The Estimate or Selling Our Firstborn

We finally got the estimate for the work on the house last Saturday.

The handyman guy called here about Thursday wondering why we hadn't gotten in touch with him.
HUH?

Come to find out..... at least he says this is the issue....he had a problem with his email.....he's send out emails with estimates to prospective clients but the emails never got sent.  He's had this issue with a number of clients.

Don't know if it was an issue with his mail program, his employee or "him".  But that was the story why we hadn't heard from him for 3 weeks or so after coming here to look over the jobs.

So I open up the attachment/estimate and the floor about fell outta my ass.

Seriously?
The total was over $9,600 for the work we need/want done.

In my mind I had a figure of around $6K for all this.  That is what we were willing to spend to get this stuff done.
Not anything near almost $10K!

Here are a list of the jobs, broken down into 5 projects, we wanted priced out.

1.
 Repair and patch ceilings and walls-One spot in kitchen, 3 spots in dining room, a few seams in living room.
Skim coat of spackle 1 ft. wide section of walls around living/dining rooms.
Redo 4 corner beads over exposed metal edging.
Labor and materials.
Estimate-$1,140.00

2.
Paint downstairs walls and ceilings, approx. 1000 sq. ft. plus stairwell and upstairs hallway walls plus 2 interior doors.
Customer supplies the paint, handyman supplies the primer.
Estimate-$3,185.00

3.
Cut and install bifold door on front closet.  Customer will supply door and hardware.

Install crown molding in living room and dining room matching existing.
Labor and cost of crown molding.
Estimate-$675.00

4.
Remove carpeting in dining/living room.
Install approx. 400 sq. ft. of bamboo flooring(to be nailed down).
Customer supplies flooring and underlayment(if needed).
Estimate-$3,010.00

5.
Wrap garage trim in aluminum, 6" on jamb and brick molding.
Replace 3 sets of shutters on front of house.
Replace 2-23" hexagon gable vents on front of house.

Estimate-$1,330.00
 

An additional fee of $300.00 to cover material disposal.

 

Total Estimate-$9,640.00

 

The ones I thought  that came in high were Jobs 2 & 4.

Job 2 we are supplying all the paint(except the primer)so I really thought this one was high as it's basically just labor.  Painting isn't necessarily difficult work but it is time consuming.

 

So we decided to modify the painting job and make it smaller.  We will only have them paint the living/dining rooms and the stairwell and upstairs hallway and ceilings instead of the whole downstairs and upstairs hallway.

We can live with the kitchen/den as it is and when/if it needs painting, we can do that because we did it the last time.  We would also do the living/dining room ourselves but with the timing element of spackle repair, painting before the flooring gets done, it's easier to just let them paint those rooms.

The one place I can't paint is the stairway/hallway upstairs as I can't reach some of the stairwell walls and the ceiling.

Would like to get this down to $2K.

 

But I am also thinking I can paint the living/dining rooms so just have them do the stairwell and upstairs hallway.  I will go back and see what they would charge just for this paint job.  I think if I have a day or two between the time he spackles/repairs the living/dining room and throws up the moldings, I can do the painting in there, especially since we have the a/c now. ;-)

 

and Job 4.....Laying the bamboo flooring.  I really though this one was high!

We had our old handyman/contractor guy replace our master bedroom with bamboo in 2007.  He charged $550 and we furnished/bought the flooring, plus we removed the old carpeting.

Now I know the living/dining room is a tad larger than the master bedroom was(by only 10' x8') and prices have risen since 2007 but to go from $550 to $3,010??

 

So we went up to Lowe's, since that is where we bought/buy our flooring, and got a cost estimate for having the crew from Lowe's install that floor.

The Lowe's guy gave us a quote of $2,800 including the cost of the flooring and the cost of carpet removal, or $2,500 if we take up the carpet ourselves.

And the price of the flooring would be $850 of that cost.....so labor of $1950 or $1,650 to install.

So we have a difference of $1,060 for a complete labor only install(w/carpet removal)between Lowe's and the Handyman guy estimate.

Wow.....

 

Me thinks the handyman guy will NOT be laying our bamboo flooring......

 

I'd love to call up the old handyman and get put on his schedule for him to put in that floor because I know he'd be even less than the Lowe's quote but I don't really want to wait until JANUARY 2014 to be able to buy furniture and use the living/dining rooms.

Sigh.

 

So if we decrease the painting job and remove the flooring job, the handyman will cost us $5,630.00 plus another $2,500 to Lowe's for the floor job, for a grand total spent of $8,130.

We already have 3 boxes of bamboo flooring leftover from our bedroom floor we can use but we need to buy paint, so that basically evens out, so we need to spend $8,130 for these projects....or  if he'll accept $1K to just down the stairwell and upstairs hallway we can get all this done for $4,445.00(handyman) + $2,500(Lowe's)=$6,945.00

 

Still more than I planned on spending but it looks like the least we can get away with paying and still have a good outcome.

 

 

Sluggy