Yes… fabulous was the word I was thinking too! Everything inside looks so, so good. And the rooftop view is amazing.
Beautiful job!
Looks great!!
In my mind I’m standing on the rooftop deck as the night falls, feeling the cooling breeze and smelling the salt air. You have created a space for family memories.
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Absolutely beautiful!
Spectacular as always! I’m always amazed at your work and how you manage on such limited amounts of money—just perfect!
The UGLY
I just finished 7 hours of comparing every charge on my spreadsheets against every receipt in my Home Depot history to make sure I didn’t miss anything (Yes, I did. Approximately $450 worth of stuff where the guys didn’t hand me their receipts!!) Here is the final costs for this.
SCOPE OF WORK
Front and back addition to original house
Tear off roof and interior walls and raise 1st floor to 9ft ceiling height. This was a killer. Turns out the original house had a funky addition on back. Whole house was out of square, floors were not level between rooms, and ceiling wasn’t level. We spent at least $4,000 trying to get the original house ready to add ceiling height and build up
Add staircase and 2nd story addition
Add balcony, roof deck, exterior staircase and front porch with deck (this is the majority of the overage)
Fix garage, new roof and stucco on garage
We added 1300 new square feet, an exterior staircase and a 520 sq ft roof deck
Original estimate was
$260,000 not including owner purchases for lighting, fixtures, appliances, etc
FINAL COST (not including incoming furniture, lighting, landscape and window coverings, etc)
$428,000
Contingency Overrun $4,000 due to issues with house that you cannot know
Lumber Increase Overrun (lumber just kept going up and up!!!) $6,000 out of my control
Owner Purchases, Upgrades and Changes $116,000
So my overrun was $42,000 which is about 16% above original estimate
Not proud of this. There were 3 areas that got out of control. Digging foundation under the house (about $10k over), Exterior staircases and landings/railings/deck (about $17k over) and Painting costs (about $5k over)
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You greatly increased the usable space and use of the dwelling. You did an amazing job and even though it cost more than you wanted, for all the square footage you added and unanticipated problems you fixed (with indecisive client), you did amazingly well at a very reasonable price!
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The client overspent WAYYYYY more than you did. But I’m betting they love the finished product!
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I think only going over by 15% on a major reno like this is actually pretty good.
Next project, after you price it out and add some padding in for overages, add in another 20% on the top. Then you might come in under budget and the owner will be ecstatic! 
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I’m starting my estimate for an addition and remodel I’m starting in about September. About the same size and shape but they want a craftsman style exterior with a lot of detail. I am realistically looking at all these costs to try and get better with the numbers. The surprising cost is demolition and trash hauling. It’s just crazy the amount of times we need dumpsters or trash hauling.
Also, it took about 4 days times 3 FTEs to clean (that was me, the guys are useless except for clearing out, loading and window washing) and clear out. That’s 12 man days!!!
Not to mention all the times we stop, drop, and clear out/clean up for inspections or the next phase.
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The clients are over the moon and cannot believe this is their beautiful home. We nailed the style she wanted. Elevated Coastal. Or maybe Coastal Contemporary. Don’t know what to call it. The poor husband (who is a Sailor, Yacht Broker and Charter Company Owner) kept wandering around asking “What style is this? What style are we aiming for?” I never have a tag for the style, I just know because I set up a shared Houzz Ideabook and we are always loading it with photos we like and notes on the specific things we like. Soon you get an idea of what they are aiming for
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@coralbrook - I’m preaching to the choir here… but just in case… the builder of our House1 said that craftsman homes are bottomless lumber pits. Plan your budget carefully! Lumber prices doubled since last summer! We need to replace the roof, and the plywood to go under the metal is almost as expensive as the metal! Yikes.
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Lumber futures have dropped 30% in the last few weeks and lumber prices are dropping after a large drop in housing starts in April and as mills get back to work as the pandemic eases.
By September, lumber prices could be significantly lower. Although prudence would dictate a lumber and supplies escalator in any quote just in case.
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I agree you need to protect yourself with lumber escalation clause—no way you should have to suffer the price increases.
Also agree you should add a % for contingency plus a buffer for overages. There are always more costs and things than expected, especially with remodels. Prior workmanship is often needing to be redone.
Also add having cleaning crew come prior to each inspection to help get ready for it so it’s not so onerous. It’s a cost of doing business and you’re helping the economy.
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Speaking of lumber prices, it got this bad…
Yes, I think lumber is such a commodity right now that it’s a whole new target for thieves.
In my area a 2x4 was $3.98 in Feb 2020. Then $5.90 when I redid my estimate for owners in July 2020. By March this year it’s up to $7.98. That’s double from when I started the project
Everything turned out so nice! Congratulations!!!
I’m hoping they are really happy with the result!!
PS (We’re almost finished with our flood remodel: walls are up and ½ bath needs mirror; working on kids bath-hexagon tile, grout and quartz shower are going up this week!
Next month, we’re remodeling master bath.)
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We passed final inspection this week. First time ever without even one ding!! Even though we were done we had to wait for master bedroom lighting to arrive. I know three things we did not do because we didn’t want to spend the money for things the owner didn’t care about. Inspector spent 40 minutes going through everything and didn’t ding for the things I knew we did not have installed.
The railing on side of exterior stairs is not ‘continuous’. It has posts going up the side that interrupt the hand grip and its at 42”. Technically you are supposed to have a separate handrail attached at 36”. It was going to be another $500 to add it and the owners were perfectly fine with the railing and safety for a staircase rarely used. If it was the heavily used interior staircase I would have added a handrail
In California, new construction has to have a bunch of crazy expensive switches. Bathrooms and laundry have to have humidity switches for fans, occupancy switches for lights. The occupancy switches are especially annoying. Sometimes you walk by the hallway and lights come on. If you are sitting in the bathtub or on the toilet the lights turn off and you have to swing your arms to get lights back on. I put in the humidity switches but did not have occupancy switches. He didn’t write it up. Maybe no longer needed because everything is LED. I also did not have extremely expensive Astronomical switches on every exterior light.
The worst part is we spent over $2,000 digging a swale drainage system on the east side of the house to keep water away from the foundation. Because the inspector kept telling us we had to do that for final inspection. Geez, it hardly rains here, there is minimal rain that hits between the two houses, there are gutters on the roof!! Of course, when we schedule the final inspection a substitute inspector showed up and didn’t say anything about drainage and we didn’t need it. Uggghhh. I made him take pictures of drain system back to the other inspector
The owner is still waiting for one shower arm and all of their IKEA closet stuff which isn’t coming until end of July!! And furnitures not arriving until August or September
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Congrats! No dents or dings from the city inspection- job well done! 
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