1970s major renovation: how to budget?
Porter Bayne
5 years ago
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Diane
5 years agoRelated Discussions
1970's Kitchen Reveal: Modern w/ touch of rustic IKEA Sektion Bodbyn
Comments (24)Thank you everyone for your comments. It has been such a journey, but so glad we did it. @practigal I sure did! we had around 30 cabinets total or so. @Karenseb I actually am not sure what was used for lighting or power exactly. The electrician provided them, but they look pretty standard. Here is a picture. Sorry for the poor quality. I am pretty excited. I just ordered a bunch of reclaimed black walnut to wrap the brick wall in and to add some floating shelves to the right of the exterior kitchen door. It looks like this:...See More1970's pool renovation
Comments (5)Your pool must conform to the current swimming pool standards of depth, length of hopper and length of wading section in order to have a diving board or for it to be considered a diving type pool. I'm overly familiar with the current pool you described. I've had many customers with this type of pool. When they were built in the early 60's to the early 70's, swimming pool standards for diving type pools did not exist. You should contact a structural engineer familiar with pool construction. They would know the requirements. Mine follows the current standard and shows it on a structural detail....See MoreContractor $100,000 over budget on major remodel-- options???
Comments (14)That's good info to know about the benefits of cost plus, as I wasn't really aware of why you would do one versus the other. We have been disciplined if bids came in high (e.g. we changed our AC because that bid did come in high and we modified our trim materials to stay on budget), but all of the other bids have been pretty spot on or in some cases even less than was budgeted for (e.g. electrical, plumbing, roofing, siding materials, tile, floor refinishing, cabinets, gutters were what we expected and had budgeted for). Countertops were $2000 over budget, but that's really the only sub-contracted thing that was more than expected (and that's a fairly minor amount given how far over we are). It's really his labor cost that off. For example, we exceeded the budget for siding because it took him months to finish it, in part because he only had two guys working on it many days, which meant one would often be on the side of the house, and for each cut the other guy would have to crawl through a window, make the cut, crawl back though, and this inefficiency just added a lot of time and cost. We talked to him about this, but at the time he assured us we were on budget. There were also similar issues with framing. It was only months after all this that he told us that we're way over budget. Given that we've started doing so much work ourselves, I'm just not sure what else we could have done to prevent this other than going with fixed cost. I have a hard time believing that he didn't know that we were over budget until 6+ months into the project, and I wish that he would have let us know earlier, but I'm not sure there would have been a good option even if he had let us know. It is was it is now, so hopefully we'll be able to figure something out with him....See MoreWhat to do with this 1970s mess?
Comments (18)I appreciate the few constructive comments above, but that isn't what I am particularly looking for. Houzz is a great platform for users to seek design advice and find unique ways to solve them. I totally understand that nobody has the same taste! The point is to give constructive criticism for the betterment of all of our homes and other spaces. I understand that the internet isn't a bland serious place, and I also understand that there is certainly room for humor. The problem is that there is a very thin line between mild humor and plain destructive insults that just do not make that much sense. Yes, I do have 3 larger homes that I am trying to sell off. The main reason is the petroleum crisis up here, leaving many who relied on the industry with larger, "investment" homes that depreciate like a stock market crash. I know that I can hire an architect, and I have hired several, but there is really no harm in asking the internet about it. I currently just am seeking casual advice and creative idea coming from multiple people instead of just one architect's opinion. I am sorry about the confusion here....See Moreaprilneverends
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