The trees come down, the basement gets included and more on siding

How's that for a subject line. First, we had some fun today and took down the three "trees" in front of the house. I say "trees" because they're really overgrown arborvitae. I suppose some might intend for them to get as high as they did, but I'm not so sure. I wish I had some shots of the fun. My dad, my friend Paul and I took them down pretty quick with a chainsaw, chopped up the trunks and hauled the branched to a compost area here in town. All before noon, I might add. But, all I have is before and after...



So, the basement. As mentioned, we reviewed the contract from MOC last weekend and worked out the particulars, but we need to make a decision on the basement ASAP. Because if it's in, then that affects the immediate schedule and affects the payment schedule laid out in the contract.

Probably the biggest issue was the cost associated. It was about a $40K add to do the basement. A lot of that was simply because we weren't planning to tear down the structure of the house where the basement would go. If we did do the basement, they would have to tear down the wall frames and subfloor and then rebuild.

Well, we wrested with the cost and desire and ultimately decided that yes, we wanted to do the basement. Problem was that we then got fixated on the siding. We were getting nervous about using steel. We asked for the price difference to go back to Fiber Cement, or Hardi plank, and found out it would be another ~$8K. So, we just said yes to the basement and now we're talking about adding more $$. Where does it stop?

So, we did a field trip on Friday with Mike Otto and our architect Ryan to look more at steel. The end result only confirmed our desire not to use the steel. So, Ann and I pow-wowed once more and said, fine we'll still do the basement, which allows us to get the contract signed and this project started. And then we'll deal with the siding over the next couple months understanding its going to cost us something more, but what that is depends on whether we have some other options that are both visually and price appealing.

That means we'll finally have a contract to sign on Tuesday.

In the meantime, I've removing some more siding...

Siding

For some reason we thought that once we picked our builder it would be smooth sailing. A step back and let the GC run the show. Um, no.

We've been looking at the contract that we'll need to sign, which then started an avalanche of "um, what about that?" or "oh, and that too!". For instance, we still haven't picked out a siding material. I suppose it's not a big deal since the siding goes on much further down the line, but if we can avoid a change request, we can probably avoid change fees.

We wanted to use Fiberboard, or Hardi Siding as it seems to be more commonly known. But, once again, trying to trim costs, we've been looking at alternatives. First, we decided that maybe we could reuse the existing Redwood Siding...more on that later. Because you can't buy redwood anymore, we'd need something to make up for the new second level.

So, the plan is to put the redwood on the second level and then bring a steel siding onto the first level. That would be in combination with the stone we'll be using. I don't think Ann or I are hot on steel, but to be honest, we haven't looked at it yet. It doesn't seem like the best looking option, which means we need to go out and start looking. (I'd link out to a steel siding site, but I haven't a clue what's worth looking at)

In the meantime, I started to pull the redwood off today. Kind of a pain, sometimes not. We'll see how this goes, but I'm a little nervous on the quality. It's dry, splits easy and will have to be cleaned. I'm hoping I get enough off that hasn't cracked in half. Not a ton of progress thus far...



The discussions this weekend go beyond siding. We've got similar stuff on windows, flooring and more. Not to mention that we're still struggling with the basement we want, but wrecks the budget. Sigh....

A Decision is Made

Well, we finally did it! We made a decision! What and how?.... We got our three bids today from the builders involved. We of course had our meeting scheduled with MOC, who we've been working with for a couple months now, and then the other two were supposed to fax in there's prior to that meeting.

As it turned out, we didn't get those two other bids before stepping into our meeting with MOC at 3pm. So, you had Ann and I doing a nervous 2 minute chat in the hallway before going in basically saying, what do we do?!? Play it cool, that's what. ;) MOC presented their bid and with no surprises or further adjustments, he came in below our number. Well, hey that's great!.... but wait, what about the other guys? We've already told MOC that if they made our price, we'd go with them, but still, what about the other guys!?

So, we asked for a time out. Yep, Ann and I and Ryan (our architect, who the other bids were faxed to, but who hadn't caught up with us before the meeting) all stepped out into the hall to huddle. There, Ryan explained that one bid (from a comparable builder to MOC) came in slightly higher, and that the other guy, Tim, came in lower, but only by a few thousand.

Well, for all our fretting of "what if this, what if that", the decision was pretty simple. While Tim was slightly lower, we felt there were risks involved and that we couldn't count on his numbers being as accurate. So, that did it... MOC, pending a contract signing, is our builder.

It'll be a couple weeks before demo starts, but we'll get demo permits pulled and dumpster on site. Finally, a place to put the rubbish. I'll also start pulling the redwood siding off the house, which we're also going to re-use. So, the fun keeps on going.

The Bids Are Nearly Here.

I must have missed a post... oh right, I just never did it. Well, a week and a half since my last post, there's a few things worth mentioning.

We're in waiting mode on the next round of bids. We were suppose to have a meeting two days (5/8) ago with MOC, but rescheduled for this next Wednesday. Why? Well, MOC was prepared to show us their re-vised number and hoping to get an answer during that meeting. Since we've decided to have two other builders bid the project out, we didn't want to cough up that answer until we new where the other two were at.

I guess we're finally getting to the culmination of this big game, and to be honest, it's starting to drive me a little crazy. I just want the numbers!!! ... but, as if it were that simple. Are the numbers apples-to-apples? What timeframe are they each proposing? How accurate do we believe their numbers to be?

So, what to do to keep the mind occupied elsewhere? Hammers! Drills!! Cro-bars!!!!! Yes, I continue to demo, although now I think it's for no reason other than to demo. The floor is up, the panels are off, and so much of the rest is just trash.... well, not true. We've got a place in town called the Re-Use Center. They take any type of building material from lumber to fixtures to windows to doors and more and re-sell or re-use. So, keep it out of the landfills and give it new life. I sent some pics off today to gauge interest. Depending on the response, that may be the next project. Which would be good, cause I'm starting to lack room in the place to demo much more.

What else? Ann and I went to the Living Green Expo last weekend, which was actually pretty interesting. We talked to the Re-Use Center there, saw some siding options and even talked to a guy who, if we choose to chop down a big oak in our yard, would take the tree, dry it and mill it into whatever pieces we wanted should we want to build something from the tree. Very cool actually... think about it... having a table, beams, flooring or whatever made from a tree that came from your own yard.