When we left off in my last installment of this series, we were at the tail end of our bathroom renovation, which I'd taken over after firing our original GC. We still have a few punchlist items to take care of, but it's mostly done and I'm happy with the results -- excuse the non-professional photography -- here's the before & after:
For this post, I would like to illustrate the point that being a GC involves working with a TON of people! Not counting the original GC and his crew, I have personally worked with 12 different trades during the past nine months of renovation. Mind you, I am only counting each subcontractor I hired, not individual crew members, so in terms of the number of actual tradesPEOPLE, it's a lot more. And remember that when you take on the role of GC, you are often interviewing multiple companies/people in each trade before hiring one, and are also dealing with the various vendors and salespeople you'll need to source product.
Just to give you a feel for the experience, here's an accounting of the trades we have worked with on our project so far:
After letting go our first GC and his 3 subs, I worked with 5 new trades on the bathroom -- my carpenter, plumbers, electricians, a plasterer/painter and tilers.
While the bathroom was being done, we also added insulation (2 trades -- MassSave auditor + insulation installer), did a bunch of plastering/painting (1 trade), refinished the floors (1 trade), replaced a bunch of corroded water lines (1 trade) and rewired the unit (1 trade) -- it's not really five additional trades, since three of these subcontractors also worked on the bathroom, but still a lot of people to manage at once -- especially when you have another full-time job.
After wrapping up the above, we brought in more power to the whole building -- it's now 350 amps where it had only been 100 when we purchased, with 125 coming to our unit, up from the original 60. The lights no longer flicker when the dryer is running, which is a wonderful thing :) 1 trade, though same electrician referenced above.
Additionally, we've dealt with all 17 of our windows, 13 of which were originals, and four had been replaced with vinyl at some point. For the latter, we upgraded to new Marvins (1 trade). For the former, we chose to restore the original sashes, to preserve the wavy glass and general character of the 1901 structure. I regret this decision so much I cannot express -- it was a five-month process when you factor in replacing all the storms, stripping the paint on the sills and jambs, replacing the cords with brass chain and adding track liners, then the stripping, reglazing and repainting of all the sashes -- twice (don't ask!), and the reinstallation, including rebalancing, etc. 3 trades for that job. (And btw, if you're ever considering a window restoration, please call me so I can explain how to differentiate between a job that will be problematic like this one, and one that might be worth undertaking, as had been our experience in our last house.)
On the docket this fall, we're mostly doing carpentry projects (1 trade) -- a built-in bookcase for the living room, a trundle bed nook in our office/guest room, and a hall coat closet, which will add much needed functionally and also restore the architectural integrity of the space, which was lost with the past owners' removal of a couple walls.
And, because what's one more project... we also made a late-in-the-game decision to install mini-splits (1 trade) after living through several 90+ degree stretches this summer.
On top of that, we have to bring a few folks back from our completed projects for touch ups and small tweaks (3 trades), and I'll be doing a bunch of interior painting (myself).
Oh and because of course... I have somehow ended up managing the exterior painting of our building over the next six weeks (1 trade).
The very good news though, is that after taking my sanity into consideration, we decided NOT to tackle the kitchen just yet. It's barely functional right now, without a working range or dishwasher, but I swear I will not complain about having to cook on our hot plate or wash dishes by hand since it means one less project to manage :)
More to come this winter, when we hopefully have wrapped up all the above...
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