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When we bought our house a few years ago, we knew it had some problems. The portico was pulling away from the front of the house, the stove only had two burners that worked, the bathrooms were carpeted (yuck), and there was a busy poltergeist living in the crawl space. Our pest-control company successfully exorcised the poltergeist, and one bathroom’s carpet has been dispatched to a nice farm upstate. However, the portico repairs—which basically entails rebuilding the front of the house—kept getting sidelined.
We knew fixing the house would be hugely expensive, so we hemmed and hawed until we just couldn’t wait any longer. Following the advice of many articles and consumer websites, we sent inquiries out to five different construction companies. (Our goal was to get three bids to compare.) Two of the companies never responded, but three sent contractors to evaluate the project. We were on course to receive exactly three bids. |
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Company A carefully discussed the project with their team (according to their subsequent email) and then decided they weren’t interested. Company B’s owner came to review our work list, spent an hour taking photos and measurements, and then never contacted us again. After being politely dumped and rudely ghosted, our self-esteem was taking a hit. Was our construction “profile” unengageing? Was our house not pretty enough? Was it something we said?
Thankfully, Company C’s owner decided our project wasn’t completely unlovable. Hallelujah! We felt as though we’d finally been right-swiped on a dating app and quickly signed an agreement to cement (no pun intended) our new relationship.
Our recent homework from Contractor C has been to pick out all the things we’ll need for our project, including new exterior paint colors, roofing materials, stone veneer, doors and railings.
We decided to start with paint. If you’ve been to a paint store lately, you know that the choices are overwhelming. We think we’ve settled on Alabaster Mist for our trim, Virtual Taupe for our exterior walls, and either Moth Wing or Smoked Oyster (love the names) for our gables. But, the vast number of paint options has me constantly second guessing if Virtual Taupe is more classic than Urbane Bronze. Will White Sesame weather better than Alabaster Mist? And what if I hate the color combination once it migrates from tiny paint chips to actual walls? Hubby says paint is the easiest thing to fix, but easy doesn’t mean inexpensive. Needless to say, my anxiety level is spiking.
With paint colors settled, we’ve moved on to selecting roofing and stone veneer. There aren’t quite as many options in these categories, so it feels slightly less daunting. The construction process will likely take 6-8 months to complete. So, I’m sure I’ll have more to share as our journey unfolds. |
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