Gut Renovation Budgeting
Price estimates for a gut renovation of a two family row house in Bedford-Stuyvesant are coming in far above the initial budget. A friend recommended that we hold off on all the finishing work (floor installation/finish, plaster/paint, kitchen/bath install, etc.) for the larger triplex and move into or rent the garden apt.In this way, we may be able to spread out and reduce costs, along with doing some of the work ourselves. This seems to make sense on paper and would give us some time to work on design, but are there any big drawbacks?
eastfour
in Flooring 10 years and 8 months ago
6
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6 replies
eastfour | 10 years and 7 months ago
The house needs to be gutted. It’s a c. 1870’s wood frame that’s seen patchwork upkeep in the past half century.
chemosphere | 10 years and 7 months ago
What did you budget for? and what are the quotes coming in at?
Augustiner | 10 years and 7 months ago
Gutting only a part of the building is a complicated procedure, and more expensive. Don´t forget that with a major operation there are always unpredictable cost that are not reflected in the bids. You will find rotten beams, an outdated water main or Sprinkler and so on. Also consider that in the current market you arguably won´t increase the value $1 per $1 spent on reno. If you don´t have the 200/ sqf for a proper gut and 30k to rent another apartment in the meantime, why not loose the idea of making ‘everything perfect’ and just make it liveable at a fraction of the time and cost.
cate | 10 years and 7 months ago
We did something similar and the result was a higher cost and immense inconvenience. As for “doing some of the work” yourselves, we were unrealistic about this and it turned out we couldn’t do much more than contracting and painting. IMHO the people best equipped for DIY renovation are those with prior construction experience or a family member who is a licensed contractor AND tons of time, e.g. they don’t have to work for a living. Bear in mind it takes large, experienced crews many months to do this kind of work, so something like a gut renovation of only one bathroom could take a gung-ho DIY’er six or eight months of working nights and weekends — and they would still have to contract out the plumbing. The biggest ways to cut construction costs are NOT do a gut renovation, NOT to change the location of plumbing fixtures, NOT open up the rear wall to windows, and NOT to include central air. This will mean you don’t have to file, which saves time at the building department and means you don’t need an architect, unless you want one. Realize you CAN replace all the plumbing and electrical in a building and re-do bathrooms and kitchens without a gut. It is also possible to work with an architect and do everything in stages. This is more feasible if the building is livable as is and just needs cosmetic work, but will probably mean loss of rental income. It’s also inconvenient and dusty, so best not attempted with young children or pregnancy. Good luck.
slopefarm | 10 years and 7 months ago
I agree with rh’s points. I would add that if you hold off on finish work, it might delay the sign-offs you need to legally rent the rental, so moving in yourselves and saving on your own rent elsewhere is probably the safer option. If you are going to leave finish worki, be clear in your contracts where the job ends and make sure they get you as far as you need to get all your signoffs. Much harder to coordinate this once you or other contractors satart adding on work otuside of teh GC’s scope, as no one wants to take responsibility for work they did not supervise. You may need to borrow, rent or buy cheap fixtures, appliances etc to make the unit habitable enough for sign-off and then work on it after. You will want the walls in place, the electrical done, and probably a dummy kitchen and bath. You also don’t want the job to trail off slowly or your GC will just disappear, and not without reason. We sort of went this route by necessity after the fact, not the original plan. Three is a value to living in the space a bit to see what works. We finalized kitchen ca binets after we saw how the floors turned out, picked countertops after cabs wre in, then picked backsplash times after counters were in.
rh | 10 years and 8 months ago
Do what you can afford so you don’t get yourself into a financial mess. First ask yourself if you really need to gut everything down to bare bones. In my case, there have been homes that needed a floor or two of gutting, but never every room in the entire house. People are too gut happy these days! The drawback might be that your tenant won’t like the noise and dust you’re creating above. Are you living elsewhere now? If so, perhaps you can move in and save that rent or mortgage on the other place. If not, try to figure out how to get the horrible stuff done before the tenant moves in or just try to work around their schedule so you’re not banging on their head when they’re trying to sleep or work.