Another week lost

Wow what a fast week! Robert came by and picked up plans. He does masonry and comes by referral from a neighbor. We should have a bid in a week or two. No real rush since he is secondary to the project right now.

My husband called Efraim (concrete) again to firm up some information he threw out on the verbal bid. Efraim said demo would be around $2,000 but if he could find some 'cheap labor' he might be able to shave that price down a bit. Our cleaning lady and her assistant sang the praises of Efraim so much that we have to re-consider him as the 'man for the job'.

I finally hooked up with the planning review guy that approved our plans to get my/Mike the Electrician's questions answered. We played phone tag so long we ended up solving the game by email which actually worked better because now I have the answers in writing.

On to inteview plumbers, roofers, framers and decide on an electrician....

F&R Concrete Bid

We have our second concrete bid (although Efraim's doesn't really count as he provided a verbal bid). Over $13,000. I'm not sure if that's good or way out of bounds. We'll see after a few more bids.

A real Quote?

We had an early morning meeting today with Thom, an electrician that has done some work for us in the past. He was a refreshing change from the meetings we have been having. He did not want his own set of plans, he asked questions, made notes and offered suggestions like: ironing center in the new laundry room, instant hot water in the kitchen, a warming drawer, etc. He said he would work up a quote ON PAPER (something new for us) and email it to us with some referrals for the other work we have to do (i.e. framer, plumber, etc.) I look forward to getting his email!

Tips for the Remodel

My wife's cousins came over for lunch, fresh from their two-week tour of Italy. It sounded like a fantastic trip. Maybe we can do that someday.



After an artery-clogging lunch of KFC and cheesecake, we started to review the plans. Great points brought up by Steve:

(1) Use the same tile troughout the house for continuity.
(2) Determine the theme for the look of your house and stick to it.
(3) Fix/replace the things you don't like (arched windows in the front)

There were likely others but I don't want to steal my wife's thunder. This is her blog!

Mike, the Electrician

I was awaken this morning (7:15 am) to the sound of a strange voice in my kitchen. The voice belonged to Mike, Mike the Electrician - a referral from our cleaning lady. He gave us a ballpark bid of $2500-$4000 for our job. Again nothing in writing which is frustrating to me. He kept saying "Trust Me" which made me question his trustfulness and he seems a bit chauvinistic but for some reason I think he may be a good fit for the job.

He gave us many tips that will save us money and actually take away from his fees.

We will bounce his bid off my wife's electrician brother (who unfortunately lives in IL). We will talk to at least 2-3 other electricians to see how they stack up.

Blueprints

Yesterday, we received enough copies of our blueprints to wall-paper over half the damn house. Now to find the right contractors and hopefully a job supervisor to oversee things when we cannot.

Efraim's Concrete Quote...Not Quite set in Stone, or Paper!

Efraim stopped by to drop off the plans and give us his quote - verbally! Is it me or should you shy away from a contractor who won't print out his bid? Anyway, good old Efraim quoted me $6750.00 but told me he would have to rip out the concrete from the carport rather than set new footings and rebar and add to the existing pad. The last concrete guys we met with told us ripping up the existing pad was not necessary.

Who's lying here?

Concrete meeting

I met with Efraim yesterday who is 'retired' but does concrete jobs such as footings, pad pour etc. He took a set of plans and promised to give them back by this evening. He comes by referral but is not a licensed contractor (seems to be a theme). We should have our first bid soon!

Remodel Brainstorming

Tomorrow, my wife's cousins are stopping over for brunch. They have a beautiful home near Squaw Peak which they remodelled a few years back. They should have a ton of good input for our project - plus we get to eat!

WhisperFlo

Our remodel took a unexpected turn the other day. Our 30 year old pool filter decided it was time to retire. So with our cement pond looking like a real pond, I placed the call to Premium Pools. Our absent minded pool guy installed the supposed Cadillac of pool filters - the WhisperFlo. Damn near $600 later, the pool is clean and the WhisperFlo seems to be living up to its reputation. Now on to bigger and better things with the remodel to our casa.

Scope of work

This is a photo of our existing home and a sketch of what we will have once the project is done.

Our first sub-contractor meeting

We have decided to do an ‘owner build’ remodel rather than hire a general contractor to try and save some money. I had interviewed several general contractors and they quoted a fee in upwards of $30,000 just to manage the job. That didn’t include them so much as lifting a hammer once. After finding out how expense a G.C. is we asked my mom (a snowbird) to manage the project while she was in town this past winter. (We actually thought we would be done by now.) My mom is amazing and has the knowledge and experience we need to handle the job but we had such a delay in getting the plans that my mom is back home until December and we cannot delay the project for another 6 months. We are going to have to manage the project ourselves but you can bet I am consulting mom every step of the way.

I emailed all our friends that are local and asked for any referrals or advice they could offer on our project. We got a few names but for the most part we are on our own to find subs to do the work. We met with Frank and Richard today from Frank’s Concrete which I got from craigslist.org. It was obvious that Frank was the skilled laborer and Richard was in charge of the business end of things. They want a copy of our plans before they will give us a bid but we haven’t decided to hire them so we are reluctant to give a copy of the plans to everyone that walks through our door since every set costs us money. We really like them but they are not licensed or bonded and could not offer any homes in our area for us to visit as a reference. Those seem to be some pretty big red flags as I think about it. Our goal is to meet with at least 3 contractors for every part of the job which is so time consuming especially when you don’t have everyone lined up.

We have a permit!!!

After almost a year of excuses from the architect we finally have a full set of plans. The architect personally dropped the plans off at our house at 3:30 PM, Wednesday, July 5, 2006. I thought it was perfect timing since it was the day after a long weekend. No one seemed to even be in town let alone want a building permit, right? Wrong!! I showed up at 3:50 PM not knowing the last appointment of the day is taken at 4. The lobby was full of people that probably had the same misconception I had about it being a slow day and the desk clerk tried to turn me away because she was concerned about ‘her people’ getting out on time. She asked me to come back the next morning but I explained to her that my husband was home with my three kids and the youngest is a 4 month old infant. I pleaded with her to get me in and I am happy to say it worked. She put me at the desk of a planning review guy right away but told me they would only have time to review my plans not issue a permit. I have been told that if you develop a rapport with the person reviewing your plans you can distract them and get your plans approved with less scrutiny. I can’t tell you for sure if it worked but I can tell you I know more about his wolf pups than I ever thought I would and my plans were approved within the hour. To my surprise the lobby cleared out pretty quickly and by the time the reviewer stamped the approval on our plans they were willing to issue a permit right then with no revisions required. The woman in charge of permits was anxiously watching the clock because she was bent on getting out by 5 PM and there was a bit of typing to do before she could be done. She was very abrupt and had no time for chit-chat. After a quickly typed application, a few standard forms, an invoice and me cutting a check I had a permit in hand.