Just shell or everything??

hi all,
i need some advice. i have a cape styled home and am planning on doing a full home renovation. i want to fully dormer the home, remodel the first floor (open up both sides of the stairs, expand kitchen, new bathroom, etc), add an attached garage (and build on top of that), update electric and heating system, and redo driveway, sidewalk, and path to home.

my question to you is, should we get everything done from one company? or just have the company put up the shell, and then i would contact all other contractors needed? i'm not really handy so i wouldn't be able to do any of the work myself. i want the route that would save me some money in the end.

also, any recommendations? and roughly, cost for a full home renovation?

thanks in advance! i need all the advice i can get!

Re: Just shell or everything??

The most hassle free would. To get a general contractor o coordinate the whole project. Ty will bring in and sub-contract whatever work you need done.

Just shell or everything??

I basically did what you were describing, we took a cape with an attached garage and chopped the top off and gutted the downstairs, took out all the supporting walls and replaced with flush headers, removed the ceiling joists and replaced the stairs. We had an attached garage and didn't increase the footprint, but put a front porch on teh house.

we acted as general contractors iwth the help of my brother in law, so we subbed out the work ourselves. It was both very stressful and a lot of work. Anyone who tells you it isn't is misremebering...

my recommendation is to get a good qualified GC who you trust to do the work, unless A) you know what you're doing, or B) you already have a handful of the subs that you trust and have worked well with you before.

Some of the subs are great, do good work, need little supervision and give decent pricing. Others will charge huge prices when they think someone is inexperienced, cut corners, no show many times etc. Some basically refuse to deal with homeowners, they're feeling is, their business model is to work for GCs, charge no nonsense pricing and they're basically doing that so they don't have to deal with homeowners who are wishy washy picking colors and asking questions.

If you need trade specific recommendations, I have a bunch, I ended up after much pain in finding them, some good contractors. However, I did have a plumber who royaly screwed up our timeline adding at least 3 months to the job and caused me a lot of grief. Plus some that after hiring them and having them start you find out that yeah, they're not currently licensed anymore, or they carry general liability but not workers comp and all sorts of headaches like that.

Price well, it was a lot more than we origionally budgetted for a number of reasons. It really depends on what you want, you have to be specific when bidding out the job. what will the exterior look like, a box with a roof or are you adding peaks, are you bumping some of it forward? are you handing the dormer off the back 2 ft? is there an attic or are you vaulting the ceiling, are you having 2 baths or 2.5? Does the master have a big tub, 2 sinks seperate shower, granite top on the tub? or is it a normal bathroom? how big is the kitchen? whats the cabinet budget? granite there? appliances etc? wood floor throughout or carpet? radiant in floor heat in the bath and kitchen? are you replacing the stairs and railing, with what? how many windows, what type of windows, pavers or concrete on walks and driveway, are you adding a fireplace, what kind, how is it finished?

I would say you're looking in the 150-300K range, but there are so many factors.

Just shell or everything??

thanks SO much for the reply, i really appreciate it. from your advice I think we'll start getting price quotes from general contractors. we know a couple of subs from work done in my parents home, but working with one contractor sounds like it would be much, much easier. we were thinking of gutting the entire home ourselves, maybe that would save us some money? who did you use to put up the shell for your dormer?

Re: Just shell or everything??

Please give us a call 631.981.4953 and we can discuss what you are looking to do and options.

Click here to samples of dormers we have done and other home remodeling projects.

Re: Just shell or everything??

My wife and i had an 1100 sq ft levitt cape with an extended kitchen and an attached garage. Two years ago we hired a gc and did a full dormer with one peak. We added 935 sq ft upstairs. Downstairs we gutted everything, moved the staircase from the front to the back of the house and moved the boiler to the garage. We redid ecerything downstairs except one bathroom, and we lived in my mother in laws home for 9 months. It was an extremely stressful time.

We didnt hire the right contractor and had a lot of problems. Please make sure you do your research, chrck references and dont only go by word of mouth.

In the end we r satisfied with how our home came out, but wish we thought about certain things we should of added to the design. The other thing is that when u write up the contract make sure every thing you want included is written down and explained in detail.

Good luck. Look st the big companies like sierra or larsen.

Re: Just shell or everything??

thanks so much for the input! i have a notebook i keep that i constantly add ideas to and things i would like when we do the work eventually. we'll get quotes from the bigger companies, including the 2 you mentioned. i want to make sure we know exactly what we want before we get the quotes created. did you do any of the gutting yourself and about how much did that save you? do you have any pictures? the work you had done sounds great.

Re: Just shell or everything??

Send me an email to [email protected] and i will email you pics. My friends and i gutted all the walls downstairs and the kitchen also. Not sure what i saved on that. I also primed and painted the entire house myself. It cost me $600 for Bm paint, brushes, primer, and prep supplies. We got a few quottes. The lowest was $6000 from our contractor to $8750 from walker painting. It is crazy what they get. I was out f work during the whole job a?d there was no foreman there so i had to make sure the subs were all working and i was also able to take pics of everything.

If we had to do it all again, we wouldnt of. We would of put the house on the market and moved.

Re: Just shell or everything??

From my experience, having someone qualified to handle the project will alleviate a TON of stress.

I've seen many people try to save a few dollars and play 'general contractor' which winds up creating a huge amount of aggrevation and loss in time. Having someone that does it for a living is the first step. The second step is to have the right person who's licensed and insured (with references) , and third step to make sure that person does the work himself.

Many contractors "sub" out everything taking a huge deposit and just run the job. Since I'm very particular and picky about home improvements, I only work with 1-2 contractors. The contractor that I know specializes in dormers and extensions. He does it all, from filing the plans, having a qualified architect he does the demo, framing, roofing, siding, windows, gutters, and entire inside. Obviously he has his own electrician and plumber, since these trades are required to have their own specific licenses.

My contractor does 99% of the work himself, and doesn't pawn it out to day laborers or other people and knows what goes into a project. If you'd like more information or have more questions, just reply back to me or you can email be direct at [email protected].

Bottom line, there are a lot of scam artists out there, there has to be 100% total trust in putting someone in charge of a large project like that. I hate seeing people get taken advantage of, honesty is really the best policy.

Best of luck and happy new year.

Just shell or everything??

thank you both so very much. i will be sending an email shortly. i really appreciate it!