Being your own General Contractor on a remodeling project
The price ranges given for your average remodeling project can be staggering. For instance, an average kitchen remodel is $50,000. Well, our kitchen remodel has turned into a first-floor remodel, with repercussions throughout the rest of the house too, and there's no way we can dedicate $50K to the kitchen alone. My husband and I had to figure out ways to do some of the project ourselves, to trim the budget down to something more manageable.
Probably the biggest way we have done this is by becoming our own "general contractor" on the project. We really didn't give this choice a whole lot of thought. After having renovated our 1930s Cape Cod style home largely by ourselves, we weren't inclined to hire a remodeling company to take over this project for us. I don't think it ever really occurred to us... but as I am expecting a baby this year and haven't been able to do a lot of hands-on work to help my husband with the remodeling, I have jokingly started calling myself the "general contractor." In a way, though, it's no joke.
There are plenty of companies around who will take on your entire remodeling project and handle all the details, but that costs money. If you go this route, call around for prices. I'm sure there's a lot of variety. These companies may range from a jack-of-all-trades, where the remodelers do all the electrical, plumbing, drywall etc. themselves, to more of a general contractor role, where they might do some of the work themselves but hire out the specialty jobs like electrical and plumbing to subcontractors.
In our Cape Cod home, I was able to help more, and my family helped us out a good deal too, and the nature of our remodeling efforts didn't require us to hire out a lot of work to contractors. We are taking a different approach this time. My family is still helping us out, particularly with the plumbing (that's what they do), but we are on a time constraint with the baby coming, and my husband can only humanly do so much himself.
So in my role as General Contractor, I have been calling most of the workers in, arranging the schedule, and trying to make sure that things progress in a timely manner and are done in the right order.
Here is a key to our success: hiring a trustworthy, skilled and well-connected handyman. A handyman will usually come at a better price than a company that specializes in remodeling, or hiring a general contractor. Here's what we've had our handyman working on:
1) Removing windows and putting windows in new locations, then patching up the exterior walls.
2) Pulling down a drywall ceiling
3) Putting in a new patio door, including removing a built-in bench from our deck that would have blocked the walkway for the new door
4) Hauling multiple loads of demolition materials (mostly demoed by my husband) to the dump
5) The big job yet to be done, removing a load-bearing wall and replacing it with a 9" steel I-beam.
On that last point, it's been nice that our handyman has connections... he has a friend who is an architect who was able to calculate the load our wall is holding up and figure out what will work as a beam to replace it. The handyman is currently in the process of tracking down the best price for the I-beam (it will not be cheap, but if we had gone with a wood laminate beam, it would have extended down 16" or so, and been more of an eye-sore in our new, big living room). My job is to follow up with him to make sure he's moving forward on getting the beam and putting us on his schedule, because until that is done, my husband won't be able to drywall.
The load-bearing wall, which also happened to be full of every utility in the house, has set the pace for our interior work and is a good example of how when you're your own general contractor, you have to understand the scope of the project and what needs to happen when. First and foremost was the duct work going through the wall to the 2nd floor. We had to find a way to relocate two cold air returns and supply. That changed our floor plan a bit, because we needed an interior wall to put the returns into. It worked out fine, but this is exactly why we brought the HVAC people in first.
Next is the electrical. There used to be a soffit on that wall, and now there are wires hanging outside of the ceiling cavity that need to be put up into it. So we had to very carefully plan our electrical scheme and demolish the walls and ceilings that needed to be removed so our electrician can come in to put our new wiring scheme in place and move any wires that need to be moved. We have a very specific set of instructions for him, and in both the case of the HVAC and electrician, we have tried to make their job as easy as possible. (After all they charge by the hour.)
The last obstacle in that wall is the chimney for the water heater. The easiest solution to this was to put in a direct-vent water heater, so it could go directly outside from the utility room below instead of having to find or create a cavity for the chimney all the way up to the roof. Once my dad takes care of that, we're ready for that I-beam to come take the place of the load-bearing wall.
So from this example you can see how we're functioning as our own General Contractor. It's mainly a matter of figuring out the scope of the project, hiring consultants or contractors as needed, and keeping the gears turning so the project moves forward. And of course, supervising our contractors.
If you like reading up on the nitty gritty details of remodeling and getting a basic knowledge of how the systems of your house work, and doing some internet research to learn the best ways to, say, insulate your house, or what is needed for an effective drain system (venting et al), or how far a track lighting fixture should be mounted from a wall vs. from bookshelves, etc., then you can probably be your own general contractor, as long as you have the time to stay on top of all the details. Undoubtedly that is the biggest way we are saving on this project, but we didn't even realize it because we wouldn't do it any other way.
