We closed on The DIY House today, after two months of negotiations and twiddling our thumbs. The nice part about the long closing time was that we had the opportunity line up most of our contractors for this one, as we’re sub-contracting all the work instead of bringing in a GC. Between our handyman, roofer, siding company, painters, carpenter, landscaper, cabinet maker, tub refinisher, garage door company, termite company, HVAC and window repair company, we have a lot of scheduling to do. And we still need to figure out who will do the flooring — carpet installation, hardwood repair, and vinyl laying.
Luckily, all the contractors seem eager to work, so we should be able to get one in after the other, and not have too many “off days.” Our original estimate for completing this one was 8 weeks, but I’d be very surprised if it takes that long. Hopefully we’ll finish closer to six (or even sooner).
The one snag we’ve run into is that our roofer has disappeared. He gave us a verbal quote, and verbally told us he’ll start on Monday. He then went on vacation, and isn’t scheduled to come back until this weekend, so we’re not very confident Monday is realistic (we haven’t signed any contracts and we haven’t paid him to order the materials). We’ve worked with this company before, so we know they are generally reliable, but this project has apparently fallen through their cracks.
We’re going to get a couple more roofing quotes tomorrow, and have a backup plan for if our main guy doesn’t come through; but I don’t want to start pushing out the schedule the first week of work just because our roofer couldn’t do what he had to do before going on vacation.
Dealing with uncooperative contractors is my least favorite part of this job (but one of the most important); luckily my brother is *very* good at it, and doesn’t mind playing “bad cop” when necessary…
Demo kicks off at 9:00am tomorrow morning (dumpster getting delivered first-thing in the AM), and hopefully all 20 new windows will go in tomorrow as well. On Friday, we will complete demo and have the termite treatments done. I expect I’ll have some new pictures to post later this weekend…
Good luck with this project.
Yes, please do post the pics, I like watching at them.
Congrats on the closing. Out of curiosity, what are the 20 windows going to cost you for purchase plus installation?
These are actually double-hung windows, and the “20” that I mentioned are 20 half-windows (replace top or bottom pane). For each half-window, the materials + labor price was just over $100 (sizes ranged for 2’x4′ to 5’x4′).
Total for all 20 replacement panes was $2212.
If I had gone with replacement windows, the labor + materials likely would have been at least twice that.