We spent our first $100 at Home Depot and we don't even own the house yet! Welcome to a virtual tour of our experiences in home remodeling for all of you playing at home.
The litany of what we're planning to do in the next 4-6 weeks is long and much more than we've ever done to a house before. The 64-year-old windows need to be replaced and enlarged in a few places. The kitchen has a few new appliances but otherwise is original to 1957 and needs to be overhauled. Two rooms need hardwood floors and several trees need to be cut down (we'd be pretty spiffy if we could combine these jobs). Both bathrooms have had some updates but the gray and Smurf blue bathtubs are screaming out to be replaced with anything from the 21st century.
One of the surprisingly sticky points has been trying to find a bathtub. Who knew that there were so many choices--cast iron, porcelain over steel, fiberglass, acrylic, Vikrell (whatever the heck that is)? Every one seems to have pluses and minuses. We thought picking cabinets and tile would be tough but the most basic item is one of the hardest decisions.
It seems as though we've interviewed or met with about half the contractors in VA for estimates. Here's the interactive part, sing along: "4 window companies, 3 handymen, 2 painters painting, 1 HVAC guy, and a general contractor in a pear tree." The GC was the quirkiest of the bunch. He preferred to be called a "design-build company" and took being called a GC as an insult to his gene pool. We discovered that "design-build" lets him charge 5 times more than anyone else.
After much deliberation, we're going to play GC and oversee a crew of immigrants who have done some small jobs around our place and who seem thrilled to be participating in the American Dream.
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