<p>GRRR. We are back from spending the weekend away so the contractors could finish our kitchen counter redo. The granite tiles look great, all finished nicely. The new sink is just sitting in the hole with the water and disposal not hooked up at all. No note or contact from my husband’s regular employee who was supposed to do this. Plus, the door was not locked when we arrived back home! I have already been without water in the kitchen for over a week.</p>
<p>Oh, bookiemom, those are my nightmares. My sister just did a complete kitchen remodel and made do with the garage sink, and the subsequent mice in the garage… Best of luck to you.</p>
<p>You know, maybe those old blue and white tiles in the bathroom aren’t all that bad… flowered wallpaper will be coming back, right?</p>
<p>Knowing what you do, I assume you have a detailed contract that specifies the full scope of work to be performed. Even with that, when we remodeled the master bath at our previous home four years ago, our contractor came back and tried to get more money for things he “mis-priced” within said scope of work…like not allowing enough $$ to cover the additional electrical cost to run the dedicated GFI lines needed for the jacuzzi tub and heater due to the distance to the electric panel in the garage. The he tried to get more $$ for painting and glazing the walls and cabinets…said he “misunderstood” what we meant by “paint and glaze”…come on, I wasn’t born yesterday…and this guy has been in the business a LONG time with very good recs. He had done work for us before, was NOT the low bidder and when he found out he had lost the job initially, reduced his prices to go from being the highest to being somewhere in the middle but we hired him because of previous relationship and quality of work. His subs are VERY good and do incredible work but he isn’t the best businessman unless he is really making a huge margin to cover his mistakes I guess. </p>
<p>Needless to say after much gnashing of teeth I had him complete everything but the paintwork and brought in another painter (at additional expense) to do it the way we wanted.</p>
<p>We bought all our bath hardware at The Great Indoors. Get on their email and mailing list; they have several “Friends and family” events during the year that offer 15-20% off entire purchase (even on sales prices) and we found their pricing for in stock items to be quite good. There’s one at Alpha Rd and the Tollway in North Dallas. We bought the Jacuzzi tub at Lowe’s- they have a line of Jacuzzi brand products that they buy in bulk, put their own model #s on and offer at a huge savings over ordering them elsewhere. </p>
<p>We actually bought a number of the appliances for our new home at the Great Indoors as well. I let the builder do the ovens, microwave, cooktop, warming drawer and dishwasher but bought the built in fridge, wine cellar, bar fridge and ice maker from them. They are owned by Sears and offer anything you might want. The pricing for their F&F event was better than the local distributor’s prices…I shopped extensively and for peace of mind, they will match written offers if better somewhere else. PM me if you want any additional info or the name of the person we work with there…she’s great!</p>
<p>Lastly, you’ll get far better pricing and a much bigger selection of knobs and pulls for your cabinets at Elliot’s Hardware on Maple Avenue at Medical Center Drive near UTSW.</p>
<p>Here’s my advice: move to a bed/bathroom as far as possible from the job, even if it’s inconvenient. There will be times when you just want to GET AWAY from the mess and the noise, and you want to make that easy to do.</p>
<p>When you can’t stand it another day, go away for the weekend. </p>
<p>Double-check the prices for fixtures against what you can get on the internet. Our local stores were within 5% on ALMOST everything… except for one big-ticket bit of plumbing. Saved $500 on that. </p>
<p>Before you start, value-engineer the job. Look at every single item and ask yourself and the contractor if you could/should/might go with a cheaper solution. On some things you might say yes, on others, no. (For example, our storage room has 1/2" sheetrock, taped but not mudded, but the laundry room and upstairs has 3/4", fully taped and mudded.)</p>
<p>Dragonmom: yes, I did use faucetsdirect.com. They’re very nice people. Shipped the same day. Yes, the product was good. Yes, we saved a lot of money.</p>
<p>Spend the money to buy vacuum cleaner bags for your shop vac. Otherwise every time it gets turned on, the dust will fly. I used dry cleaner bags/thing plastic dropcloths and draped them over things I don’t like to clean like silk flower arrangements. Actually, I would have been better off draping EVERYTHING with plastic. Sheetrock dust finds its way into every crevice in your house.</p>
<p>Make sure you or your spouse are there every day for any questions that come up and to watch over stuff. We remodeled our bathroom and the person in charge told everyone the wrong measurements for the heights of the tiles on the walls which threw off where the electrical outlets were supposed to be placed and so on. And when I tried to tell them they were wrong, they didn’t want to listen to a woman and my husband had to set them straight.</p>
<p>We are <em>restoring</em> an old house and when calling contractors to make appts to meet them at the property, discuss the project and get estimates, I had one gentleman tell me I should call back with a time my husband could meet with him :eek: I just sweetly answered my husband was very busy, but if he was sure he wanted to wait till he was free I would call back then. He was sure. One week later my husband gets a cryptic email from a colleague recommending this contractor and asks me, “what’s up?” I explain. He laughs. Two weeks later contractor contacts me to find out when my husband wants to set up meeting, because he is very interested in the type of project we are doing, and I sweetly answer that four other contractors had had time to meet with me and we felt we had enough estimates to make a good decision.</p>
<p>We are planning for worst case scenario re budget!</p>
<p>There is no plumbing and the house isn’t habitable but I am considering a tent on site, at least occasionally, as the weather improves. ;)</p>
<p>Never leave the contractor or the workers in your house when you or spouse/other adult is not at home… even if you have a big mean dog. The funniest things just have a tendency to disappear.</p>
<p>I live in a 4000 sq ft house blt in 1919, and my husband is an architect. This house will never be remodeled. He always says it is actually cheaper to move and build new. Don’t know if he’s studied it or just wanted me to shut up.</p>
<p>^^IMHO - The best economic sense for those of us who insist on old houses is to purchase someone else’s restoration or remodel at a discount. However, I am too particular to go that route. The experience of having sold a restored house has made me decide this time to do it just exactly to my taste with absolutely no regard to resale value… which it turned out the previous house didn’t really have anyway. This project makes absolutely no economic sense at all.</p>
<p>fencersmother, I’m an architect too. I don’t think it is always cheaper to move and build new. It really depends on where you live and how your house compares to the neighbors. There are many neighborhoods in our town with split levels and the people who haven’t remodeled don’t lose money by adding on, opening up and putting in modern kitchens. Houses with modern kitchens and baths also sell much, much more quickly. </p>
<p>I am going to remodel our horrible kitchen - it’s just that there are so many decisions to make. The kitchen I thought I wanted five years ago, is not what I want now that we are about to have an empty nest.</p>
<p>This is probably not true. I used an online calculator and for a 4,000 square foot house with high end finishes it can cost as much as $250 per square foot. Not to mention the $50k contingency fund that you need to get a construction loan (I think it’s 5% of costs).</p>
<p>Then again, the cost per square foot also goes down as the size of the house goes up so it’s probably not a good measure. Think like 7 digits for 4,000+ square feet.</p>
<p>If you buy a “McMansion” though, it might be a different story. But those areas are almost always a bit, um, fuzzy.</p>
<p>We have lived through: kitchen and breakfast room gut, maid’s room and bathroom gut,
daughter’s bathroom gut, den total gut, new roof, front and backyard total renovation. About to embark on a powder room redo.</p>
<p>Best advice? Know that your contract isn’t ironclad…takeout menus…commercial vacuum (for the dust)…the ability to yel “stop!” when necessary…a sense of the absurd and humor…and serious liquor.</p>
<p>We are in the middle of a total bathroom re-do, but the good thing is H is the contractor, plumber, electrician, etc. so it will get done right and on time. However, because he can only work on it after his real job, it will still take a while. But he is doing it in stages so we can continue to live very comfortably while all the work goes on. ( We have done this for the first bath, the kitchen(during which I cooked on the front lawn for almost a week!), the dining room, the living room and several bedrooms. We live in a house built in 1914 and I wouldn’t trade “up” for all the money in the world.</p>
<p>A week!?! You cooked outside for a week? Come west…please. Our kitchen took 14 months. </p>
<p>…oh, I forgot moving a few walls. Cosmetic makeovers…Planting trees (myself) and being offered (in Spanglish) a job for a neighbor who didn’t know me…</p>
<p>But I love our house. And when it’s done, I’m going to have to redo the kitchen…again.</p>
<p>Oh my, you guys are making me rethink this whole thing. Cultured marble all-in-one-vanity tops will be in style again soon, right? </p>
<p>We can’t be there when all the sub-contractors are, but since I <em>have</em> been there for another building project, I know that you can’t really hang out there and watch every minute like a bank guard. Crossing my fingers and hunting for a friend with a “nanny-cam” teddy bear…</p>
<p>Our kitchen took longer then a week (more like 8-9), but it was only one week that I could not use the kitchen at all. It was late September, which can be pretty dicey weather-wise here in Iowa, but I had a counter, a grill, a hotplate (which moved inside at night) and even a dishwasher on the front porch! (husband hooked up the dishwasher outside just to prove he could. The neighbors all came over one night to watch me wash the dishes!)</p>