Christa, You didn't say what the contract was for? Is this just for one bathroom? You sound super organized. I definitely would consider being the GC yourself. Of course I have no idea how much time you have available. I was the GC for our kitchen reno, which was largely DIY. But there still are a fair number of people/trades to have to hire/coordinate. Windows had to manufactured and installed, gas line for new stove, appliances ordered and delivered, cabinets designed and ordered; parts of the cabinet order had to be redone 4X!(we installed them ourselves, which saved $$$thousands), hardwood installed (we did subflooring ourselves), granite fabricated and installed (had to be redone more than once). we gutted and moved out of our kitchen in May, didn't move back in until just before Christmas. Process was long and exhausting, so when we were going to do Master BR, our plan was to hire a design/builder, have an addition put on to create a bigger MBR and turn the existing into a walk-in closet. I was so looking forward to paying someone else to deal with the headaches, etc. Anyhow, after interviewing three possible candidates hired someone we felt really comfortable with, and ended up being totally taken advantage of. He had no more luck (apparently) than we did finding people to do the work...so $2K later, plans were dropped and we went back to square one. Took me a year to be able to even contemplate starting the BR. This time I'm the GC again, and have to say, it takes a lot of time and energy sourcing materials and labour. Sometimes you start with someone, and then they just stop responding, or never get back to you. I am also having some major landscaping work being done at the same time, You may not believe it, but I had to contact 11 excavators before finding someone who will do the job at a reasonable price...(supposed to be coming later this week, so still not 100% sure it will actually get done)...when I told him several companies never even returned my calls, or said they were coming by to give an estimate and didn't even show up, he said it's cuz the job is too small. Well, then, just say no thanks, don't say you're coming by, keep me up tied up all day, and then never show! So, if you work full-time, I would say it's very hard to find the time it takes to be a GC. I only work part-time, and used to run a business from home, but chose to put that aside to do the GC work. From your posts, I would say that you would want to be so hands-on anyways, that it may not be worth your while to pay someone to do what you could probably do yourself. But if you have a time-consuming job, it may be unrealistic. In the process, I have found some great people, and hopefully, bathroom #3 which will follow immediately after completion of BR #2, should be much smoother sailing. Good luck with your decision!

The house I bought a couple years ago (and have yet to move into) was painted top to bottom, recarpeted in the bedrooms and completely and heavily staged for sale. The house was first renovated for sale in 2007 and I guess because the market dropped they kept it off the market. But the house was not really lived in for three plus years. In 2007 new cheap replacement windows and a new cheap kitchen and bath went in. When I bought the house in 2011, there were still packing materials in the DW and oven. Prior to the 2011 placement on the market the entire house was painted a dark khaki with a orangy brown undertone, and the trim painted a dark khaki with a slightly pinkish undertone. (?) And carpeted in decent quality dark khaki carpet. Then it was heavily staged with dark transitional microfiber and espresso-stained furniture. I don't know if it wouldn't have been better to paint the entire inside off-white and call it done. It was neutralized, it was furnished inoffensively, but it was all rather depressing anyway. It did cover a lot of previous sins, I guess. The owner was "artistic" and one room had been Yield sign Yellow, with Stop sign Red trim. Another pale green faux finish with french blue trim. Hideous. But the staging, although neutral, didn't really showcase the house. And, when it came time to rent it, the tenants asked that I change the depressing brown color and depressing brown carpet. The carpet stayed, it literally still smelled like new carpet, but I did paint their bedrooms since they supplied the paint. I actually thought the house looked better empty, and cleaner than it had been, once I covered some of the khaki. I know staging is considered important in some regards but I am not sure it affected my decision to buy the house, and the tenants didn't like it either. (although their furniture looks an awful lot like the staging furniture, generic transitional).

My advice, based on experience as a homeowner: When comparing bids, be sure you're comparing apples to apples. Looking back now, we chose our GC for other factors in addition to price, but he definitely low-balled his original bid to look more appealing. A common tactic, but one that's often not realized by consumers until after the fact. (We did go into this project knowing this, but I believe it's worth repeating here. Again.) Meangoose summed up my feelings precisely: "I think homeowners get kind of a raw deal in these discussions sometimes. If they watch the workers like a hawk, questioning the productivity and methodology of the workers, they're being unfair and unrealistic. When they get out of the way and assume that the GC has things under control (seeing that is what the additional 25% or whatever is supposed to be for) then they're not being active consumers." "I GC'd my own reno, mostly because of these types of discussions on GW. I just couldn't understand why I'd pay a GC a premium when I'd still have to manage everything anyways and educate myself on every task well enough to direct it if not do it myself." I work from home, and my GC doesn't realize how much money I SAVED (and I will emphasize again: SAVED) him by pointing out to his subs along the way when they were doing things wrong, like installing the wrong type of electrical switches, or stopping a caulking project because they were doing such a messy job on my brand new cabinets with 1/8 gaps in the trim, that I'd rather do it myself. I can give example after example... crooked backsplash, trim that didn't match... and so on. I checked on the work periodically throughout the day while the subs could fix legitimate errors on their parts while they were here--and the errors were fixable. Had I worked outside the house, and come home each evening to the errors that were made during the day, they would have been more costly to my GC to fix. Admittedly, I'm writing this with some bitterness, facing a 10% change order increase when we had written into our contract that all change orders needed to be in writing (and we had only received written notice of change orders for less than 5%). Not the end of the world, but this is my second experience with a GC, both were researched and recommended. And it's my last experience. I'm done being duped. I managed the day-to-day of this project, not my GC. I acknowledged and paid for each time I cost him more money; but I should have kept notes along the way of when I saved him money. So, my main piece of advice: If you work outside the home and cannot be there, in person, when work is being done in your home, you must thoroughly, completely trust your GC and each one of his/her subs. Or, you must be flexible and accept subpar work along the way because it is up in the air who pays for things to be done right. This post was edited by peony4 on Thu, Oct 3, 13 at 21:25

You won't like what I'm going to say. It's a mitzvah as some of my clients would say! A chance to be happier from a big goof! Ditch the lighted top! The vanity is fine! Nothing super special on its own and the attempt to make it more than it should be or could be was not a great idea! The concept belonged on a wall mounted vanity !! Think modern!! Everyone goofed. Get a new top and bye bye lighted top. Hello new sink too! Undermounted I won't ask why the soffit is still there....