You Deserve A Detailed Estimate For Your Nashville Remodel

1. Insurance: General liability (GL) insurance covers contractor operations with a possibility of coverage for homeowners and architects. It is worthwhile for homeowners to consult with their own insurance agents to ensure their homeowners insurance doesn’t have exclusions while the home is under construction.
2. Taxes: Courtesy of Uncle Sam, if there is one thing we all have to do in life, it’s paying taxes. Whether it’s sales tax on materials, employee taxes such as social security, or revenue tax, we pay multiple types of taxes for an individual project. 
3. Labor Burden: Workers comp, overtime and medical coverage are just a few “burdens” of labor. Having a fully compliant workforce with proper training is highly beneficial for the homeowner. Benefits, training and compensation are all things that attract top candidates. And isn’t that who you’d like working on your home?
4. Office Work: Typically an office means there are office employees who work on your project by handling all the paperwork. That business regularity is often an indication that paperwork is processed at expected intervals and that there are systems in place to provide consistent customer service.
5. Transportation: From delivering materials to hauling away debris, we often have to rent large equipment such as backhoes and dump trucks.
6. Warranty: Doing our work correctly the first time is a priority for us and a promise to you. That is why we confidently offer a two-year warranty. In the rare occasion that warranty work takes place, it is funded by net profit rather than being a line item. 

So you’ve crafted your dream into a plan, sent your initial drawings to multiple contractors for an initial price comparison and suddenly, reality hits. If your dream plan turns out to be more than you bargained for, there are a few ways you can trim those estimates. 

Value Engineering is the process of assessing cost and function to improve the value of a product. So let’s say you originally wanted your cabinets to stretch to the top of your 12-foot ceiling. Unbeknownst to most people, standard cabinets do not stretch that far, requiring customization and resulting in cabinets that are almost four times the cost of standard cabinets. No matter how large your budget is, every homeowner is faced with making decisions during this process. Although these are very personal decisions, the following questions can be very helpful for the decision making process. 

Determining your must-haves is a great start to the elimination process. It will make it easier to compare the nice-to-haves. Once you have your priorities set, you can shuffle through the rest of the list and remove features knowing you are still getting what is most important to you. 

Everyone has different values. So if you are a wine connoisseur that doesn’t cook often, a wine cooler will serve great function in your home but a top of the line stove may not be necessary. 

The contractor you select can be a big help in working with you and the architects to suggest lower-cost alternatives as your plans develop. Working through these details is a continual, yet worthwhile, process until you reach a finalized plan with all the features and materials specified with a price. You’ll move from initial concept to fully engineered plans over several iterations. Selecting all your materials during this process will go far in making sure that you don’t go over budget later.

If you are feeling puzzled or overwhelmed with costing and budgeting for a home project, Artisan Build Construct is happy to answer any questions you may have to help you through the process when you feel ready. Click here to get started.