INSIDE & OUTSIDE CONSTRUCTION

The original project was to finish my basement, add french doors to turn dining room into office, reconfigure master bedroom/master bath I got 3 estimates on the job. Two of the contractors wouldn't even bid on the bedroom/bathroom job without drawings. The estimate I got for the entire job from Inside-Outside, was only a little more than the quote from the other 2 for just the basement. Base price was about $28K. The master bedroom was orginally small with only one window facing away from the sun. There's was a small unheated office/utility room behind the bedroom that had a window. The master bath was small and was adjacent to the walk in closet. The design had him knock down the wall between the small room and the master. We put in a large window, insulated and added two walk in closets to that space. It cost extra, but we put hardwood floors in the expanded space. The old master bath/closet were combined to make a very large master bath with a skylight. Mark started demolition about 2 weeks after I confirmed everything with him (last week of December). Any additional costs were mutually agreed to. I added the following items to the scope of work: Paint the following rooms: Kitchen, Office, 3 Bedrooms, Upstairs hall (cost to paint basement and master bedroom was included in his cost). Remove carpets/tiles and sand and poly 3 bedrooms and the front hall. Add washer/dryer hookup in the upstairs master bathroom Work generally proceeded on schedule, although in the end, things slowed down a bit. It probably took about 3 weeks longer than I hoped (work basically done by the end of February) Mark's carpenter and painter are excellent. Their work ethic is wonderful. There were a few bumps along the way, but generally we worked it out so that it was fair. Mark did not charge for a lot of nice excellent touches - shelves in a closet under the stairs in the basement. New coat of poly on the office floor, etc. He also was very good at the end and came promptly to deal with my punch list items. He did not walk away from the job before it was done. It takes great pride, as do his workers, on doing top notch work. My biggest gripe was the dust - I was living in the house during renovations and their was alot of dust. I would have liked if they used more drop clothes and plastic to seal off clean areas. Also, the buidling code in my town requires that smokes/CO2 detectors be up to current code even for remodeling jobs. This ended up costing me $500 more that was totally unexpected. Not Mark's fault, but good for people to know. At the end of the day I love the space I'm living in. Be prepared to pay for most of the materials yourself unless they are specifically included. He gave me an allowance for certain items, but I would buy them and then he applied the allowance against the final payment.