So, EIGHT MONTHS after purchasing our new home, we’re finally about to start the actual renovation. The two major reasons for the delay: wetlands permitting takes forever, and COVID-times renovation costs made us have to rethink things. I’ll explain.
Wetlands are Annoying
We have wetlands abutting the back of our house. The good news is that we don’t have flooding/water issues, but whenever you do any work on a home within X feet of wetlands, even work that has very little new foundation being dug and even when the 30 sqft of new foundation isn’t anywhere near the wetlands (I’m not frustrated at all), you have to go through an onerous wetlands process. It entailed a new survey of the land with wetland markings, the hiring a soil scientist (SOIL SCIENTIST!) to flag the wetlands and advocate for the build, the submission of a pretty detailed wetlands application, a walk-through of the property with the town’s wetlands committee, a wetlands hearing, and, THEN, once you get approval, you must submit preliminary remediation measures not required to be done until the renovation is over. It took months, and we should have started the process the minute we closed on the house, but our architect thought we might be able to get around the whole wetlands process because our excavation work is so minor. Nope.
The good news is that we completed everything we needed to do to get our permitting approved. But it was a lot of stress, especially since every month we’ve been delayed means that we’re in a rental with two kids (and two parents) who miss having a permanent home. Our new estimated move-in date in next August *insert sobbing emoji*.
COVID-Cost Bumps and Supply Chain Disruptions
Let’s talk about COVID-costs. Everyone knows that there have been major supply chain disruptions and the crazy lumber costs (which have come down, thankfully). Our architect estimated the cost of the renovation before we bid it out, and a few of the bids came back DOUBLE the high end of his estimates. Double. To be sure, things are just more expensive, but prices are also way up because there’s so much volatility in supply pricing and so much demand for construction — thanks, rich people who flooded the ‘burbs — so contractors are charging more to protect against mid-build price increases AND then adding a premium because they can. Le sigh.
So, how did we bring costs down to our estimated costs? We couldn’t. But we brought them down considerably by rethinking a lot of things, thankfully without having to change the overall design. This entailed poring over the plans and figuring out where to shave off small amounts that added up to large amounts cumulatively — which is very hard to do (and TOOK MONTHS) — along with modifications to some big items resulted in some big savings. The first of these big items was changing from fancy Pella double hung windows that had integrated screens to Marvin double hung windows with regular ol’ exterior screens. Then, we changed the glass elements of the house from steel framed to aluminum framed. We are doing a Gavalume roof and gutters instead of lead-coated copper. Our foam insulation will be open foam instead of closed foam. And we rethought some elements that required costly structural support (e.g., omitting cement stair treads and reducing the width of a retractable wall in the sunroom).
The final “big” item we had to omit completely (for now) was a guest suite over the garage with full bath. We have another guest suite near the family bedrooms, but we really liked the idea of a more remote guest suite when guests stay for a longer term. We’re still bringing plumbing to the area and preparing for the suite to happen in a few years, but right now it’s going to be a large playroom/media room for the kids.
There were also a few big items we considered changing to save costs but then didn’t. My husband felt strongly that the fireplaces be masonry rather than a firebox/zero clearance situation, so that stayed. We thought about nixing the ensuite bathroom in the first guest room and making it a Jack and Jill bathroom with my son’s room — we had that in our old house and it worked pretty well — but there was no way to make that work in the floorplan that didn’t compromise both rooms.
And the little tickets that added up? Our recessed lighting is less fancy. Our floors are character grade oak, like in our old home, rather than rift/quartersawn, and may be less wide on the second floor (TBD on that). And we’re not changing out the garage doors.
Then there were items that we assumed would give us some savings but then didn’t. We’ve chosen a waterproof plaster called Tadelakt in the master bathroom in lieu of tile (more info on that later but here’s an article on Tadelakt), and considered switching to tile, but there wouldn’t have been a real savings there; while the labor is super expensive for plaster, the plaster itself is not, and switching it out could have been actually been more expensive depending on the tiles we chose. We are doing these cool recessed baseboard and frameless interior doors all over the house for a minimalist vibe and thought about going back to regular baseboards and framed doors would save money, but it wouldn’t make a real dent. And we also assuming switching from stain-grade to paint-grade vanities in almost all the bathrooms would make a significant difference, but it was a teeny tiny savings.
So, that is where we are. Tomorrow on the blog, I’ll walk through the exterior renovation details, since that’s happening first.
Here’s a sneak peek of the exterior elevations:
