July 3, 2006
Contractor Karma
I received a detailed proposal from the second architect today (in PDF form, which I always find very convenient) and
the price/terms were very reasonable, so I’m feeling good about giving up on the architect I had originally been working with. I’m meeting with the new guy on Wednesday to get started on the plans, and although I had hoped to have plans submitted to the township by the time I closed on the property, I think I can still get the new garage approved and constructed by the end of the summer as planned.
In other good news, a drywall guy came by today and took measurements so he could give me an estimate. He contacted me after I posted a description of my project on one of those remodeler matchmaking sites (which I’m apparently a sucker for because I keep using them) and arrived right on time for the appointment (punctuality is a good quality in a contractor, right?). We hit it off from the start and he seemed like a genuine, hardworking kind of guy, but you never really know what you’re getting until the job is actually done. He took a bunch of measurements, made a lot of notes and indicated that he would e-mail me a bid on the job in a couple days. Although I had only requested drywall work, he got excited when he saw the state of disrepair the house was in and insisted on picking my brain to see what else I plan to do to the property beyond new drywall. I touched upon some of the other improvements I planned to make before I flip the house and he took notes and said he would like to quote me a price on these projects too, which include:
- Dividing that wacky upstairs closet
- Framing out the ceiling and installing recessed lighting in the kitchen
- Re-tiling the tub / shower area
- Installing a new sub-floor and new ceramic tile in the kitchen
He made a rough guess of $3,500 for all the drywall work but hedged by saying that was only off the top of his head and that he would need to crunch all the numbers first. This sounded like a fair estimate to me considering that he’ll be putting new sheetrock on pretty much every wall and ceiling in the entire house. He thought he could finish the job in about three weeks. I’m crossing my fingers that his final estimate is good and that he is the guy to hire. Flipping this house could be a lot less work than I thought if I end up hiring him to do all those other jobs (many of which I had contemplated taking on myself)…
I just read your entire site. Very cool. However… where are the pictures? It would be good to see pictures of the house before during and after the work is being done.
That would help attract more readers, more opinions and more useful comments since not everyone knows what a 3 bedroom house in NJ looks like. I sure don’t.
Hi Victor-
Thanks for the comment. There are actually a bunch of pictures located at http://www.fliperati.com/gallery/ (or click on the “Gallery” button on the top left corner of the site). I’ve done a bit more demo work and will be posting some more “in progress” pictures soon. Feel free to share you thoughts after you’ve had a look!
Love your blog. With all the hype about “flipping” I really enjoy reading your posts.
You could have the bathroom and tub re-glazed where they spray a coating over the tile and tub which makes it like new. It’s not nearly as cool as re-tiling for the walls, but with the tub itself, it might not matter if everything else is in good shape and it’s just really dirty.
Just a suggestion.
Thanks Teresa!
FiveMZNYC — I think I’m definitely going to reglaze the tub. I’ve seen many a re-glazed tub and they look pretty good (at least for the first year after re-glazing). Thanks for all your comments, I particularly liked your thoughts on the preservation debate. I’m definitely taking a pick-and-choose approach with the original details — putting up new drywall but keeping the original door and window trim, for example. Hope you continue weighing in on future posts…
[…] Fortunately for me, my sense about the very first contractor that came by the property turned out to be correct. I had a whole circus of people come through to give me estimates on the drywall/plaster work and the first guy (let’s call him Clyde) was by far the best of all. That doesn’t necessarily mean his price was the best (in fact it was probably the 2nd worst), but he was definitely the most honest, rational and trustworthy of the bunch. The loser contractors ran the gamut from cheap sleazeballs to eccentric “drywalling artists.” One of the crazier guys ate up over an hour of my time walking through the house, touching (almost massaging) each wall as we went along taking measurements and discussing the amount of work required in each room. By this point I really didn’t care to learn every nuance of the drywalling process and simply wanted to hire someone who would do a good job at a fair price. […]