Almost There!

It's hard to believe we're already a week into August - hopefully in about a month our project will be well underway! We've been trucking through the contractor selection process (which has been much more challenging than I thought it would be) and we feel like we're nearing the end, so here's an update.

Remember the contractors we interviewed in July? We had good interviews with contractors 1, 3 and 4 so we've been working through the estimate process with them to make our final decision.

Contractor 1 got us a bid just 2-3 days after our initial meeting. It was within our range (albeit at the high end), but included refinishing hardwoods throughout our entire first floor. We've been wanting to do this anyway, and the result will be completely seamless flooring into the kitchen. This was a huge plus.

After getting this estimate in, CJ and I obsessively regularly checked our email inboxes, work fax machines, mailbox, phones, and any other forms of communication we could think of for the other two. And to be honest, we got very discouraged as the second week passed and we still hadn't received any follow-up from number 3 or number 4. We chatted with an interior decorator friend who said this is pretty common and told us not to get discouraged. He said that contractors are frequently slow to get quotes because, basically, quotes are not fun to do. So, we followed his advice and made a follow-up call to each guy. About two weeks after that (so a month after the initial meetings) we had quotes.

Contractor 4 emailed his quote, and CJ and I both simultaneously fell out of our chairs, as it was approximately 1.5 times the price of contractor 1's quote. Yikes! That took care of him.

And then there were two. We met with Contractor 3 to get his quote, and he was just a hot mess. Even though we'd been discussing our project with him for an entire year, and he'd had a month since our meeting with him (during which we went through EVERY detail of the project), the estimate was full of mistakes, missing entire parts of the projected we'd discussed and (to add insult to injury) full of typos and errors. Long story short, it did not instill confidence that he would have the attention to detail we expect on such a large project.

During that entire time of chasing down contractors 3 and 4 to get estimates, contractor 1 had made several follow-up contacts, given us a revised estimate based on our feedback to his original one, sent references and photos from other projects he'd done - basically he'd been a saint.

Soooooooooo . .  . . . . . . we're in final negotiation steps with our new buddy, contractor 1. He's coming out again this week to finalize revisions to his estimate, and our hope is that we can have him locked down for our project very soon.

This whole bid process has been tough at times, but I'm amazed at how it has worked to show the strengths of one professional against the weaknesses of the others, and has made it abundantly clear who is and is not the right fit for our project. We've valued this process, and will particularly value it when it's all said and done. We're close though, and feel like so long as things continue moving along smoothly we should be able to begin the project on schedule!