Hi Cosmocat,

What my contractor did was build in an allowance for items like flooring, countertops, fixtures, etc. in the estimate. My kitchen process involved a preliminary plan, which ended up being way way over budget, and a secondary plan which ended up being the better plan and cost far far less and got the kitchen done much closer to my budget. My contractor was able to provide very detailed estimates within a week or so, but I would bet it depends on the contractor and the current workload, and how "hungry" they are for more work.

If you paid for plans, which it sounds like you did, you should receive a copy of them, which you can share with any kitchen designer you want to work with. Kitchen designers and contractors should be chosen based on reputation and referral. Send an email around your office, ask your bookgroup, talk to people at your farmers market or kids playgroup or whatever. Ask who can recommend contractors and kitchen designers. If people are happy with theirs, they will let you know.

We paid a little more for the local contractor with a stellar reputation. It was well worth the added expense.

I am thinking this contractor is not very business savvy.
If he charged big to give a copy of the plan to the KD, then that is a big warning sign. If he charged a small amount, then he is a nickel and dimer and will probably charge you for any extra nails used. I'd consider charging for a copy of the plan for a KD that HE recommended to be excessive. It would not sit well with me. He should have eaten the cost or asked the KD to cover it (which, while tacky, would be better than charging you).

If he is asked for a bid, therefore auditioning for your business, you'd think he'd get you one in under 3 mos unless he was booked and planned on doing yours in the Spring, but knew that telling you a few months ago would ruin his chances.

I am not liking how this seems to be going.

I only interviewed contractors that would charge me for the items I picked rather than telling me they could come in at my budget and then give me allowances so small that there's no way I could meet them.

That said, during the initial phase of planning, I could not tell them which exact granite or faucet or tile I wanted. The GC's used a general price guideline (or allowance, if you will) for specific items like countertops, flooring, etc. based on what I knew I already wanted. For example, I knew I wanted granite counters so GC put in kind of an average for that based on what his recent jobs cost. My granite could be a bit higher or lower, but I knew I didn't have the $ for high-end slabs. I knew I wanted hardwood for floors so he told me the average going price for hardwood per foot and then did the math. Does that make sense? I had already taken my plan to HD to get a quote on cabinets so I knew approximately what cabs would cost. That one can be a huge variable.

A GC should be able to talk to you for a while about what you want (vinyl floor vs. new hardwood) and get some general numbers for you to look at.

I can't believe you've had to wait so long! I can feel your frustration. Is he that busy right now? It shouldn't take this long to get a quote from a GC who wants the job. And being billed for another copy of the plans doesn't make sense. Subs should need to see the plans to bid on them, but shouldn't be able to keep them. My GC kept a copy at his office, one to share with subs for bids, and one at the house tacked up where the city permit is located.

Like Joshct said, ask around and see if you can come up with more GCs to interview. Hopefully you'll find someone good to is eager to get your business.

Good luck!

We ended up GCing our project ourselves, but interviewed 7 GCs (and contacted more like 12!), and I found they were really a mixed bag. One was not interested in working with us because they are a design/build firm and wanted control of the design, and we preferred to play an active role in that process. Oh, well. (Our friends' parents used them because that's exactly what they wanted, so to each his own.) Three never got back to me with bids at all, possibly because they clued into the fact that our budget was not as high as they wanted/needed it to be. I gave each one a follow up call; two never called back, and one called to say he would send a bid "really soon" but never did. (This was late last winter!) One said he could not do our project on our budget but would work with us to put together a plan to give our kitchen a facelift for our budget, something we did not want to pursue. One said he could not give us a bid till we had every finish picked out, like yours, and we weren't anywhere close to being ready for that. I asked for a ballpark and got "$60K to $100K," which was not even in sight of our budget---no thanks. And the last one was willing to work hourly to do whichever pieces we needed help with but didn't want to try to put a number on the overall effort in case problems arose; we would have gone that route but in the end didn't need too much help. We did pay him for a few hours of work finalizing our plan to make sure everything made sense and met code, though.

So it does seem like each contractor works a bit differently. Our neighbor is also a GC (we didn't want to use him in case any problems arose b/c we are neighbors/friends) and when I said something about the nonresponsiveness, he seemed to think it wasn't unusual---I guess things are pretty busy in our region right now after a very slow couple of years, and if GCs pick up on hesitation or budget constraints they may just move along to the next job rather than investing much time on a project that may not be sizable or ready. Frustrating, but worked out for us in the end, so I guess that's okay. :) So I guess the trick is figuring out which "type" your guy is, and whether that will make for a reasonable working relationship if you go forward with him.

"I feel like I'm either too picky or have a magnet that attracts trouble. Or some of both?

What can I expect from a GC? How long should a bid take? Just exactly how much info does he need? "

Why don't you have a frank talk with this fellow and ask HIM these same questions????

If you can't do this, or he can't provide a satisfactory answer - then this relationship is doomed. Better to find out now then when you've invested serious time and money.

Btw , charging for a copy of the plans to one sub and not another is BS.

N.B - in my experience good Architects make lousy contractors and vice versa. Now a firm might have a good architect and a good contractor in it, but they'd better be two different people and have a track record to back it up.

Based on the limited facts, I think you need a Design/Build firm or at least a different one.

I should mention that by the time we hooked up with our g.c., we had bought or chosen most of our materials (long story). We asked for him to bid on the construction and labor. We are supplying the surface materials such as floors, cabs, counters, vanity, toilet, etc... I have since bought a few items that had been on his list such as doors and a specialty window (thanks to great deals from the Habitat for Humanity Restore). When I pick up an item, it become a credit to us what was budgeted for that. I am expecting we will break even with him because I am getting some real deals, but we will probably have him do some extras in labor such as more electrical and specialty plumbing installations. The contractor has it easy as he knows what he is working with and does not need to put in time ordering or pressing us to catch up with our choices. We will not get held up by any special orders or backordered stuff. We have checked all we bought, so nothing is defective.
It helped to compare apples to apples and take out lots of variables on quotes.

wow, that seems just insane to me.

The way our contract worked is that I bought everything that wasn't like building stuff and his bid included the rest. SO I purchased all the appliances, cabs, fixtures (but not copper pipe,etc) , doors, but not the walls, moldings, insulation, siding, wood, etc. It was pretty clear which stuff was my and his even though not totally enumerated in the contract. Stuff like my special blue denim insulation as opposed to pink fiberglass stuff was an add on $, but only for the difference.

He is also a partner in a retail store that carries plumbing, tile, etc. so he told me he'd just match whatever internet price I needed on sinks, faucets, toilets, etc.

It's very hard to compare bids the way yours seems to want to do things. I'd push him really hard to get that what promises to be a very detailed contract he wants to do and then take it to someone else!

We screwed around with an an architect for a year who never listened to us and didn't come up with anything all that useful. We finally fired him and found another would pushed what we wanted through city permits quickly and got the project going. I feel your pain!

Ah...thank you all.
This is a GC who has an outside architect firm he works with and most of his subs are other contractors. The kitchen designer is from an independent kitchen design/cabinet firm. The interior designer is also from a different interior design firm.

My problem in general is I am not confrontational and am generally trustworthy. However, when I ask him about certain things he has a reason or an excuse and can seem to justify his reasoning. In the moment I can agree with what he says...but if I digest it, I can come up with a rebuttal.

I just don't think hiring a contractor should be this difficult. Plus I don't think I should have to shell out so much money before I even have a bid in hand. I get the money for arch plans. Money at this point to be paid to an interior designer just feels wrong.

Plus I have kids and a family to feed, if it takes this long just to get a bid...how long will it take to get the work done?

Thanks for the input! I still need a new kitchen tho.