Budgets: No Clear Winner
Well, we’ve officially moved into the painful, “lose the frills” phase of the project. Because the cost of the project exceeds our lender requirements, we’ve started hacking and slashing to cut costs. A big portion of these costs? Windows.
Here’s how the math works out:
Removing 8 windows saves us a total of $2400 in costs, plus another $500 in labor. It’s tough to give up the natural light, especially on the south side of the building. However, this is part of the reality of building. Windows are a major expense to any project, and we made the decision to go with fewer windows that were higher quality, rather than a lot of cheap-o vinyl windows. It’s part of my philosophy that we should strive for quality over quantity…even if it means going with “less” for a time.
Here’s a few images of how the building will look with the windows removed:
April 10th, 2008 at 9:38 am
It’s hard to give up natural light, but I totally understand the budget thing. We were at the same place in December and had to make some tough choices. We kept all of our windows, but made some inoperable (much less expensive) and consolidated small windows into larger openings. Now that the windows are in, we could have made some a bit smaller- but we’re happy we kept them all.
Here’s the blog on our window cost reduction exercise:
http://ecodeephaus.blogspot.com/2007/12/one-of-kevins-favorite-books-as-child.html
Good luck! Roxanne
April 10th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Hey Roxanne,
Thanks for the input. It’s so hard for me to cut these sorts of things….one of the big problems I’m having right now is that financing has gotten incredibly tight. So, while a year ago this sort of project would have been a slam dunk, it;s difficult to find money to fund the thing. Several lenders have flat out rejected it, while others have said they *might* do the project *if* we can get the costs way down.
Rocks and hard places! that’s my life right now.
Thanks for the link!
Shawn