Pour foundation for house expansion.
Frame up expansion
Replace roof
Replace plumbing
Replace Electric
Replace AC
Replace Floors
Replace Kitchen
Replace Bathrooms
Add new bathroom
Convert Garage to Dining
Have baby
Which order do you go about doing all of this? We had to try and determine what we could do while we live in the house and when we needed to move out to do the other stuff. We decided to go with the expansion first so we Found a guy to do the concrete for about $10,000. The guy gave us the run around and did not want to pull the brick off the house so that we could pour the slab level with the existing foundation. After a little persuasion and some more money ($600) to do the brick demo, we got the pad poured. We next found a guy to do the frame up for $4000 just for the labor and about $7000 for the materials. The guy had us order some expensive beams and ended up not using them. He let his guys do the work and never came by to check up on them. Needless to say, they made a lot of mistakes which would not have been that big of a deal if we had not paid them for their work before they finished. Kind of a sore spot still so don’t ask about details. Where the back of the house was, they put 12” beams hanging down from the ceiling. I had a contractor guy (Josh Behra) from the ward come by and take a look at it and he said we could lift the beams above the ceiling and make the place look a lot better. In the mean time, I found a guy to do our new metal roof for $20,000. He was able to start a week earlier than we expected so we are putting off the beam relocation until the roof is complete. We figured we would do the roof before the plumbing and electrical because I would have to tear out all the sheetrock and move walls around for the electric and plumbing which means we would have to move out. Since the roof was leaking anyway due to the FINE job the framers did, it seems like the right thing to do. At the end of March, I should have another influx of cash coming in to pay for the electric $7500 and the Plumbing $7500 by getting a severance for getting laid off (March 26th) from KLA-Tencor for whom I worked for the past 12 years. After which we can put up the drywall, some basic bathroom furnishings, and move back in. We did find a friend (Julie Taya’s Girl Scout Leader) that will let us house sit from April 9th – Jun ?th while we do the plumbing and electric. Emma is going to have a new baby on March 28th, so after the roof is done there is not a lot I can do until we move out of the house. I will probably start taking out all the drywall on one side of every wall so I can get to the wires and start laying down lines for the new walls. I would like to take a break and do some of the work myself, but I am finding the labor is taking its toll on my body now that I am older. I don’t want to over stress myself and have health problems. I think it should not be a problem getting the walls up and ready for the plumbing and electric since I will be contracting out that work. Had a guy quote me to do the drywall and he quoted $8500 which I feel is a bit steep. I can put in my own drywall for that price. Once that all goes in, I need to have a new HVAC system installed. We are looking at another $10,000 for that which means we will be pretty strapped for cash.
I have been talking to Enthought about taking me on full time, but they don’t think that they will have enough work to keep me busy at 40 hours a week. I told them I could still contract with them, but I would have to charge them a lot more since I would not have a job supplementing my income. Currently I am charging them $30/hr. for the work I do. I wrote down all my expenses and necessities and came up with what I would have to charge them to cover all my own benefits and expenses myself. The total came out to be about $80/hr. if they want me to work 20 hours a week. Travis Oliphant has broken off from Enthought and started his own company and has expressed an interest in paying me to do some contract work for him, so perhaps between the two companies, I would be able to make ends meet. I have thought about looking for another job with a bigger company in the IT field, but I may end up making more starting my own contracting company. I will just have to make sure we bank all we can for the slow times. Should be exciting.
There are so many fun things going on right now! So lets see, if we add up all the money we intend to spend on this house it comes out to about $70000. So that plus the $180K we spent buying the place, we are around $250K which is a bit more than our last place. That is not including the new garage I want to build or the fencing, or the kitchen, or the bathrooms, or floors, but lets just not think about that right now. I am sure it will pay for itself in the future, but LOOK, we are close to the church and the stores. See me smiling . Perhaps one day when all the kids grow up and move away, we can move out to a nice ranch in Montana and live off the grid or in a concentration camp like Obama is planning.
Emma has been posting images of our house progress on Facebook, but I wanted to have some here as well in case Facebook is taken over by the government .
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