It’s going to cost what?

We met with Derek and Dan to go over their preliminary estimate for our project. They didn’t waste any time delivering the tough news that what we wanted and had designed was going to cost more than we originally planned to spend – A LOT MORE! We went through the budget items line by line and for the most part it was hard to find really big numbers for any one item on the list. It was just a lot of more reasonable numbers that added up to a really big number. There were a couple places where they suggested we cut back and consider alternate materials. For the most part, the exterior style was going to suffer the most from these changes. The metal roof we wanted would need to be asphalt instead and the aged siding look that we were hoping for was another opportunity to save. We thought we had been responsible in the design of our house – making sure there weren’t too many complex shapes and trying to keep the square footage down. Derek agreed that there wasn’t much more we could do to the design – most of the higher costs were being driven by the steep, rocky slope of our lot, high-end exterior finishes, and in-floor radiant heat. We could accept the land development costs – the view was worth it, and we figured we’d have to compromise on some materials, but we had to draw the line at the radiant heat.

Now we have to decide if we want to keep moving forward. We’ve already invested money in the land, the house design, and the site plan – how much more are we willing to invest? Should we reconsider re-sale? We’ll have to think about it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *