Hi Al,
Thank you for your truly eye opening information regarding the quote request, and your attached remodeling cost averages pdf.
I had a contractor friend back east suggest when I first mentioned what I needed, that I could save money in the living room by buying a Festool Track Saw and cut the engineered flooring myself, I thought he was kidding me. I have another friend who builds high end cabinets, and furniture, who says a Festool Domino tool is the greatest thing since sliced cheese for joining wood, and way faster than making mortise and tenon joints. Yeah, I though, nice, but a high priced tool that since I won?t be making production runs on cabinets just seemed like it was out of line for my purposes, with no real ROI.
Then I saw the average major kitchen upgrade cost 54,000 dollars. I already have the tools needed for the cabinets and stuff, plus I bought cabinet grade plus wood and high quality wood for the face frames. I also purchased high end sliders for all the drawers and shelves for the cabinets as well and my total material cost was around
2,000 dollars.The way I figure it, your kitchen upgrade figures of $54,000.00 just allowed me to buy all the Festool Tools I dreamed about, plus a CNC machine to make some rather fancy door?s, molding with enough money left over to upgrade some of the major tools in my garage. I am now able to justify the costs to my wife and I would still be saving major money for the total cost of the job.
So in the end your eye opening quote and attachment has been quite beneficial to me.
When time comes for you to retire I am sure you will be a very happy man, may you live long enough to enjoy it all.
Regards, Xxxxx Xxxxxx
Sent from Mail for Windows 10
From: Al Xxxxxxx Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2016 2:23 PM To: XXXXXXXX.com Cc: XXXXXXXX.com Subject: construction costs
Hi Xxxxx, I wanted to get back to you as soon as I could check on some historical numbers that I have. I have attached a copy of a national cost average for different types of additions and construction. I categorized your project as a family room addition. You can see that the national average for a mid-range family room is $80,765. It is even more expensive on the West coast, ($95,529). That doesn?t even include the division of the existing living room into a bedroom and office and also the kitchen remodel. If you had called me and asked what I would use as a cost for room additions, I would have said use $250.00/SF as a beginning cost and it might go up or down from there. Your proposed addition of 18.5? x 16.5? comes to about 305 SF. If I multiplied that by $250 it comes to $76,250 which is close to the national average. Unfortunately your budget of Under $20,000 doesn?t get us very close to what it is going to cost. I?m sorry about the news but I wanted to get it to you as soon as possible. Thank you for contacting us and we wish you the best of luck. Sincerely, Al Xxxxxx
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ What a way to estimate costs?
I think he would have been far better off to say something like the job was smaller than he would like to take on or something similar.
I already had one that thought it wasn't worth his while, in so many words, and wasn't interested.
I could pay someone to draft it up with an engineers stamp on it and GC it all myself, doing all the electrical, and the water line myself, but I would like to get it cranked out faster using someone active in the trades. IYKWIM.