I found this topic, and although an old post I thought I would share my experience with costs. I am having a 1000 SF patio installed, which includes a 800 SF patio area, with a retaining wall and steps which connect to a lower 300 SF patio area. We are using a manufactered 3.5" paver that looks like flagstone. Due to existing water/basement issues, my project also involved substantial regrading about an additional 600 SF of area, installation of pipe/pop ups for my 2 roof gutters. This project is also incorporating some basic landscaping of the non patio area (i.e., mulch, and about 25 One gallon plants and 5 Rhododendron bushes) The average cost per SF installed for my job is $17/SF for the patio area. My total project cost is around $18K. Its a HUGE amount for an outdoor project to me, but I have a large clean finished outdoor space area that I expect will help when I go to sell my home in 6-7 years and hopefully address my basement water issues. My project did involve a lot of stone and regrading. I also am happy with the pace of work my contractor proceeded at. From notice to proceed to the 90% complete point was less than 2 weeks, which included rain days!

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 most important thing for me was that our contractor (Jeff) was in daily contact with me letting me know who would be in next, or where we were at with things. He returned my calls promptly. He had everything lined up so that someone was at our house everyday working. >> We too just had an unusually good contractor experience, and these were the hallmarks: - Good communication: frequent and consistent email contact. - Much work done by direct employees, all of whom had blackberries, bluetooth headsets and email. - Office support: regular billing, scheduling, take deliveries, answer questions, convey urgent messages, central source of information, and a really good Web site! We never had our GC's cell number and never needed it. - Feedback requested: we were asked to fill out a mid-project survey! - Regular meetings. Some GCs blanched at the suggestion of weekly meetings, ours practically insisted on it. LOTS of problems prevented that way. - We asked GCs if they could get their bids in by a certain date, they all said yes, only two actually did, including ours. - Scheduling: our GC blows out a complete schedule, with dates for every trade to start, in writing. Never a down day in 9.5 months. - Resources: Every GC has to deal with trucks breaking down, injured workers, flaky subs, delayed materials. We never saw it and never heard excuses. (a previous GC's main guy got injured, delaying an entire upstairs remodel by weeks, and we had a baby coming!) - Can manage agencies: Our instructed all his workers never to B.S. during inspections, admit the problem and don't argue with the inspector. As a result, trust was built and we sailed through final city inspection despite a few minor code issues. - Punchlist-avoidant: they're inevitable, but he encouraged us to bring up the sticking-out-nail here, missing trim piece there, immediately. Goal was for no punchlist to build up. Meantime, a friend had a very difficult experience with a carpenter-turned-GC. Good carpenter, bad manager. Didn't know how to read plans, didn't interact well with the architect, ran out of money and refinished floors himself and made a huge mess, forcing our friends into a hotel for a few weeks, hired a painter who messed up the sheen levels and had to repaint the entire house, then the painter went broke. Without my friend's engineer husband on the job every day it'd have been a nightmare. Our awesome G.C. really cared about his reputation and told us in the first interview that his goal is for us to move in to a complete house and be thrilled. I think that sort of philosophy is what made our project work so well.

Dear Kim, I think you are a little ahead of yourself. Like the majority of people wanting new kitchens you are trying to get your new kitchen done. And Without being able to communicate what it is you really want and expect to Get AFTER your new kitchen is done. You are designing the kitchen but not Your Life You expect to be Living In It AFTER it’s done. “ I already have the kitchen layout chosen for the most part since a friend of mine who is a designer has the same layout and I'm probably going to go with a similar layout.” I believe a kitchen is a Home & Life Improvement Project, and NOT a get a new kitchen project to satisfy your urge for something new. Because you don’t like your existing kitchen, with the Hope of getting what you truly want and desire. This is a recipe for kitchen project failure almost everyone blindly follows. This is the Wrong approach and I believe the Wrong destination for you! What you truly want, if you think about it, is a new, different, better, easier life than the one you’re living now in your existing kitchen. That you know from your own experience doesn’t work for you. Because it’s Not Your Kitchen but the kitchen you inherited from the previous owner. That you had to Adapt to by putting your items where ever they fit and as long as you know where everything is you’ll make do. What makes you believe your new kitchen will be any different? What makes you believe you won’t Have To ADAPT to your new kitchen? If you want to get the new kitchen and new life you truly want and expect your new kitchen project to deliver, and not do any of the work yourself. I believe you will need to hire a designer and a GC. Your budget is going to dictate what you can actually get in design, product, and services. You can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear. Is your budget realistic? Fact: You are NEVER going to renovate this kitchen again for as long as you’re in this home. I believe that if you are going to take on a new kitchen project, Your Ultimate goal is Home & Life Improvement. And as dramatic an improvement in Home and Life, for your money, as possible. However, price shouldn’t be the Determining Factor. Why? Because you are NEVER going to renovate this kitchen AFTER it’s done. No Matter What Happens! You will be living with it, for better or worse, for as long as you own this home. Imagine, you’re in this home just 10 years from now. Will it matter then that you saved thousands of dollars, but have lived with disappointment and regret. That you didn’t get to live your new life you were hoping for, for the last 10 years? Or that you spent thousands more to get the new life and new kitchen you still love and enjoy living in every single day? Buyer Beware…Hiring anyone in the services industry is tough for everyone that has had to do this. Doctor, lawyer, plumber, electrician, GC, designer it doesn’t matter. Too many choices and it seems no easy way to tell service providers apart. You may want to hire a GC that does kitchens so you don’t have to find tradesman and do it yourself. That comes at a cost. You may want to hire a designer to create your kitchen design drawings for you so you can get bids and shop for your best price and value. This also comes at a cost. Which route is the best one for you to take? You can’t answer this question because you don’t have enough information. You are in the forest among the trees. So let’s see if we can get you above the trees to get you a 30,000 foot 360 degree view. So you can see clearly what is involved in what you are about to do. Every GC you talk to is a GC and every designer is a kitchen designer so far no help. We are all individuals and as individuals we are all uniquely different. We have different ways of doing the exact same things, we have different levels of perfect that need to be met. We all feel differently about what we do. And We all add different levels of value to the work we do. So although on the surface service providers are grouped together in your case GC, designer, every GC and every Designer is different and will produce dramatically different results at dramatically different costs. So How do you compare them to discover their differences and who’s best to work for you? You ask this simple question, “What do I get if I hire you that I won’t get from anyone else?” You care about What You Get not what they do. If you’re looking for a GC to do your entire new kitchen project chances are they design kitchens or are going to farm out your project to a kitchen designer anyway. To a designer you didn’t get to interview. These designers will design a kitchen (not your kitchen) that suits your budget. You’ll truly believe you’re designing your new kitchen too. Because you’ll get to make choices but you’re not. Because you’ll only get to see and choose from what they show you that fits within your budget. You’ll realize this is true, AFTER your new kitchen is done and you’ll blame yourself and regret that you didn’t do this project differently. NOW that you have the experience of HOW Not To do your new kitchen project. You don’t have the luxury of gaining experience this way. So what do you do? Think about your new kitchen project like a journey you’re going to take. To get you from where you are now, Your existing kitchen that doesn’t work for you. To the world’s perfect kitchen for you, that resolves all of your existing kitchen’s performance problems esthetically and functionally. And delivers that new, different, better, easier, more enjoyable life, that you don’t experience now in your existing kitchen. Where you want to be Living AFTER your new kitchen is done. How? 1. You start where you stand in your existing kitchen. Analyze it to discover what performance benefits exist that you’d like to keep and what performance problems it has that you need to resolve, fix, or eliminate. Now you are clear about what works well and what needs improvement in your kitchen’s performance of the 5 Basic Tasks (storage, preparation, cooking/baking, delivery (food & beverage), and clean up). Reproducing the benefits and resolving the problems gets you to the world’s perfect kitchen for you! And all of this space planning work should be done BEFORE interior elevations are ever done. Your goal is to create the world’s perfect plan that’s uniquely your own. Creating the Foundation your new kitchen will be built upon. How? 2. You create every possible appliance and cabinetry combination to create every possible new kitchen layout that provides a solution, to your unique kitchen design dilemmas discovered in step 1. Use the following link to see what I mean. https://www.kitchendesignco.com/layout-laboratory/ Analyze and Compare all of your new kitchen options you were able to come up with (there should be at least 5). If you need DIY kitchen layout help use the following link: https://www.kitchendesignco.com/diy-kitchen-layout-help/  Just like you did in step 1 so you are clear How each layout (plan) works day to day and when you entertain. After you’ve gone through all of them…do it again. Only this time by direct comparison and using the process of elimination you’ll get down to one plan. Your perfect new kitchen plan. How do you know for certain? You’ve seen and compared all other options leaving no doubt that you have your perfect plan. 3. Now that you have your perfect kitchen plan. Having your interior elevations and 3D perspective drawings done is easy. Actually you should be able to get an estimate on how much your kitchen will cost using your layout (plan) alone. However, if you have a complete set of kitchen interior design drawings done, like these (to see examples follow this link): https://www.kitchendesignco.com/kitchen-design-drawings/  Once you select your finishes you can get accurate pricing from EVERYONE on EVERYTHING you’ll need to complete your kitchen project and long BEFORE you build it. So you can discover definitely if your budget will get you the new kitchen, home and life improvement you truly want, and expect it to deliver. REMEMBER...You are NEVER going to redo this kitchen for as long as you'll own it. For better or for worse live with it and make do, or get what you truly want and expect. It’s your decision. Hope this has been helpful. Joe Brandao Kitchen Design Company