Choosing a house to transform into our dream home was extremely difficult. We knew it would be hard so that wasn't a surprise. What did throw us for a loop was how difficult it would be to come up with a design and a builder that we love . . . and can afford.
We started with a contractor who has an in-house designer. We worked for months with them and were very happy. They came up with design we liked but didn't love. So we changed things. And changed things some more. Eventually we settled on a design we were very excited about.
Then we had the meeting that we were dreading: the builder's bid to do the work. Cory and I left that meeting shaking our heads in disbelief. The final number was FAR more than we anticipated and we felt defeated. Did we make a huge mistake? Were we going to have to make major sacrifices and only do some of the work now and the rest years down the road?
During our months of tweaking plans Cory had been in communications with the son of one of his clients who has his hands in the construction business in several ways. He had been giving us advice and telling us some things to look for (and look out for) during the entire process. When Cory told him what our contractor's bid was he nearly fell over in shock. He agreed that the number was high.
At one point he asked us a question that really got us thinking: Had we ever thought about being our own General Contrator? He told us that GCs typically earn 20% or more of the construction cost for their work coordinating subs. Wow. Cory and I did some research, thought about if and how we would be able to take on such a big job, and ultimately decided we would be in over our heads.
So I went a different route. I called several other contractors to get more bids. Only ONE contractor returned my call. I guess business is better than I thought in the construction world! Anyway, we met with the second contractor and gave him a tour of the house. We showed him the blueprints so he knew exactly what we wanted. A week or so later we met with him again.
Honestly, we were expecting a decent bid. I had told him up-front that we weren't happy with our first bid and that we needed to see a good number. Well, the number we saw was anything but. It was actually HIGHER than the first one! But I will say that he was very willing to make adjustments and tweak things to bring his number down. By the time we left we had cut his number down by quite a bit.
So now we had two bids, neither of them great. We still felt stuck.
And then Cory talked again with his construction friend. Lo and behold, this guy offered to take on the job himself. He was confident that he could do the work - ALL the work - for much less than the other two guys proposed. The catch? He is young and we would be one of his first "clients" for a project this big. Do we take a chance on someone who can do what we want a decent price but may not have many years of experience or do we stick with a contractor who has experience but comes with a hefty price tag?
We agonized over this decision for weeks as we discussed the pros and cons of each option. Ultimately we chose to go with Cory's guy. We trust him, he showed more enthusiasm for the project than the other two contractors, and he offered us the opportunity to do almost everything we want right away. We couldn't pass that up.
Since making that decision we have changed our design again . . . and yet again. The more we delve into the project the more ways we find to shave the budget by moving things around and doing things a bit differently. But last week we FINALLY nailed down our design for the last time. We are ready to roll!
This whole process of finalizing our design plan and choosing our contractor has taken us months. Literally. We began the process in September and didn't come up with our final plan until the end of February. It has been frustrating and nerve-wracking for sure.
We are now anxious to get word from our bank that our construction loan is approved so the builders can get in there and make magic happen.
And I know we are about to be bombarded with about a thousand more decisions to make . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment