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Porch progress
I am creating this post in case any of you are interested in our front porch progress 
.
Back story--As you know, it's been quite the process! We have been planning to build a front porch on our house since we purchased it 9 years ago. Three years ago, we started really lining out plans for what we wanted. We got some bids at that time and realized it was going to cost a lot more than what we thought. So, we had to put it off to get the financing in order. In March of this year, we started fresh getting bids and found a fantastic contractor who was available right away! Unfortunately, the first thing he did was find out that we would have to get a city variance before we could even build a porch because of setback rules.
It took us a couple of months to get the variance approved because we had to have our lot surveyed, submit a bunch of paperwork, yada yada. Anyways, our variance was approved in June. However, our contractor was booked! Actually, his concrete subcontractor. While we were working on getting a variance, the concrete companies in town were playing catch up because we had a lot of rain. Sooo.....we have been working with our contractor to iron out when we could start on the project. We'd really like to get it finished before the snow flies! Last week, H checks in with the contractor and we find out that they will be able to pour the concrete sometime in September, but they don't have an exact date for us. Well, we have a bit of demolition work to do and H is going to be out of town hunting for the first 3 weeks in September, so we had to get our demo work done this weekend!
To make a long story slightly less long, we spent 8 hours today in 96 degree weather, covered in protective gear from head to toe (because our old siding contains asbestos) painstakingly removing siding from the front of our house. Here's what it looks like now:
If you look towards the middle of the top half, you can see the original roofline of the house. It used to be a tiny railroad track house until it was moved to its current location in 1937 and expanded. Tomorrow, H is going to rent a jackhammer to bust up the concrete stairs so we can get those out of the way. Our contractor dropped his dump trailer off at our house so we could use it for demo.
Re: Porch progress
Construction has (finally) begun!
Sooo......we just had a huge bomb dropped on us regarding the porch. In order to get the building permit approved by the city, they are requiring our contractor to extend the concrete 1ft. below grade, and also to pour 4 42" concrete cylinders below that in order to support the weight of the porch. The grand total for that pleasant little addition is....wait for it.....$3900.
This is total overkill. We are frustrated and so is our contractor. He typically builds new construction outside of city limits, so he really had no idea that this was going to come up. We can't be mad at him for it. He feels that the city requiring this is absolutely ridiculous. That being said, there's nothing we can do--either we suck it up and come up with the money, or tell them to fill in everything they've done and put the project off again. Which isn't really an option because we would have to pay for their demo/excavation anyways so it would be a waste of money at this point.
We haven't quite decided how to handle this. Originally, if we were a little bit over budget, we were going to use a credit card with a 0% offer to pay the difference and then pay it off as soon as possible. However, $3900 isn't 'a little' over-budget. I am thinking that we might cash in our CD (considered our e-fund) to cover it. That would leave us without money in the bank for an e-fund, but as most of you know on this board, I'm in the minority of feeling okay without a large e-fund anyways.
Can anyone think of options I haven't considered?
We could do the 0% credit card w/ a promotional period until January of 2017. I think we could pay it off by then, but I'm not 100% sure. We're going to have to crunch some numbers tonight.
If we cashed out the CD, I think it would probably take us about 6 months to replace it. Maybe less. Again, we need to crunch some numbers and reconfigure the budget we had put in place based off of our original porch cost.
Both of these options could happen a lot faster if I get a bonus in the spring, but that is really up in the air so I don't want to consider it as part of our decision.
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So lame!!! I'm sorry to hear that. Ugh, it is such a drag when unexpected construction costs rear their ugly head.
I agree with @simplyelise and @hoffse. I'd talk to the contractor about how he can help you out with the additional cost of the work. Unless you pulled the permits and you gave him the specifications, this is something he should have known about or found out about before giving you all a quote. I certainly don't think he should eat all of it, but he should do what he can to give you a break on the additional work.
I also think you should split the extra cost up between your 0% interest credit card and your e-fund. But I would still get the work done. Or, at the very least, get the work done up to a point where it could sit in "status quo" while you saved up more money to finish it. But paying for work that was already done just to pay more money to put it back again, just doesn't make sense to me unless it is truly a fairly low cost overall.
Thanks everybody for the feedback! We have decided to go the route of charging it at 0% interest until January 2017. When we reviewed our finances, we realized that we had more saved in our porch fund than I initially thought, so we will only be about $2500 over. Of course, that's assuming we don't have any OTHER surprises. This means that we won't touch our e-fund. Like many of you, I don't consider this an 'emergency' in the e-fund sense; that was more of a knee-jerk reaction to "holy crap, where are we going to come up with that much money?"
We are not paying the whole amount in cash, we used a $20,000 line of credit that we will be making payments on. Most of you know, I am not debt-averse, and we put a lot of thought into this and actually reconfigured our entire budget around paying this off. Putting the additional $2500 on a card just means it will take a few months longer to pay off the whole porch.
Our contractor is going to work with us throughout the whole project to determine if there are other places/ways we can cut back or save money without compromising the design that we want. He understands what a blow this was to our budget. I do agree that he should have at least had some idea that this was a possibility; my initial reaction was to be mad but H and I really like the contractor and have seen him produce some really high-quality work, so we're trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.
In happier news--when I left for work this morning, it looked like they were starting to build the concrete forms!
We have concrete! They did our pour today. We were pleased to see that they did all one pour so we won't have to wait multiple times for the concrete to dry. We chose to have the concrete tinted; the base color that we chose was called 'oregano'; it was sort of a tannish-grey w/ just the slightest glint of green. The top coat was 'nutmeg'. In the end, the finished project is sort of a light mocha color that we are absolutely in love with!
I'm not sure what's next or what the rest of the timeline looks like because H has been the one talking w/ the contractor and I haven't had a chance to catch up with him yet today for an update. I imagine the rest of the project will move fairly quickly. We are going to have wood beams going up to a roof that shadows the roofline of the house, and faux wrought-iron railings. Also new siding on the front of the house.
Extra special bonus: When H was talking w/ the concrete foreman yesterday, he indicated that the concrete price might have come out a couple hundred dollars under what the bid was. So that would be really swell!
@als1982--one of our wish list items was 6' wide steps/sidewalk. I hated our old stairs, when H and I and our two big dogs would all arrive at the front door at the same time and have to jostle around to get in the door. These steps are easily wide enough for two people--or one of us with our arms full of groceries
Well, hmmm....I wish I had some exciting news or photos to share of our front porch, but other than removing the forms from the concrete, nothing else has been done. There was about a week and a half downtime while they waited for the concrete to totally firm up before building. Then, when the crew showed up to start construction, they discovered that the lumber company had delivered the wrong size main beam. They can't proceed without that beam because there would be nothing to attach to. Now we are just waiting to hear from the lumber company when the replacement will be here. It is a special order 24 ft. beam. It was supposed to be here yesterday and we haven't seen/heard anything. I feel like this project has turned into a nightmare...............and we saw our first snowflakes yesterday. Now I'm just moping and whining to all of you about it
This isn't a great picture because it was dark when I got home from work, but I couldn't wait to share--we finally have some progress!!! It is really amazing we haven't gotten snow yet; crossing our fingers that winter holds off a little bit longer! You CO peeps can keep it down there for awhile
Alright, I can't wait any longer! There are still several odds and ends that need finished up (trim work, railing repair, etc. etc.) and the concrete seal/backfill will not be able to be completed until spring because it's too cold. But here's what it looks like! We haven't paid the contractor yet, and we will not pay him until all the finishing details are complete. We have agreed to pay for everything minus the concrete seal/backfill since it won't be done until spring. I am not going to pay for that and then four months from now he doesn't come back or something.
It has been a really trying process and the contractor has terrible communication skills. We definitely won't be using him for any of our future projects. However, we are very pleased with the final product.
The total after additions and discounts comes to $24,788. We used a $20,000 LOC to finance the bulk of the porch, and borrowed an additional $3,000 at 0% on a credit card when we found out about the concrete addition. We have already paid about $2K of the total off. Our plan is to pay the credit card off by the end of this year (probably sooner) and then focus on LOC payments. We would like to pay it off in two years so that the LOC is available for our next big project. (As most of you know, we are not debt-averse).