@gingerbb....take your budget and multiply it by at least 1.75 - that will be your actual expenditure when all is said and done
PDQ but when we did our backyard oasis we budgeted 50k and spent 90. For our basement we started around 50k, did more planning, went up to around 70k. We will likely end at 80k when all is said and done.
ETA: And between H and I, you have a consultant and an engineer who are good project managers....I mean, my spreadsheet for our basement budget included lines for the details, like the various types of nails we had to buy! I think it is just suuuper hard to stop the budget inflation in reno and construction work! There will always be some ammmmazing idea you have that you justify by saying "it won't make us broke and we LOVE it."
ETA: How in the world can you do all that for $5,500!? Would assume materials alone is likely that much.....so my only Suze advice is make sure you can cover a cost overrun of at least 50% more than you expect. You are APPROVED.
Man I miss Suze. konapoppy love u for doing this each wk.
Post by UnderProtest on May 15, 2015 16:49:38 GMT -5
Can I afford to burn my house down with everything in it and run far away until the kids and husband are no longer contagious? Its a rental if that helps.
ETA: How in the world can you do all that for $5,500!? Would assume materials alone is likely that much.....so my only Suze advice is make sure you can cover a cost overrun of at least 50% more than you expect. You are APPROVED.
Man I miss Suze. konapoppy love u for doing this each wk.
Other than someone to lay the concrete, DH and I will do all of it ourselves. Like you and mr. shoegal, we are pretty handy. DH has priced it out completely- the only estimates are for the furniture since we haven't picked it yet. But decking materials, concrete, rock, plants, etc. is all covered.
@gingerbb, I haven’t done a major reno before, but I would look at how long you plan to stay in the house, how much it will REALLY cost (since they notoriously go over budget) and if you will need to move out of your house while it is done and what that will cost. I would then save toward that number. Paging @shoegal for better advice
Thanks. We plan on staying in this house at least until we retire. We should be able to cash flow it this year if we don't put extra on the mortgage like we were planning to... We had a plan to aggressively pay down our mortgage over the next 3-5 years.
@gingerbb, what are you doing? We used an architect for layout changes, and having him around was priceless; he really advocated for us with the contractor, subs and city and recommended some great subs and material sources. For anything other than cosmetic changes like new counters or something, I'd highly recommend looking for someone unless you have design training.
For contractors, I had great luck with a neighbor's recommendation for a general, and there's another guy that's well known in town and I know does good work. Word of mouth seems to be king around here. I got a lot of sub recommendations through the general as well as the architect, even on projects where I'm not using the general.
Well keep in mind I love in HCOL and that $40K isn't getting us a tonne. That $40K is primarily updating from the 90's generic suburbia look and is pretty much cosmetic. We have an interior designer that we've had a consult with and are getting quotes from a general contractor.
We are looking at extending/blending/refinishing the hardwood on the first floor, turning our dining room into an office (putting a wall and french doors, moving electrical), creating a storage room in our finished basement (again, adding a wall and door and moving electrical), painting the entire house, including painting the kitchen cabinets and island, extending existing kitchen cabinets to the ceiling, getting quartz countertops, and changing the tile on the fireplace, and changing most of our lighting
We would really like to get rid of our corner panty, add a tonne of cabinets, extend the kitchen (by moving a wall) but that would put us over $100K and the value is definitely not there...