Meeting with the Contractors

This past Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we met with the each of the contractors who will be submitting a bid to build the house. While Ashley's parents watched our boys, we asked and answered a ton of questions.

Some of the things that came up that we hadn't thought about were:

• What type of flooring will be used on the porches? (We decided treated wood)
• Will we use vinyl or wood windows? (Vinyl)
• Will we follow the plan for an open cornice or box it in? (Still thinking)
  
• What type of crown molding do we want to use (Simple, not overstated)
• What type of heating? (We already knew we were going to install a wood-burning stove instead of the fireplace. But we also need to decide if we want to have electric or gas heat)

Meeting with three different contractors meant we got to pick their brains and learn about other choices, too, such as:

• Rinnai tankless water heater
• MiraTEC for exterior columns
• How many recessed lights we want to use
• Having beadboard wainscoting on the stairs (one contractor definitely recommended this as a durability issue with boys--it looks great, too)
  

Although price will play a large factor in who we choose as the contractor, personality and reputation are important, too. All three contractors have built homes for people we know. All three are reputed to do excellent work.

Contractors A and B are the ages of our fathers, while Contractor C is a few years older than us. Contractor A's business is slow right now (meaning he's been chomping at the bit to get started), while B and C have several other projects they're working on. Contractors B and C came to the meeting with more questions and suggestions, while Contractor A seemed to be more likely to place the decision-making in our hands.

Our first meeting (with Contractor A) took 2 hours. I was exhausted (and a little overwhelmed/frustrated) afterward. Even though we had our list of our preferences, we still had plenty of things that needed to be decided. We spent a good bit of time discussing what should be done about the front window heights since we were lowering the ceilings to 9 ft. This was something I thought would be easy and straight-forward; however, Contractor A's nature seemed to be much more of letting us discuss it vs just saying "This is how it should be done." After that meeting, I realized there are some things I am going to have opinions about and there are other things where I'll trust the contractor (or Ashley and contractor) to make the decision.

The meetings with B and C took 45 minutes. It definitely helped to have walked through the plan with the first contractor and have some basic questions answered. We went into the second two meetings knowing much more about the house and our preferences.

Overall, I really enjoyed meeting with the contractors. It really made the fact that we're building the house REAL!

We should have their proposals by the end of this coming week (Oct. 22) or the start of the next.