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)…
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