the counters so it wouldn’t look cluttered in the background. I cleaned the damn windows which involved a very tall ladder and moving furniture around outside! He took a few photos, all pointing down, and got no overviews of the room. Don’t think he even noticed the lovely light coming through those sparkling windows, lol.
Ooh, the countertop appliances came out and they’re staying out. If the kitchen designer lady wants to come and photograph, she can help me move everything and I’m not doing that until my last house guest leaves in early May.
Congrats!!!
Dfin - come for a visit! You will see how minimalistic furnishings work IRL.
We lived between 2 houses last summer. We slept on the mattress on the floor and ate at the kitchen island sitting on two stools I bought from Amazon. Our furniture stayed in House1 to be used for staging. We were totally OK with that as long as we had a working kitchen and plumbing. And we always had a bunch of flowers in the kitchen thanks to Mr. and Costco.
I swore we would not get anything into House2 that would not be useful. So far, so good. Except a few boxes of tech junk that I will simply toss in a few months.
The “clutter” will make it seem real to me!!
Don’t worry about that at all!!
I love coralbrook’s explanation above. My sister writes for home magazines, and she has written three coffee table books with homes in a Florida beach community. Every house in those books is perfect. Do the people who own the houses that are in coffee table books actually live there?
My idea is that my house won’t be ready for those types of pictures, or won’t ever look like the staged homes that coralbrook has flipped.
Thanks to dfin2013 for sharing this journey. I see many happy hours enjoying your new digs.