Budgets, Quotes and the Nitty Gritty of Home Repair

     When I was young I was not a planner. I was not very organized but I was spontaneous and fun. Although I still like to think that I am spontaneous and fun I have realized the value of being organized and thinking things through. Especially when it pertains to my house. With that in mind, this blog post is about the work you need to do before you take a sledge hammer to that wall you hate. The blight of unfinished home improvement projects can really take a toll on you.

Quotes
     I am not sure if I can stress enough the importance of getting a quote, if not multiple quotes. These are vital to your budgeting process and most places will do them for free. Think of it as a job interview. You are interviewing these people for the job of working on your house or providing you will a product. Interview multiple candidates. See who you like best and you think will do a good job. This person may be working inside your home for an extended period of time so you should at least feel comfortable having them around and they should treat you with respect and not be pushy or flaky.
     And if you have multiple quotes to choose from then you can see if the prices and duration of a project are all about the same or if some are much higher or lower than others. I would recommend three or four quotes so that you can get a good idea of the variability. Of course, if your house is flooding or some other imminent disaster is happening then have the first person you call fix it. That is not home improvement but disaster mitigation and you should have an emergency fund for that. But that is a whole other post.
     After you have your quotes then you can start working on your budget. Keep in mind that quotes are not just for labor. You also need to get quotes for home much materials cost which you plan to install yourself. Flooring, back splash tile, paint and whatnot along with tools you may need. For example, when we bought our lovely bamboo flooring we found out what the materials cost per square foot and figured that it would cost $1,000 for what we wanted. But when we went to purchase the materials we found out that there were vapor barriers, padding and glue that we also needed for installation which raised the total price to roughly $2,000. It was still a good price for what we got because we installed it ourselves and saved a lot on labor but there always seem to be hidden costs that you have to search out when getting quotes and putting a budget together.

Budget

     It may seem obvious but setting a budget and sticking to it is one of the most important things you can do when remodeling your home. Budgets are not glamorous or fun (unless you have a touch of OCD like me) however if you start a project without one then the costs can quickly spiral out of control and you will end up with only half a dream kitchen or going into debt. I recommend neither of these outcomes.
     Now, I am not saying that you have to allocate every penny but getting a general idea of what things cost. You can make a budget one of two ways. The first way is to figure out how much money you have to spend. Say you have $10,000 in savings to spruce up your kitchen. Your appliances are new but the floor is nasty and you could really use some new cabinetry. Knowing how much you have to spend and a rough idea of what you want to accomplish will allow you to get quotes for materials and possibly labor and see if they fit into your budget. Here is a special budget tip: Take 10-20% of your budget and put that aside. Do not allocate it towards anything but instead keep it handy incase some part of the process goes over budget. And if you don't spend it great! Money in the bank or at the very end (after everything else is close to being complete and not going over budget) you can splurge on whatever you were really hoping for.
     So here is an example rough budget of $10,000.

$1,000  This is the 10% that we set aside before doing anything else
$2,000  Fixing/removing existing flooring so that new flooring can be installed.
$2,000  Cost of new flooring. Installation will be done by homeowner
$5,000  Cost of new cabinetry and counter top. Homeowner does installation.

$9,000  Total cost budgeted for with $1,000 remaining for overages or last minute additions.

     So that is one way to set your budget. For most home owners I think this is the way to go because you know ahead of time how much money you have so you don't go crazy. Besides, most of us already know how much we have to spend on a project. But let's say you are doing to get a loan and don't know how much you need to ask for. That is when you would use this second method of budgeting. In the second method you find what you like, get quotes for it, add it all up, add 10-20% for overages and then you have the amount you should ask for. A bathroom remodeling budget could look something like this:

$1,000  new tile floor
$500     new tile around bath/shower area
$200     new low flow toilet
$100     eco friendly showerhead
$300     vanity
$300     sink and faucets
$200     medicine cabinet
$50       paint
$50       shower curtain
$2,700  total plus 10% overrage
$2,970 or roughly $3,000 total for a bathroom remodel. 

     I totally just pulled these numbers out of thin air to demonstrate how a budget might go. I feel that if the sky is the limit then you will easily reach the sky and then head for the stars so unless money is no object I think budgeting option number one is best for most people. And remember that things can be done in stages. Start from the ground up with new flooring and wait on replacing upper cabinets. Particularly when you are doing the work yourself breaking a big project into a number of smaller projects can be very helpful.
     Have you recently budgeted or gotten quotes for a home improvement project? Tell us how it when in the comment section.

40 Projects for Building Your Backyard Homestead book review

     Fall is here and soon it will be too nasty and dark outside to do many home improvement projects. However, now is an excellent time to start planning for next year! So with that in mind I have decided to do a book review. I hope to do these every two weeks or so on a new book that somehow relates to home improvement, gardening or decorating. This week it is the book 40 Projects for Building Your Backyard Homestead.

      I like this book. It has great ideas, good instructions and is an great price ($12.16 on Amazon). It has simple garden projects such as building a raised bed or inclined planter to basic fence construction, chicken coops, hydroponics and even installing solar panels. Pretty much the basics on everything you might need for your own backyard homestead!
     This book is a companion to the Backyard Homesteading: A Back-to-Basics Guide to Self-Sufficiency which is a good overview and introduction to the ideas and goals of homesteading. But to really get your creative juices flowing this book with over 40 projects is really the one. I highly recommend this book for anyone who needs a general manual for garden/homesteading related construction. At about $12 it is really better to have this book hanging around than to have to follow some instructions you find on Youtube.com. You can check out Amazon's preview of the book here.
      Have you read this book or own it? Let me, and everyone else, know what you think of it with a comment.

End of Summer

     Although it is suppose to be in the 80's here today in Seattle I am still acutely aware that fall is closing in fast. Soon the rain will come and it will be time for hot cocoa, rain pants and making plans for next spring. But before we get ahead of ourselves let's look back at what we did this last year.

     Matt's big project this year was the french drain which he made in the backyard to keep water from seeping into the crawl space under the house. It seems to be working but the true test will be this winter. I think it will be a big help even if it does not stay completely dry down there. And since the french drain is finished with paving blocks it gives the walkway a finished look. If we didn't tell you that it had a functional drain underneath you would think that it was just a nice border that we added to spruce up the place. Too bad that really is the border from the relatively nice and maintained part of the yard into the wild unknown of the backyard...but we will work on that next year.

     You can see the nice square pavers going around the edge of the cement and then the wild yard beyond. We have big dreams for this area but I'll talk about that later. And no, I don't pose Banjo in all of my shots. He just thinks he is super cute and everything is about him so why would I be taking photos that don't include him?

     This year will also turned the entire side yard into a garden. You can read about that process here garden and here garden fencing. It was a lot of work but in the end it was well worth it. Because we were so focused on getting the garden going and keeping the plants alive we didn't get to a lot of the other projects that we need to do like finish the closet. But to date we have gotten roughly 50lbs of tomatoes, 10lbs of cucumbers, 1lbs of tomatillos, 1lb of onions and a smattering of radishes, carrots, lettuce, beets and basil so I am super excited for next year. And the season isn't even over yet!

      Here is the side garden with its cute wood and twine fence. We also put black bark chips down the side between the garden and the cement path. That is so we have ample space to roll the yard waste bin around and Banjo prefers running on the bark chips.

     And here is the garden in full swing. Tomatoes at the far end with lettuce down in the lower right hand corner. It really did amaze me how much food we could grow in such as small area. And having learned a few good life lessons we will be even more productive next year. For example, I am going to move the cucumbers to the front yard where they can grow onto the fence and not take up as much precious real estate. Then the tomatoes will be spread out more as it is really hard to get to the ones in the middle of that forest.
     We have also found that although we love cauliflower, broccoli and brussel sprouts they all just take up too much space and don't yield as much as we would like. Growing more fava beans, butter lettuce and strawberries might be more useful. We also want to extend the red runner beans to the entire side of the house and create a more effective trellising system. You can read all the gardening books and blogs in the world but actually trying it at home in your own space is the only way to know what will work for sure.
     The rest of this year was filled with small projects such as my video about how to make a living succulent centerpiece or tutorial on decorating with air plants. I am also trying to incorporate more informational and inspiring posts such as the ones on green roofs and grey water so that this blog will be interesting to more people. And with the front stairs breaking and costing $2,000 to fix, there went my bathroom remodel budget.
     So let us know what you think! Want more articles about environmental issues? Want tool reviews or more how-to videos? Add your voice to the comment section and let us know what interest you and then get out and soak of some much needed vitamin D. I hope you had a wonderful summer!