Use It Or Lose It

Early in the planning phase I was debating between a slab foundation, a crawl space, and a full basement.  For several reason I decided to go with a full basement.  Not only does it allow easy access to plumbing, electrical, etc. but you don't have to waste space upstairs for things like furnaces and water heaters and it really is cheap square footage.  I've also listened to my wife and friends that suggested we have a 2nd bathroom and will now put one in downstairs.  For less than $1000 in additional fixtures and materials we will have a full bath downstairs to handle extra guests or overflow.

Even though we have no plans on finishing off the basement, other than a bathroom, when I got to looking at the initial layout the only thing that prevented having a great space for a lower level rec room was two steel beams right down the middle of the room.  I asked the draftsman to look and see if we might have some other options and he made a great change.  Now, as you can see below, if we ever decide we want to have a room down there we'll have a perfect location.

Budget Update


Last week at this time my first bids were starting to come in.  The foundation and concrete portion at that time was 7% over what I had in the budget.  I've since received a few additional quotes and as of this afternoon we are now 7% under.  That is why you get multiple quotes!  Even if the low bid is maybe not the particular sub contractor I want to use having a lower bid from a competitor puts you in a very strong negotiating position.

I'm still way off on my guess for what the excavation would cost but with only one bid in thus far on that item I'm still optimistic I can bring that down.

The first floor plan hasn't changed much but I'll show it below anyway.  Made the vanity larger and th closet smaller in bedroom #1.  We figured we would be using the bathroom MUCH more and would rather have more counter space.  I also had them flip the tub so the wall with the plumbing would be on the backside of the smaller closet.  That way IF we ever had a plumbing issue we could access the piping through the wall in the closet as opposed to having to take out kitchen cabinets and create a real mess.

Was hoping for some elevation views today to share but they didn't get them finished.  Should have them by th next post.

First Floor Main Level

Second Floor Loft