Exterior Quotes/To Do List

Spring has arrived, and with that, a shift in focus from the interior of our new Wayne Home to the exterior.  Although, I guess that's only partially true since as I write this our painters (Galaxy Painting) are at the house painting the exterior front door and trim, as well as some of the things we noticed after we moved in.  Really, the interior touch ups are minor.

TIP: Ask your painter what brand/specific paint color/finish they used for the trim, walls (if you don’t already know,) and front door/trim so that if you ever need to touch it up down the road, you can get an exact match.  We only have a little extra white trim paint and house wall paint left over, so down the road it’ll be good to know what colors were used.  

TO DO LIST / QUOTES:  I'm including prices purely for those out there who are considering building.  There are a lot more costs that come up in addition to just building the house.  For anyone who is a numbers person like I am, it definitely helps to know what you're getting yourself into before you sign the papers to build.   

• GRASS: after getting a quote, we decided to buy a rototiller and do this ourselves.  Not sure what this'll cost us but it has to be significantly less than what we would have been charged to have someone else do it.  We got an estimate for sod, too.  Who affords that stuff?!!???  Surely not the route we're going to take to cover an acre of land! 

          UPDATE: We fought the yard, and the yard won.  It is IMPOSSIBLE to prep an entire acre and spread seed, not to mention watering it.  What were we thinking??!!  And we have a well- how would we ever water all this land???  Sooooo, we are looking at spending around $4,000 to have our lot hydro seeded, no watering necessary.  This is our cheapest quote so far- and you get what you pay for, so not sure what we're going to do.  We're waiting until the fall to make a decision.  Apparently, fall is the best time of year to put in a lawn, that is, if you don't mind spending the entire summer constantly cleaning the dirt tracks off of your floors. Update- we bought a cub cadet and did the work ourselves in the fall.  We still have about 1/2 acre left to do, but grass grew with little effort.  Lots of effort prepping it though.     

• LANDSCAPING: $22,000 (Our landscaper has some amazing ideas and multiple beds, but we'll probably do most of this ourselves a little at a time over the years)  We found a really amazing landscaper, though, who for $300 sat down with us and asked us a bunch of questions (about 30 or so) and from that developed a blueprint of the landscaping he suggests we go with.  The blueprint is the size of our dining room table, and is very detailed.  Everything is labeled, and we can plant things as we can afford them.  Eventually, we will  have things that will be blooming throughout the entire spring/summer/fall all at different times, like a fireworks show.  And it's all low maintenance which was a major priority.  It was worth it to have the ideas, but we probably won't be paying him to do the whole thing.  Unless we win the lottery. 

• ASPHALT DRIVEWAY: $8,500 (this is with a turn-around) Z's Driveway Maintenance out of New Castle

Update: They put in our driveway and left footprints on our newly poured concrete walkway.  They put two dents in our garage trim with their roller, and they chipped the concrete edge going into our garage the ENTIRE way across, AND they shorted us five feet for the area where we were planning to park our jet ski-as of now the jet ski won't fit.  They acknowledged their mistakes and will come back to give us the 5 feet they shorted us, but we're not sure what they plan to do about the rest.  We had to stop payment on their check until they came out and added the extra they shorted us, plus gave us $500 for the damage, which is fair.   Lesson Learned- You get what you pay for.  They were the cheapest.

• CONCRETE WALKWAY/STEPS TO FRONT DOOR: $2,000 and they're doing a patio, too, for that price!  Melnick is doing it.  He's local and has great reviews on HomeAdvisor.  We had to go with a concrete patio in our backyard because no one would bring a concrete mixer to our house for a tiny little walkway/two steps for less than $1200 so we figured at that point, hey, let's put the patio in for the little bit extra it'll cost us! 

Update: He did a beautiful job on our walkway to our front door.  The patio shape turned out amazing, however, the score lines he had his friend put in left chips going the whole way across in both directions.  He's offered to seal the score lines.  He did, and it looks much better.  The finish on the patio isn't amazing but they were so reasonably priced, we can't complain. 

• FENCE: $12,000- for 54'' tall aluminum fencing that covers our entire backyard (we have over an acre of land) and has three gates.  We're getting a great deal, but we figure this is still more than most people spend on fencing, due to the fact that we're needing over 600 feet of it. (Countryside Fence)   

• DECK: Andor, the family, and some friends will be doing this spring 2016.  $17,000 for Trex.  Huge deck wraps around the sunroom.  Wood deck would have been less than 1/3 that cost but would require a ton more upkeep down the road.   

• SHED: $1,500 Andor built it himself.

• SITTING WALL: $2,000 Stone from Nesbits's on Route 8.  Andor built it and even istalled lighting.  It is beautiful!!!

We're realizing it's all going to cost a lot of money.  We knew it would be a lot, but I mean A LOT!  Who knows how to estimate these things if you have no prior experience shopping for them?  Just some things to think about when examining your finances and deciding if you want to build a home where so much is left up to you after the home is built.  



TIP: If you want to have any of the above items paid for with your loan, you have to allow for it in your PPIs when you secure your loan.  We thought we'd have about $10,000 extra to put toward some of this stuff, but it turns out we ran out of money and have to finish paying our excavator out of our own pocket for a large portion of the final grading, French drain where the Wayne Homes drain comes out above ground and creates a swampy mess, rain drains that go underground to back of property, and spreading topsoil from our mountain in the backyard.  That being said, all of the items we're getting quotes for will be coming out of our savings...     

This is our topsoil.  It's a muddy mess right now.  I can't wait to have grass back there again!  

 That stream in the middle of the picture is where we need a French drain.  Wayne Homes went about 50 feet out from the back of our house, but it'll be up to us to do the rest. 

I'll post again later on in the spring/early summer, once we've made some progress on the exterior.  I'll include costs, as well as utility bill averages, and any warranty work, if it comes up.