Budget Cuts

The project cost has escalated and is now more than twice what I originally told Richard, my architect, what I wanted to pay. I do have a finite ceiling, and since I brought Jeffrey on board, he’s been working at trying to get an accurate cost estimate. Our meeting last Thursday left me with an estimate of $62,000 more than the max I can pay. About $25,000 of that is a built in cost overrun. Even if we don’t run over cost at all, we still need to come up with $37K in cuts. We discussed a number of options to cut costs. We could put on a conventional, asphalt-shingled roof, which would save at least $5,000 over a metal one. I’ve already cut out the back porch and pergola. Cutting the skylights and interior windows into the stairwell, and building a more conventional roof, would cut another $5K. Cutting the solar radiant in-floor heating system would probably save at least $20,000. It would have cost far less to build a traditional wood frame home, well-insulated, but I’ve already bought the Faswall ICFs and they are sitting on the property.

Our estimate on the interior and exterior trim was very high, close to $30,000. I can do nearly all of the interior trim myself, and a lot of the outdoor trim also. So we should save some money there. I also decided to pursue buying a used kitchen cabinet set from the ReUse Center. Most I’ve seen leave a lot to be desired, but when I stopped over there last week, a really nice one had come in.

One of the most fun things has been planning the kitchen. I cook and bake everything from scratch, and spend a lot of time in the kitchen. It’s been very satisfying to put everything exactly where I want it. Kitchens, though, are very expensive, and my kitchen had been running about $30K. I had already scaled it back considerably, but it was still a good hunk of money.

After our meeting, I headed over to the ReUse Center to see what they had, and if the one I had seen was still available. Not only was it still there, but it was marked 40% off. It was a large set, and they were kind of overwhelmed with kitchen sets and wanted to move them. So I bought it. I would guess that the set was around $20-$25,000 new, and is still in excellent shape. I got the whole ball of wax for $1,560 plus another $100 to have it delivered to my garage for storage.

Here's how the set looked at the ReUse Center. There are a LOT of cabinets there!

Here's a close-up view. You can see the cabinetts are in pretty good shape. The wood looks lighter in this picture that it really is. The picture above shows the true color.

Here's the truck that delivered the cabinets. I was able to haul the other cabinets in the pickup truck, but these ones were way to big and heavy.

The cabinets packed into the garage.

Here are the cabinets I bought earlier for the basement kitchette. The corner unit is to the right, and tilted.

The three in the middle are brand new upper cabinets. You can kind of see three 3-drawer vanities stacked on top of each other. They are brand new also, and I'll use those in the bathroom.

These were moved to the back of the garage to make room for the cabinets above.

So I have a garage full of kitchen cabinets and it has saved me a bundle.