Tweaking the Plans and Budget Crunching

Met with Bob today. Made many of the changes that I noted in my last entry. notably:

1) shifting down master suite entry door
2) slightly increasing pantry and mud room closet width
3) putting exit door out back of garage
4) move the closet in the guest bed downstairs
5) added vent to mechanical room
6) pocket door bedroom closet
7) moved laundry tub in garage toward the back wall

Also went through and semi-finalized window placement, sizes, etc. Also in the upstairs we moved the door that accesses the deck. It was in the corner, we centered it in the room. Thought if it was over in the corner it would block a potential places for a chair, plus, it would make for an odd traffic pattern from the kitchen when grilling, etc. Also Bob added in the exposed beams in the great room. They are beautiful! (well, as beautiful as computer-generated graphics can be I guess!)

A lot of our conversation today was about the budget. Bob doesn't have all the bids in, but has crunched the numbers and (not surprisingly) we are well over the budget number we hoped to hit. and this is the "adjusted" budget number. Well I guess we knew this was coming. So we talked a lot about different things that could get cut. Top candidates right now are:

1) fireplace in master bedroom. Would still frame out the outer wall to easily take a fireplace, and run the gas line and electric for it. But we just wouldn't put one in. Even before today, we kind of debated if we even wanted one in there anyway so it felt like a good thing to cut out.

2) Go with pre-finished doors and trim throughout the house. The negative here is that there are very few choices in stain color, but one of them we actually liked ("toffee") so we almost assuredly will go with pre-finished.

3) no hot tub -- this was always a consideration even before the budget discussion. we just wanted to make sure we had a nice spot for one (which we will). Still would run the required electrical. So the hot tub is out for now, and can always work it back in if the numbers work out next spring and/or we get a good deal.

4) The big decision will be geothermal vs dual fuel. Bob is guessing that this house, based on window quality, position relative to sunlight, and protection on the North side from cold, that our heating bills may be fairly low even without the geothermal. On the other hand tax credits for the geothermal are really good now. But it would actually be easy to add this later if we didn't do it now (we'd just be out the cost of one boiler that we wouldn't need -- about $2000). This will be our biggest debate. Bob is getting the plans evaluated by an energy expert and we'll have a better feel for the potential monthly savings with geothermal, probably mid next week.

some other options are:
1) drop the workshop -- but this is something we really want, that would actually be more expensive to do later and/or would end up being a separate non-heated building. Just doesn't seem to make sense to cut this.
2) beam work -- boy I think Christina would rather not even build the house than drop the beam work in the great room and the front porch area.
3) drop the large cabinet that will hold the home theater screen, equipment, etc in the family room. uhhh, that ain't gonna happen.

There were some other things too but these were the major ones. In the end this is a good exercise to go through, even if we weren't over budget. No need to spend money on stuff (plus 30 years of interest) that you aren't sure you really want, and would be easy to add later.

Hope to get revised plans soon, but they aren't much different that the last ones. I'm sure we will meet with Bob again next week to move this thing along.