Thanks Davidtay for your response. My gut feel was that this price was high so it's helpful to know your thoughts. I forgot to mention that this is for new construction so there weren't any walls yet, so it's even easier. Since the electrician refused to talk to me (he even told me that directly the last time I called him), I was forced to do a bunch of research on my own to come back to him with instructions on what to do wiring-wise. And I had to send all messages through my builder, so he's passing emails back and forth between the two of us because the electrician wouldn't email me back directly. (Kind of ridiculous.) That caused enough delay that by the time we almost had things ironed out the walls were going up and it was too late. To this the electrician said "Your emergency is not my problem, you should have planned better". I've never dealt with a ruder person; and to think that I'm paying him thousands of dollars to wire and light my house. Ugh. So, walls are up and now we're stuck. We have to move in and install undercabinet after the fact, tearing into the walls. I hope that's not going to be way more expensive or create unpleasant damage. Anyway, I'm just venting. Thanks for your answer.

We also have a vintage sofa that will need reupholstering. It came from an estate sale where it was bought new in the late 50's. I have not gotten any estimates on it yet. I think it will easily run $500 - $1,000. I can't remember on yards of fabric, but I think it's at least 11 yards. However, can you really buy a quality American-made sofa for this price even including the reupholstery? So, all in all, it might be worth it. When we were new sofa shopping, it seemed the minimum we were looking at new was $1,500 and you have to worry about durability. Just recently, we were looking at getting a particular hot tub on CL. The price was great, but when we estimated what it would cost to install it such as get a dedicated circuit with a trench based on where we wanted to locate it in the yard, some sort of privacy/gazebo, we were looking at a minimum double the cost. This post was edited by gsciencechick on Wed, Jul 17, 13 at 9:02

If you are located in an area with winter cold temps there is almost certainly insulation. Also, if you are in an area with lots of hot requiring AC, there is probably insulation. So I guess unless you are in someplace with constant 70 degree temps (San Diego?) then you probably have insulation between ceiling and roof. One way to find out: Cut out an area big enough to look or find other access to the area. Or, cut out a small square big enough to shine a flashlight through and look.

Before my (late) DH and I embarked on a large renovation/addition, we did the math to compare what the addition would approximately cost (x), then added that cost to the approx. value of our home (y), and priced out homes in our area for sale at approx. x+y. For us it was worth doing the addition rather than buying a different house, even though ours ended up over $200/sqf, probably closer to $300/sqf. For comparison homes in this area are about $1.5+M for new builds; homes for teardown between $400=600k in very rough approximations. Some things to factor in: the cost of a rental when you move out during construction, including the cost of switching utilities to the rental then back (it's not so much the cost as it is the hassle. For example, keeping my same email address with Comcast required almost an act of divine intervention, not to mention about 20 phone calls.) Also count on scope creep. We were victims of our own enthusiasm and I can't tell you how many times we said, "While we're at it, we might as well do...." That's how we ended up going from the kids wanting a dog and me saying "no dog until I get a mudroom", to a 1000+ sqf addition with gutted kitchen and 4 gutted bathrooms, plus a new garage and a new roof. World's most expensive dog. (But Hendrix is worth it. :) ) Finally, there are compromises you will make that no one has to make with a new build from scratch, and there will be surprises. (Like when they cut an opening for my new office window and found a vent pipe no one knew was there. Or when they broke the sewer line while digging the new foundation.) I guess this is a long way of advising you to have a good contingency budget. For us it was totally worth it and I'm so glad we did the addition. And you have something in your favor I didn't know about at the time... this forum! I often wonder whether my layout and kitchen would be different if I knew about this forum and the kitchens forum when we did our work.