Do you think $80K would cover the following job...? (hardwood floors, granite, fireplaces)
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We are considering renovating a condo we just purchased. The place has great bones but it looks dated. It's about 1800 Sq Ft, 3 BR, 2.5 Bath. It has carpet everywhere and everything is from the 90's. So we're planning to do a big renovation.
Do you think $80K would be enough to do the following:
* New modern railings all over
* All new hardwood floors everywhere (carpeted now, 1500 sq ft)
* Full cabinet renovation in kitchen
* New cabinets/bath/shower/wall tiles of 2 bathrooms
* New cabinets in powder room
* New facelift on living room and bedroom fireplaces
* Recessed lighting in 5 or 6 rooms
* Replace all interior doors with new white glass panel doors
* Repaint entire interior
Kitchen
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Bedroom
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Bathroom 1
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Bathroom 2
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Powder room
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Without some specific on what you want, really hard to say. A facelift can mean lots of different things to lots of different people.
Take one small item for example, bathroom hardware. The prices for a faucet can range from under $100 to over $1000, you have to qualify that. Same goes for all the other stuff. Glass doors can easily go for $1000 a pop depending on quality, glass thickness and so on. Then, how many doors other than opening into rooms? Are there space divider panes?
Hopefully, you'll be well versed in material costs before hiring someone to do the work (unless you plan on doing it yourself in which case 80k can go a long way).
Full cabinet renovation? Cleaning and rejuvenating or replacing just the faces or all the exposed woodwork? What kind of material? Wood (kind), metal, composite, glass? All those things vary greatly in terms of cost not only in comparison to one another but also within material type.
Recommendation: Take that list you have and under each flesh out the wants and needs. Then you can have a materials cost in a close ballpark. After that is it labor and you can have a better chance in evaluating bids or if you do it yourself, moving money around to places where you want it most.
As a rule every project will always cost more than anticipated!
Right - get quotes and then add 20 percent.
Personally, the first place I would cut costs if I had to would be to keep the cabinets and either paint them or leave them as they are, and add hardware, especially in the bathrooms where you are most likely to leave the same configuration. Also, if you wanted to cut costs, the bathroom floor tiles are just neutral.
If you completely reconfigure your kitchen, you'll probably want new cabinets and wow, that's expensive. So if you leave the same footprint, you could update counter tops, update the sink and fixtures, the hardware and appliances and leave the cabinets as they are (cleaned and shined up of course).
You can count on a minimum of $8000 for the bathrooms if you totally gut them. Each. The kitchen - probably around $25,000 if you use the same cabinets and modest appliances but you can easily go up from there.
We added hardwood floors to our master bedroom - real hardwood floors - in a 17 x 20 foot space plus a large walk in closet, for under $3000 last year. My parents just recarpeted two bedrooms in a pretty high grade carpet (one master, pretty large, and a med size minor bedroom) for about $3000.
First, is sinking 80k into the place going to be worth it in the long run? Do you plan on living there forever? Did you get this condo way below market value where the 80k renovations are going to put you at the rest of area or put you above the market? If you're above, its going to be a loss if you ever want to move.
Second, I actually see a lot of opportunity with what you have. Styles differ of course but I like the tile in the kitchen. Depending on the look you are going for, you could just add hardware to the cabinets (they look to be pretty nice) that will add a lot more impact than you might think. OR you could paint the cabinets or possibly re-stain them. Replacing the counters and sink will give it a big facelift.
I understand wanting hardwood. Definitely check with your HOA as another person mentioned. A family member of mine bought a condo that has a lot of stairs with carpet. It was on her to do list after moving in to make these steps hardwood, only to find out the HOA wouldn't allow it. They said it would create too much noise.
The bathrooms look pretty decent. I think painting the cabinets or replacing the counters with maybe granite and new faucets will really bring new life to the bathrooms. You mentioned replacing all the interior doors with glass panel. Sounds like you are seeking to make the place more modern?
What is your style?
So where I would sink the money?
Doing those things I mentioned above with the kitchen and bath.
Hardwood floors (if you can)
Replace the patio door with something more attractive
Reface the fireplaces
Bank the rest.
My only suggestion, if you're going to do all of those renovations, is to break it up by room so you're not hiring one contractor to do everything (unless you know the perfect contractor who has done great work for you before). If you hire a contractor who really stinks, you could be sunk. Do one room at a time and see how it goes.
Of course, if you do some of the work yourself you can lower your renovation costs--provided you wouldn't need to call in someone to fix what you did.
We are in the home stretch of doing very similar at a very similar price
BUT my son is acting as a general contractor (jack of all trades) and has a lot of friends/connections to talented guys looking for extra work. Mostly $100 a day.
I am basically the Proj Man... design, sourcing, working with engineers/suppliers where we knocked out a load bearing wall.
Basically, I've micromanaged this with my son. Every decision from walls, to flooring, to how the LAMs go up, to the electrical placement (huge amount of thought)... I've been a part of and decided on.
And we found many great deals on labor utilizing a pool of friends.
And I think we will be at $70,000.
We are not in a fancy high-end area... probably similar size to your house.
So here's a sampling of our costs
We've had many people come through... inspectors, cable installers, HVAC people...
General consensus is they think we are spending closer to $100,000
Not saying yours will be, but i tend to think a non family contractor is going to have more profit, and cushion for mistakes. We have a general idea of the big ticket items and then its been a day-by-day decision type of thing. Example, we wanted to extend the existing hardwood into the kitchen and make it seemless (after removing a wall) and just decided to replace it al. $4000 bam
the rough "easy to gauge" materials alone are are $50,000.
I have to add it all up. We made a ridiculous amount of trips to Home Depot. Things you just can't account for.
Kitchen
Kraftmaid cabs (Home depot). $8000
Counters. granite $2500
Appliances $5000 (fridges in general are ridiculous. Stove in island required slide-in $2500!)
Range Hood $600
Flooring
Flooring for main level. 575 sq ft
Bellawood Hickory. $3500. + nailer. Steps
Refinishing upper level. $1000 (guessing as it starts today) Note: We are using a Bellawood Hickory w/ 100 yr warranty. Its middle of the road pricing and over $5 a sq ft. Your floors will be $8000 just for the material. Not including extensive labor!
Carpet lower level $3000 (estimate. picking out this weekend)
Lighting - recessed in expanded family room, kitchen, and a large variety of one-offs (ceiling fans, motion lights, under cabinet, outside lights. Bathroom showers, etc) Seems high but was a considerable amount of work
Labor $3500
Materials $2000
Recessed LED lights are the way to go... and RIDICULOUSLY expensive! that 2000 may be low.
$6000 really got us lighting in Kitchen (6 recessed), family room (10), Bathrooms (4) and about 10 one-off things such as ceiling fans, run cable tv, outside lights.
Two bathrooms (well one has small standup shower).
MUCH smaller than yours. and we are really 1.5
Leaving everything in same location and refreshing. tile floors and surrounds
A lot of this is rough guess as we did this first and I lost track! I think we did both bathrooms for $5000 total, and I think a GC could be 8k each.
tile $2000?
Vanities $800
faucets $800
glass door $500
Labor $1500
Family room expansion knocking out load bearing walls (prob doesnt apply to you)
Two LAM beams and columns. $1000
12 ft slider $2500
Design and engineering $1500
Labor.. lots
Dumpster costs... $700?
Labor for drywall and finishing (we got an amazing deal). $400
(remember that all those new recessed lights means holes ALL OVER to feed wires.)
Paint $1000
(a pro painter would prob be 3-5000k?)
THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS in daily trips to home dept
- new drywall. cement board
-
just random thoughts
Dont forget...
then ya need all the stuff to fill the place!
Furniture, TVs.. etc.
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