Home remodel projects that (almost) fall on your head!

sylvan8798
Sat, 15 Jan 2011 10:40:33 +0000

One November we decided to have our front door with its two sidelites and the huge trapezoidal window above it (entry has a vaulted ceiling) replaced. The door, the window, and our contractor arrived and I went to work. When I returned that afternoon, the entire wall section on the front of the house was a gaping black hole about 8 feet wide and 14 feet high, and part of the foyer floor was open to the basement (about 3X8 feet worth).

Apparently, when they removed the existing door there was so much wood rot and carpenter ant damage that the window above collapsed in pieces, along with much of the flanking walls, and some of the subflooring was rotted as well. Of course, this required replacing the entire foyer and half-bath floor, along with rebuilding the front wall, and added at least 5K to the cost of replacing the door and window.

Not to mention the inconvenience of having a wall consisting of a giant sheet of plastic for several days when there was 2 feet of snow on the ground.

Lessons - 1) better to replace those windows in the summer, 2) remodeling jobs are always bigger than they appear before you actually open things up, 3) have a backup fund in case the job ends up being WAY more expensive than you planned.