We are actually working with both an architect and a designer. The designer is very new though, this is really her first big project, so I don’t know yet if she can buy stuff from the Boston Design Center. If she’s smart she will investigate what she needs to do and do it. (That place is open the public to browse through, but to buy most stuff you need to go through a designer.)
We are certainly not going for top of the line stuff, for budget reasons. In fact we will be getting RTA cabinets and I will be putting them together. That will save me a solid $5K over the kitchen place we went to. Using HD or Wayfair quality vanities and tops will save me another $4K over the name-brand cabinet and fancy recycled glass countertops. It’s why I’m investigating pre-fab counters instead of the $90/sf quartz from the kitchen place. There will be no $1000 toilets or $2500 Kohler shower fixtures. No Viking or Wolf stoves. Unless I hit the lottery. We just want solid, functional, decent stuff.
Will I ask my contractor if he gets discounts anywhere, at the appropriate time? Of course. The tile place we went to told us “when you’re ready to buy have your contractor get on our trades list” so they have some sort of discount, but it’s like 10%. It’s nice but it’s not like it’s a huge savings, because we are not putting in $30K of tile.
I am obsessing a bit over the backsplash, because pretty much everything I’ve seen so far that’s in my price range is either weird or boring as heck.
ETA: I just remembered the RTA cabinet place lets you register as a contractor and that gets you a 10% discount. In fact I was registered there as one for a while. If they won’t let me back in, I’ll have my contractor register and save myself another few hundred bucks. Again, not a huge savings for being a contractor.
Emilybee, my mother in law approached projects your way. She had one go to person who did all her projects. We replaced an A/C compressor and a roof at the same time and her guy charged the same amount of money as the companies I hired did. Thing is my roof was twice the size and I had additional work to the furnace and duct work. Both her compressor and roof have been replaced again while mine are still in good shape. But don’t try to tell her that her guy is too expensive for what he does because she would bite your head off and defend him. I would be amazed to find out your contractor doesn’t pad his bids on your work when he knows he doesn’t have competition.
My contractor has been in business for over 100 years and has a stellar reputation. There are many reputable contractors in my area who are much more expensive than mine.
16 years of work on my house, from roof to basement and everything in between and outside and the only failure has been on one window’s sash.
My project manager has told me not to do some things because it’s not worth the money. I know he also told a friend of mine what she wanted to do was not worth what it wouid cost and suggested other options.
On NextDoor my GC is one of the most recommended.
My neighbor didn’t want to wait the six months or so for a bathroom remodel and went with another contractor. She’s very unhappy. It looks nice but she’s told me there are several things not right that one wouldn’t notice not using the bathroom often.
I get a discount everywhere just saying I’m an architect. They never seem to ask for proof. Way back when I think I showed a business card for the big NYC design center and they gave me some sort of card in return. Since anyone can call themselves a designer - I don’t know why they make such a big deal of it.
I have often wondered how someone would prove they were a ‘designer’ at a showroom? There is no license number involved (in California). The only thing that seems to be the key is if you have a state resale number. This means that the designer doesn’t have to pay sales tax at the showroom, but is supposed to collect it from the client and then submit everything to the state. That is a bunch of pain in the butt paperwork that no one wants to do. The ‘resale’ thing has kind of diminished because it is a whole layer of bureaucracy that a designer doesn’t want to do. But most of these ‘wholesale’ showrooms do not collect sales tax and the burden goes down to the designer or contractor.
“You cannot buy my toilet in any big box store. There are many fixtures you cannot buy at a big box store. None of my Kohler faucets, shower head, towel bars, sconces can be purchased at a big box.”
@emilybee , the title of this thread is not
" How to spend a lot of $$ on Home improvement without doing a lot of running around- leave it in the hands of an expensive GC."
Your GC may be wonderful, but most of the readers on this thread can’t afford to shrug at a $20000 cost overrun, nor are they looking to get top of the line appliances or bathroom fixtures.
It is no wonder your GC drops everything when you call with a complaint- you paid through the nose for his services.
The reason Coralbrooks flip threads are so popular on CC is that readers continue to marvel at how little she ends up spending while totally transforming homes.
So please realize that while your home improvement story is important to you, it is one data point and probably not very helpful to others trying to figure out how to save $$ on home improvements.
I have the right to express my opinion on this topic and you (and anyone else) have the right to ignore my opinion.
This isn’t one of Coralbrooks flip thread(s) - this is a home improvement thread in which anyone can express their opinions on home improvement issues.
You questioned the amount I spent on my bathrooms and other people chimed in that their estimates for just one bathroom were even higher.
There’s not only one way to get renovations done, people have different levels of experience and expectations and desire to participate in different aspects of a project, and different things they want to accomplish and different outcomes they are looking for.
We are satisfied with how we are proceeding on our project, emilybee is happy with her $1000 throne, it’s all good. B-) As long as you are happy with the result and feel you got a good value for your money, it’s a win.
Let’s not get critical for the different paths people choose.
Although I am disappointed emilybee took herself out the running to be my second wife.
Was looking at our master bath, as I saw a really nice shower door (the contractor for a house my realtor friend was videoing had the high end shower head and sliding shower door). I know the ‘tweaking’ we want to have done to get our master bath into ‘show shape’ for selling.
I want to improve our closets -another tweak.Notice the new homes have wire closet shelves to save money - except for the tippy top ones in our market. Want to be able to tweak appeal.
Have a little tweak on curb appeal with enhancing the left side bordering plants.
Good to think things through, and do the projects as we want them done.
My kitchen is done… big sigh of relief. Most stuff is moved back in but we can’t quite relax yet because I sent the table out to be refinished and it’s not back.
It’s been fun cooking again. The funny thing is that D1 has moved and forget to get her order from Purple Carrot sent to her new address. So I picked up the box. I don’t know if Purple Carrot is always vegan or not but her box had 3 vegan meals in it. Tonight we are having lemon caper cauliflower steaks. I call them the saddest steaks that call themselves steaks, lol. Still, it’s so good to cook again!
@klbmom18 - we have chandelier bulbs in 40 watts. Plenty of light. I think if you just google it, you will get your answer, otherwise go to a lighting place and ask them. You don’t have to buy there to get advise. I just replaced my lights in the kitchen…whoo, what a difference!
Congrats, @greenwitch! Glad that you don’t have to pioneer it out anymore.
We shifted our home improvement projects to the outside while the weather was good. Took out a lot of shrubbery and weeds. Now onto the next big thing - painting the house. Picking the paint will be quite a challenge.
On another topic - we just got an estimate for redoing the landscaping in our front yard. Wow. We are the ultimate do it yourselfers (we own a mechanical contracting company so we have plumbers, HVAC techs and electricians on the payroll) and rarely hire things out. We have about 1.5 acres and the landscaping would run up one side of the driveway and across the entire front of the house, including a water feature. Roughly 750 sf of paving and about 3000 sf of plant material and mulch. Is $20K really what this costs?
@emilybee has a point as far as the quality of same fixtures purchased through a big box store vs. a showroom and professional, at least as far as plumbing goes. There is a reason that they’re cheaper and it’s the insides that are cheaper - plastic vs. metal, etc. Also, if the home improvement store offers installation, get a local quote as well. For one thing, in a lot of areas local contractors are not allowed to bid on those jobs and if it’s a furnace or something that is essential in your climate - good luck getting the out of town people back on an hours notice. One of our customers asked for a quote to install tile in her bathroom (modest remodel) and was quoted $14,000 if she signed right away. In all honestly it was about a $3,000 job.
On another topic - we just got an estimate for redoing the landscaping in our front yard. Wow. We are the ultimate do it yourselfers (we own a mechanical contracting company so we have plumbers, HVAC techs and electricians on the payroll) and rarely hire things out. We have about 1.5 acres and the landscaping would run up one side of the driveway and across the entire front of the house, including a water feature. Roughly 750 sf of paving and about 3000 sf of plant material and mulch. Is $20K really what this costs?
@emilybee has a point as far as the quality of same fixtures purchased through a big box store vs. a showroom and professional, at least as far as plumbing goes. There is a reason that they’re cheaper and it’s the insides that are cheaper - plastic vs. metal, etc. Also, if the home improvement store offers installation, get a local quote as well. For one thing, in a lot of areas local contractors are not allowed to bid on those jobs and if it’s a furnace or something that is essential in your climate - good luck getting the out of town people back on an hours notice. One of our customers asked for a quote to install tile in her bathroom (modest remodel) and was quoted $14,000 if she signed right away. In all honestly it was about a $3,000 job.
Just like Emily’s bath remodel, costs of landscaping can vary. It depends on what kind of plants you want to use. A mature Japanese maple alone can cost $1,000 or more. I am not kidding. 19 years ago our next door neighbor landscaped his backyard - $50k for a small Japanese garden with walkways and benches. Then he got chickens. The end.
IMO, for a run of the mill landscaping project, $20k is excessive. Landscaping is the easiest DIY stuff ever. I recommend going to nurseries and checking the plants and the prices to put a list together. Dirt is relatively cheap - I would get a truckload of that, spread around the area to be landscaped, some mounds, some rocks to add accents, then plant, plant, plant, and finally mulch. Fun and rewarding.
This is the one thing we DYI. I design the beds - now that my sister (who is certified landscape designer) helped with the beds in front of my house about 12 yrs ago and taught me all about garden design. We order massive amounts of topsoil and mulch and I tell H the shape I want them to be. I choose all of the plantings and he does all the labor. I’ve done five other beds since the first two and now I just add and subtract from these beds and mulch every other year. Im getting ready to do a 100 Ft long bed along my back fence - hopefully this summer.
It is trial and error sometimes. I planted a peonies and rose bushes garden and the rose bushes just kept dying. I replaced all of them last year with more peonies and added black eyed Susan’s and cone flowers for late summer/fall color.
I also try to pick plants that offer some interest in the winter.
My neighbor hired a landscaper to do one bed between my house and hers and sod where a large vegetable garden had been put in by previous owner. The day after the plantings had been put in the bunnies and deer ate them all. Plus, it wasn’t very interesting to begin with. I told her I could do a way better job and she said she knows. She spent around $10k. The sod bit did come out nice. Her grass in that spot is beautiful.
How does one get all of the current landscaping out short of hiring a backhoe? The front of our house looks terrible, but there is so much ground cover that keeps coming back, I feel like dumping dirt over it all will only encourage it. I also have an 80 ft oak that is five feet from the gas line. The tree needs to come out – several neighbors have lost these huge oaks over the past couple years and I fear we’re a sitting duck. But goodness, I expect we’ll pay a pretty penny for that take-down.
We already need a backhoe – we got a $900 water bill on Saturday (usually $200 for 3 mo.). Our new dog discovered water in the yard on Sunday right along the route to the exterior shutoff. WSSC confirmed yesterday that it’s a leak in the main line and our responsibility. Yippee!!!
