Renovating my house in the suburbs

[EddieWalker]

Congratulations on your child.

Congrats on the new house.

I'm impressed with some of the prices you have been able to get things for, and especially for what you are able to get labor for. I expected San Diego to be much more expensive then here in Texas. There is no way that you could find anybody to work on a house for those prices here!!!!

What happened to the 16 foot long 2x6 that you used for the stair railing? I don't see it in the finished pictures.

 

[GeneV]

Day 2 demo... spent eight hours running a 20lb demo hammer and don't even know where I am at this point.

I knew going in that the entire kitchen backsplash and countertop was a full float... the best way to demo that is with a demo hammer. It shakes everything up and the tiles fall down. The counters are best to basically chop into sections and not try to break everything up. They'll be heavy but this is the easiest way I've found.

Kitchen cabinets were installed EXTREMELY well. Nearly impossible to remove without destroying as they were all screwed and glued together. So, sawzall was brought in for that.

Poked into the soffits above the cabinets to see how much trouble I was in for with electrical. As expected, one side is like grand central station and the other side is pretty empty. If I can i might just notch the studs, run the lines horizontal as they were, and cover with nail plates and move on. That is if it's too much to reroute everything.

Oh, here's a tip. When you're breaking up ceramic tile with a jackhammer, wear sleeves and a full face shield. We found pieces of tile flying up on to the second floor from the work being done on the first floor. Oh and I took a few shots in the face.

Dumpster filing up quickly.View attachment 670256View attachment 670258View attachment 670259View attachment 670260View attachment 670261

Oh thank god, I was worried you were gonna leave that floor tile. Kill it with fire!

 

[GeneV]

Well... July 18... baby came early. Wound up in the hospital for three days.

I think I should have saved this suit for painting.

Healthy baby girl 7lbs 4ozs... View attachment 670309View attachment 670310

Congratulations!

 

[Muhammad]

Congratulations on your child.

Congrats on the new house.

I'm impressed with some of the prices you have been able to get things for, and especially for what you are able to get labor for. I expected San Diego to be much more expensive then here in Texas. There is no way that you could find anybody to work on a house for those prices here!!!!

What happened to the 16 foot long 2x6 that you used for the stair railing? I don't see it in the finished pictures.

Eddie,

Well I'm not sure if I'm representing the entire picture of what stuff costs around here accurately. Here's what I've hired out:

- Engineered flooring glue down install @ $2.75 psf plus materials
- Floor grinding at $0.50 psf
- 8 hours worth of plumber time to repipe, $2,000 including all materials (pex)
- Install can lights @ $60 each labor only
- Fabricate and install quartzite countertop from slabs with 48 linear ft miter edge $4200 labor only
- Electrician service call @$95 per hour to track some stuff down
- R&R windows at $120-$160 each (will admit that this seems like a deal so we'll see how it works out)

I abandoned the wood handrail in favor of a molded steel railing from king metals. So the entire railing is welded. Did all that myself for about $1200 in materials including buying a cheap welder. Contractor quoted $7000 for that railing.

 

[EddieWalker]

I love King Metals. They have an yard in Dallas and I get stuff from them overnight!!!

Some of your prices are more in line with what I was expecting.

On the windows, the biggest issue that I deal with when coming in after the "pro" installs them, is sealing them. Most companies just cut out the window and leave the frame in place, then they slide in a new window and silicone it in place. The air leaks are always around the original frame. The other issue is in how sloppy they do the silicone. I've seen leaves pass through the gaps in some new replacement windows that cost the home owner $30,000 for the entire house!!!

Most of my clients never see a decrease in their energy bill.

 

[Muhammad]

I love King Metals. They have an yard in Dallas and I get stuff from them overnight!!!

Some of your prices are more in line with what I was expecting.

On the windows, the biggest issue that I deal with when coming in after the "pro" installs them, is sealing them. Most companies just cut out the window and leave the frame in place, then they slide in a new window and silicone it in place. The air leaks are always around the original frame. The other issue is in how sloppy they do the silicone. I've seen leaves pass through the gaps in some new replacement windows that cost the home owner $30,000 for the entire house!!!

Most of my clients never see a decrease in their energy bill.

Actually I discussed this with the installer and since the entrie point of replacing the window was to change the frame from white to black, we're going to cut the old window and frame out, get down to the studs and replace it like a new window.

The risk will be in water leaks, I think, if we have to break any stucco away as I think the water intrusion would happen where the stucco meets the window frame, correct?

We have access to seal from the inside since I didn't even sheetrock around the window yet. I have a guy who is really good at patching stucco if we have to cut much away. I was hoping we could get away with minimal stucco damage and just reseal. That's what I've done when replacing entry doors with stucco molds and haven't had any issues with those.

As for king metals, I'll do you one better: their southern California warehouse is less than an hour from my house so I picked everything up in person. My only regret was not having a truck to carry a 19 foot straight railing piece so I had to weld two 8 footers together.

 

[EddieWalker]

When I lived in CA, every house I ever worked on was stucco. Instead of trying to match the stucco, I would trim out the window to make it look nice, and hide the patch job.

 

[Muhammad]

This is how you wind up mixing your schedule. I have taken three days off of working on the house to try to rest and recover. I'm waiting to hear from the countertop place about fixing their mess up. That's the big monkey wrench at this point.

 

[Dftodd]

I'm pretty sure we have another forum on this site just for people like you.... Should I forward you the link?

That was my thoughts as well. I thought about snatching the picture and having it appear in the other thread

 

[Muhammad]

That was my thoughts as well. I thought about snatching the picture and having it appear in the other thread

Go ahead, if I'm going to get roasted I don't want any bias because I'm the admin. I want the full experience.