I'm in Holly Springs, NC and re-did my lawn last summer. Luckily the lawn was established before the drought was made official and water restrictions were in effect. My bermuda looks great, although it has some weeds--which I'm about to take care of with some RU. If I were you I'd go with bermuda. The NC legislature is trying to pass a bill that will force differenct manicipalities to share water supply systems when necessary. This means that Cary and Apex will share the Jordan Lake resevoir with Raleigh and Durham when their reservoirs are too low. What does all this mean? It means water restrictions could become more of a state mandated thing than a city or county thing. Fescue needs too much water and who knows when you'll be able to water with your sprinklers again. Just my 2 cents.

That's what I was thinking of doing this time around, because the dead plant material seemed to have caused some problems the first time around. I'm taking pictures of the growth weekly, so hopefully this winter I will be able to put together a post on my lawn's progress and document how this re-seed panned out. Wish me luck.

Lots of good advice above - it's so hard to give much direction without knowing your specific choices. But to answer you original question about costs I can give you an approximate breakdown for my gut job kitchen reno. We had to move the kitchen so I needed new windows, moved plumbing and hvac and venting and needed new flooring. We did not change any structural walls but we did need to put in new headers for the window opening. It's a 100 yr old house so of course new wiring. Moved HVAC and venting for kitchen and bath exhaust $900. Moved plumbing including waterline for fridge, new vent, dishwasher install, undermount sink and faucet install, sink (Swanstone and faucet(kohler) $1700. New drywall $2300 Icynene insulation $1000 New wiring for kitchen including 8 recessed lights, 4 fixture boxes and xenon uc lights and halogen incab lights, inline fan for kitchen and another for a bath, running a chase to the attic and new outdoor and lighting $4700 New oak flooring installed and refinished and leveled floor $1700 QS oak cabinets, blum hardware, $20,000 for 40 linear feet. Install cabinets (all toekicks built onsite) $2200 Cambria countertops $6700 Four new windows (kolbe) to match rest of house $3500 Install windows $2000. Backsplash tile $1000 Reproduced QS oak trim $1000 We did our own tearout and garbage hauling ($100 for dump), some minor framing, plaster repair for walls not demo'd, window removal and exterior trimming, stucco repair to exterior walls, installed interior wood trim (almost done) and soon we will tile the backsplash. We also had to act as our own GC. The kitchen is in two parts - the 9x10 "working" part and the 9x12 eat in, hallway passthru part. The house is in a very nice older, middle class neighborhood in the midwest accessed at $250,000. I know the amount we spent is outside recommendations but the kitchen and appliances were 45 years old, nonstandard in size and the floor plan was so bad the house was most likely unsellable. Hope some of the info gives you better idea about costs

One might be oxalis. You will want to use a broadleaf weed killer for some of those. I would focus on establishing more grass first though. For consistent success with new grass, I recommend an in-ground irrigation system. Poly pipe is probably a better choice than PVC since you are in zone 3. Also, you might need to put down more hay. I'm not familiar with KBG seeding but Bermuda requires the soil to be consistently moist for seed germination. Watering 2-3 times per day might not cut it depending on temperature.