SoapZone Community Message Board

Often it's about sequencing. I always tell my contractors that I only plan to do this once, and I end up feeling like a general contractor instead of like a customer sipping coffee in the background. With my recent contractor, whom I'll never use again!!!!!!!!, I had to watch everything because they didn't seem to think the project through or sequence worth beans...or a bean.

The great thing about doing stuff before you move stuff into the place is you can access and park stuff out of the way. It sucks when you're doing this after living in the house for over two decades.

Granite, I discovered, isn't really that expensive. I'm looking for an engraver(?) to carve the family name into a piece that was leftover from the countertop that was installed in the new room. It's an octagonal piece, but the sides aren't equal lengths which could work well with my relatively long (ten characters) last name.

Yes, do it now before it goes from a minor inconvenience to a middle of the night call at a very high fee!

Fabulous!
The hallway bathroom is my final project along with the final touches and removing the ductwork. I'm planning to get a vanity for that bathroom and the former master bathroom. I wanted to wait to replace that vanity until I was ready to replace the one in the hall bathroom so they'd be similar/the same. Granite tops for both, if all goes well. I also plan to granite the countertops in the kitchen (8' island, about 12 feet of other countertops) with an overhang on the island so I can use it as an eating surface...about six more inches out.

Non-load bearing walls and beams are for looks and if you don't like the look, you don't have to look at them.

What kind of water heater? Did you replace your water heater? I went tankless. It was worth the great drop in my gas bill. I think my gas bill dropped at least $30 a month because it was no longer reheating standing water. My gas bill in November 2011 was just shy of $90 and in December 2011, it was $153, but I was probably also running the gas fireplace. Now, I don't use the gas fireplace (heat pumps and mini splits with solar) and the tankless water heater, so my gas bill is about $30 a month, but that's also due to a rate increase. It was about $25 a month for years. (I actually went from an electric water heater to a gas tank water heater, then to a gas tankless water heater. I think tankless water heaters weren't a thing back in 1995, when I first bought my house.)