Did you ever think you got into the wrong business???

[SandyM]

We just had a gas-log fireplace installed in our finished basement - I can't wait to get home and see the finished product.

The work was done by a friend of one of DH's coworkers, who does construction work/remodeling for a living. He installed a new countertop in my bathroom and did a fabulous job.

Jim asked the guy to quote redoing the kitchen (which we've been thinking of for quite some time now - not appliances, but floor, countertop, cabinets). Just the labor and the countertops, not including the flooring and cabinets, would be $10,000. :o

Add wood flooring and nice (but not extravagant) cabinets would put us probably close to $25,000!! :eek:

Guess I continue propping up the drawers in my cabinets for a while.........

[Jewel]

A buddy of mine wanted to have her detached garage remodeled and a small one bedroom apartment put in on top of it so she could have her ailing mother live close so she could take care of her. The original estimates said labor and materials $40,000-$50,000. She 'bout passed out...but she really choked on her margarita when the final tally came to nearly $120,000. :eek:

We're definitely in the wrong business! ;)

[d_ferrero]

ahem... just be glad you ladies don't live in California. I keep reassuring myself that my gorgeous new kitchen will be worth the sticker-shock....

[Chefzhat]

Have hammer, will travel! I'll cover this side of the state Sandy and you take that side!!! We'll start remodeling houses, meet in the middle and have dinner together!! hee hee

Debie


It IS expensive to remodel - line of credit loans are good for that but the sticker shock is astounding.

[tracey67]

What a timely topic. I have just completed Day 1 of helping DH hang sheetrock in our basement. DH decided to build a real home theater in our unfinished basement. He's spent the last three months framing the walls for the room, running all the electrical wires, and putting insulation between the studs. He wants to do almost the entire thing himself to save money, but we decided the one area that we would "splurge" on would be the drywall. Putting up walls is NO fun (we had done it once before in our old house) so we figured this would be the one area that we would pay to hire someone else. WELL...two weeks ago when he was getting close to ready for the drywall we called six different contractors for an estimate. Now keep in mind that we're talking about a room that is approximately 14 feet by 18 feet. The only thing these guys would be doing is hanging the sheetrock and then applying a skim coat of plaster over it. For THEM, it would be probably a 2-3 day job for 2 guys. Total cost of supplies is less than $300. So guess how much they wanted? $5,000!!!! We said that we were going to splurge, but that is just ridiculous. One guy even told DH that because houses are selling for such high prices and that developers are making such an enormous amount of money, that the sub-contractors can basically charge whatever they want and they'll get it.

Needless to say, we decided to do it ourselves. We worked for about 5 hours today and got about a third of the ceiling finished -- hopefully now that we've got our system down it will go a little more quickly.

Tracey

[Beth]

That's exactly why I went looking at homes to see if it would be worth the expense of doing some updating and remodeling here. The cost of making changes here kept moving north and we were realizing it wasn't going to make this the house of our dreams. The "new" house comes so close!

Our figures to remodel were looking similar to Jewel's friend's. For less money, I get a pool, a porch, and so many nice little things that will make a big difference. And that's even if we add the 4th bedroom and update the kitchen. If we don't, it's a near trade that just requires paint and wallpaper. We can do most of that ourselves, so that hardly counts.

[Ms. Chevious]

tracey67 -did you see that Trading Spaces recently where they made a home theatre? It might have been a nice idea if the homeowners hadn't said they wanted a nice family room where they could have the computer and the kids could have sleepovers - instead they got a dark brown room with risers that held chairs that looked like lawn furniture! :eek: It was awful and the poor homeowners - major work would have to be done to bring it back to a family room.

Anyway, that's very cool that you guys will have a home theatre though and have room for it - how fun! You need to get it done for Oscar night and have a big viewing party!

[tracey67]

No, I'm sorry, I didn't see that Trading Spaces. What a drag for the homeowners that they didn't get what they wanted. :(

Oscars :eek: ... DH is just hoping that he'll have it done in time for SUMMER!

[boisewinesnob]

Tracey,
after that story and deciding to do it yourselves, maybe now you can splurge on furniture for the room or something else cool!
We also were going to splurge and have movers do the work for us when we moved to Idaho. Then we thought of all the ways we could spend the $2000-$3000 and do it ourselves. Same thing with our lawn. With our covenants, we had to have sod in the front and sides and did that ourselves for about $700 or so. We saved about $2000 but it was HARD WORK!!!!!

Suzy

[Beth]

Suzy, I agree. Not only do I like the thought of having money left to do something else, I enjoy most of the work -- or at least find the results gratifying. But I have also found that it become harder to hire out some jobs when you know you could do it and would do a better job than nearly anyone you could afford to hire. I'm pretty picky about paint and wallpaper hanging, and I'm going to get plenty of practice! :D

[Angela]

You all need to find a guy who had his own construction business like I did!! :)
I can't stop him from doing remodeling/handy jobs around the house! All I have to do is supply my remodeler with dinner :D

Last summer we wanted to re-side our house and just for fun DBF got a Sears estimator out to give us a price. At the end of the meeting the estimator said the cost will be 25. I'm thinking gee that's a decent price cuz I'm thinking $2,500, (I've never own a home and had no idea what things like this cost). But the actual price was $25,000! Needless to say DBF was hanging from the side of the house all summer :p