Hey bobyoe! Glad you straightened that out for everyone! However, your comments do raise an issue that "$ per sq. ft" obsessed folks need to think about when they talk to a builder. It's the cost of the whole project that counts, not just the cost of the house. Plus, the features, finishes, and location of the house within a market area can make a 10,000 sq ft house cost less than a 6,000 sq ft. house. No one gave us a good ballpark estimate for things like professional fees, permits, impact fees, drainage systems, or site work before we started. Most of those items were not related to the size of the house. Those costs will end up being about 18% of the total project costs. No one could convince my "$ per sq ft obsessed husband" that the features he wanted in our house were equivalent to building multiple luxury kitchens. He is convinced now :-). Same thing goes for the outside entertainment areas. He thought the covered areas should be priced like a garage. Wrong. The spec'd finishes bring the entertainment areas to a higher cost for build out than any non-plumbed room in the airconditioned space. The thing that I think we could all agree about is that you can buy an existing home at a significantly lower cost per sq. ft. in today's market. Major builders are dumping new 5 and 6 bedroom 8,000 sq ft homes in our county for $600-$800K. Yeah, they are in outlying areas on small lots, but they are brand new homes. So, in addition to size and features, you have to price in: 1. supply and demand, and 2. location within a location. We are in Palm Beach County, Florida. Our lot costs vary from $20 million per acre on the ocean in Palm Beach, $10 million per ocean front acre 15 miles south on the same island, $2-5 million per acre intracoastal waterway on the same island, and $50,000 for a 1/4 acre builder's lot 15 miles west of the ocean where the national builders are dumping their inventory. Why bring lot costs into the discussion? It's because builders will hit you hard for building in an area of high land costs. I guess they think they are entitled to a big premium if you are paying premium prices for your lot. That's my 2 cents for the day!

Wait a second....high-end moldings, coffered and trayed ceilings, gas fireplaces (no doubt with high-end surrounds and mantle pieces, too), hardwood floors, brick and shingled exterior??? It sounds like you're going to have a lot of very specialized labor involved. I don't know about Virginia, but where I live, good finish carpenters, skilled masons and any painter you'd want to set loose on high-end moldings --- always command premium prices. In my experience, fixed bids very often end up costing more than time & materials, especially if you have carfully detailed plans at the outset -- and don't make any changes. Contractors always build in a certain amount of padding to protect their bottom line in the event of unexpected price jumps or other unforseen events. I would say, however, that 26% for profit and overhead sounds a bit excessive to me. A more typical range for P & O would be 12%-18%, depending on locality. Just my two cents. James P.S. There is one other approach you could present to your contractor. It's unusual, but becoming more common -- and it can benefit both you and him. You would have two contracts. One for a fixed fee for the entire project as agreed at the outset. The other contract would be for time and materials which would be billed to you at actual cost. That way, your contractor is guaranteed his fee, and you don't have to pay additional P & O if the cost of materials goes up, or more labor than is budgeted is required (and vice-versa, it benefits him if costs are less or the project is completed faster than expected). Naturally, any changes or additions outside the scope of the initial contract would require a written change order, which would rightfully include an agreed percentage of P & O on the additional costs. You can read more about these types of agreements by reading a Commentary article on page 26 of the Summer 2006 Issue (No. 179) of Fine Homebuilding magazine's annual issue "Houses". It should still be available on your local newsstand, or you order it from The Taunton Press. Here is a link that might be useful: Fine Homebuilding Houses - Summer 2006

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.

i think it is helpful to know the cost of the trades. For example in my area it is: about $150 per outlet/light in electrical. I want to say plumbing is about $20/linear ft, plus about $150 per fixture (not including the cost of fixtures). Fixtures can be $50 or $1500. Concrete is about 90/yard so you can figure out the cost of your basement walls (maybe $6/sq ft fully installed). Flooring will be about 25/sq ft assuming about $5-$7/sq ft in tile cost. Wood (not good in basement) would be about $5 sq ft to install and $5/sq ft in materials cost. Walls are about $20/sq ft of drywall and framed wall ($6-8 /sq ft for framing, $4-8/sq ft for the drywall, drywall is on both sides). baseboards are about 1/ft to install, about 1/linear ft of materials. Paint is highly variable, but I have paid $400 labor for a single coat of paint in a typical 12x12 sized room. If they have to texture, prime and paint it can be more. We typically buy paint in the $80/gallon range. Doors seem to run about $300 for a nice solid core door and about $200 to install. You can get doors for a lot less. Door hardware is like a minimum of $25 per set, but the sky is the limit. a bathroom consists of walls, a door, tile flooring, electrical, plumbing, fixtures, countertops and cabinets (which are about $300-$500 per cabinet installed). Counters are about $80/sq ft, sinks are about $150 for a nice one. GC fee is about 25% but could be 35%. There are also stairs and HVAC which Im not sure about. These prices are for the run of the mill contractors that I have used. Which are mostly spanish speaking labor. I would imagine if you got true craftsman, the price would be 4X or higher. There are also additional costs like permits, cleanup, etc.