House maundering
Sep. 8th, 2003 10:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
carbonelOkay, this should be the last of the grand catch-up messages, and it's going to be a long one. Let me know if you think I should have put it behind a cut tag; I've never done that before.
I've been muttering about doing things to this house pretty much since I moved in in (IIRC) January 1996. I wanted to redo the downstairs bathroom, I wanted to put a bathroom in upstairs where the bedroom is (the bedroom and office are in a finished attic; there's a certain amount of unfinished area that could be grabbed for the bathroom and maybe a walk-in closet), and I wanted to make the allegedly finished basement into something that I would be happy to have people use for overflow partying.
I started this process a few years ago by getting estimates from contractors to redo the downstairs bathroom. One was at $13,000, and the other was $11,000. I was prepared to spend the money, but I wasn't terribly happy with either of the contractors. For that amount of money I want a bit more hand-holding than "Tell us what you want and we'll do it." I was even willing to pay an interior designer, but that fell through.
So the bathroom sat. The big flurry of activity was a summer ago when I got the hand-me-down bathroom fixtures from my parents' house and brought them up here. I eventually got the toilet installed, mostly because the previous toilet had gone from leaking a bit to leaking quite a bit. Into the bowl, mind you, but still noisy and wasteful. Only problem was, the toilet was missing the tank cover, so in a way it was a backwards step. But there I stalled.
The next bit has to be Pat's fault, I think. She was looking to have some construction done on her house, and when the bid came in much higher than she hoped, she started thinking about buying a new house that met her needs better to start with. Since we go running (okay, jogging) together three times a week, I heard about all the house exploits in great and extensive detail. I had houses on the brain. That must be it.
I'd been unhappy with the basement for a long time. It leaked. Leaked copiously, in fact. Which meant that before I could do anything about the cosmetic issues in the basement, I had to fix the leaking. I'd stalled there for several years, even after a call to MPR that gave me some guidance about installing a sump so that I could have a sump pump. But Pat (see how it all comes back to her?) had just had some waterproofing work done on her basement, and she was very happy with the guys she used, especially since they offered a lifetime guarantee -- lifetime of the house, not the owner. So I had my basement waterproofed in July. That involved taking jackhammers, removing a swath of concrete a foot deep and wide around the inside perimeter of the house, installing drain pipe (the sump), adding new concrete over the drain pipe, and hooking the whole thing up to the sump pump. It cost right around $4,000, and I won't actually know how well it works until it rains, which it hasn't done except in little spatters since it was installed. I may have single-handedly caused the drought, in fact.
So, okay, that was the first major expense. And having done that, I was in the mood for major houseness. It was time to consider the bathroom, upstairs bathroom (currently nonexistent), and basement. I was in the market for yet another contractor, since I hadn't been terribly pleased with the ones I'd talked to earlier. So I talked to friends for a recommendation. Pat and Lois had both used the same contractor for their building work (kitchen for Lois, kitchen and garage for Pat) and were quite happy with them. So I called the company and asked for an estimate.
One of the guys from the company showed up and said that the downstairs bathroom would be $7500 (less than the earlier bids, yay!), the upstairs bathroom with be $15,000 to create out of nothing, and the basement would be $10,000 for dry wall, ceiling, lighting, and generally making it look like a real finished basement. But not including the floor, which would be another $1,000 or so, minimum.
Each item sounded not entirely unreasonable on its own, but when I added them up, that was more than $30,000 -- just under half of what I paid for this house eight years ago. So, remembering Pat's example (see how this is all her fault?), I considered that perhaps instead of putting all that money into this house, maybe I should consider whether another house would meet my needs better, for that additional $30,000.
So I called Bob Williams, aka Realtor Bob, aka Realtor to the Stars.
(to be continued)
I've been muttering about doing things to this house pretty much since I moved in in (IIRC) January 1996. I wanted to redo the downstairs bathroom, I wanted to put a bathroom in upstairs where the bedroom is (the bedroom and office are in a finished attic; there's a certain amount of unfinished area that could be grabbed for the bathroom and maybe a walk-in closet), and I wanted to make the allegedly finished basement into something that I would be happy to have people use for overflow partying.
I started this process a few years ago by getting estimates from contractors to redo the downstairs bathroom. One was at $13,000, and the other was $11,000. I was prepared to spend the money, but I wasn't terribly happy with either of the contractors. For that amount of money I want a bit more hand-holding than "Tell us what you want and we'll do it." I was even willing to pay an interior designer, but that fell through.
So the bathroom sat. The big flurry of activity was a summer ago when I got the hand-me-down bathroom fixtures from my parents' house and brought them up here. I eventually got the toilet installed, mostly because the previous toilet had gone from leaking a bit to leaking quite a bit. Into the bowl, mind you, but still noisy and wasteful. Only problem was, the toilet was missing the tank cover, so in a way it was a backwards step. But there I stalled.
The next bit has to be Pat's fault, I think. She was looking to have some construction done on her house, and when the bid came in much higher than she hoped, she started thinking about buying a new house that met her needs better to start with. Since we go running (okay, jogging) together three times a week, I heard about all the house exploits in great and extensive detail. I had houses on the brain. That must be it.
I'd been unhappy with the basement for a long time. It leaked. Leaked copiously, in fact. Which meant that before I could do anything about the cosmetic issues in the basement, I had to fix the leaking. I'd stalled there for several years, even after a call to MPR that gave me some guidance about installing a sump so that I could have a sump pump. But Pat (see how it all comes back to her?) had just had some waterproofing work done on her basement, and she was very happy with the guys she used, especially since they offered a lifetime guarantee -- lifetime of the house, not the owner. So I had my basement waterproofed in July. That involved taking jackhammers, removing a swath of concrete a foot deep and wide around the inside perimeter of the house, installing drain pipe (the sump), adding new concrete over the drain pipe, and hooking the whole thing up to the sump pump. It cost right around $4,000, and I won't actually know how well it works until it rains, which it hasn't done except in little spatters since it was installed. I may have single-handedly caused the drought, in fact.
So, okay, that was the first major expense. And having done that, I was in the mood for major houseness. It was time to consider the bathroom, upstairs bathroom (currently nonexistent), and basement. I was in the market for yet another contractor, since I hadn't been terribly pleased with the ones I'd talked to earlier. So I talked to friends for a recommendation. Pat and Lois had both used the same contractor for their building work (kitchen for Lois, kitchen and garage for Pat) and were quite happy with them. So I called the company and asked for an estimate.
One of the guys from the company showed up and said that the downstairs bathroom would be $7500 (less than the earlier bids, yay!), the upstairs bathroom with be $15,000 to create out of nothing, and the basement would be $10,000 for dry wall, ceiling, lighting, and generally making it look like a real finished basement. But not including the floor, which would be another $1,000 or so, minimum.
Each item sounded not entirely unreasonable on its own, but when I added them up, that was more than $30,000 -- just under half of what I paid for this house eight years ago. So, remembering Pat's example (see how this is all her fault?), I considered that perhaps instead of putting all that money into this house, maybe I should consider whether another house would meet my needs better, for that additional $30,000.
So I called Bob Williams, aka Realtor Bob, aka Realtor to the Stars.
(to be continued)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-09-09 04:11 am (UTC)what's the footprint on your house?
(i want a dry basement, i do...)
Waterproofing
Date: 2003-09-09 03:19 pm (UTC)In any case, the vendor is Standard Water <http://www.standardwater.com/>, and if you do give them a call, please mention my name.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-09 05:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-09 05:38 pm (UTC)I can't think of any reason to keep it private. The company is Vangen-Anderson Inc. Remodeling. My contact was Gary Crask, and his number is 952-835-2599.
If you do end up using them for some work, please give them Pat's name as a referral.