From the beginning, I expected this to be a long process, but not quite this long. I moved to DC in December, figured I'd start looking at houses in early spring, and hopefully buy one by the end of spring. That gave me a month after buying to figure out contractors and details, hopefully start construction in mid August, be done by the end of September, and move in by November 1st, when my lease expires! Boy was that an optimistic schedule!
I met the first part pretty well, I started looking at houses in time to close by early June. That's when things took longer than planned. I pretty well had the kitchen and bathroom figured out by the end of July, which was part of the plan, but since it turned out there were so many other things to do, too, there were still a ton of decisions to make... Then, meeting with contractors took twice as long as I expected! About 2 months worth of scheduling and meeting and waiting for quotes. By the time I finally got all the quotes and picked my favorite contractor, my cabinets and appliances had already arrived!
Once I finally worked out the contractor details, we had to draft actual plans. I expected that to be a quick process, because it's an existing house, and I knew exactly what I wanted. Ended up taking about a month to figure out the plans once I finally met with the architect. The next step, submitting the permit, got even more complicated... Apparently, the permit office's historical review board felt that the rusty, dented corrugated metal on the garage was historic and needs to be preserved! I'm not sure I fully understand why, but that's holding this up a bit. Until we can work that out, we're splitting the garage and house into two jobs, so that we can at least get started on the house So now, about the time when I originally expected that I'd be just finishing up moving in, we've finally submitted the application to get the building permit! Thankfully, my landlord let me extend my lease several months...
Perhaps a brief timeline of events up to this point would help:
- December - I moved to DC, found a place to rent in Silver Spring until I could figure out further details
- February - Finally sold my place in Atlanta after about 5 months on the market
- March - Met with my realtor in DC to start looking at houses
- Early April - Found a house I liked, made an offer, got outbid by a lot!
- Early May - Found another house I liked, which needed a bit of work, made an offer
- Mid May - After some negotiating, came to a deal, signed the contract
- Early June - Closed on the house!
- Late June - Started meeting with potential contractors at the house to get quotes on what I wanted to do
- July - Spent every weekend at kitchen and bath showrooms to try and pick cabinets, tile, granite, fixtures, appliances, etc.!
- July - Continued meeting contractors to get quotes
- Early August - Ordered cabinets, since they take up to 8 weeks to arrive, ordered appliances too, figured out pricing on the tile, granite, and fixtures to be ordered later
- August - Still meeting with contractors to get quotes, trying to get quotes from the ones I'd already met with!
- Late August - Finally picked a contractor
- Very Early September - Cabinets arrived! Took 4 weeks, instead of 8, and I hadn't even met with the contractor to plan the work!
- Early September - Worked out details with the contractor, who put me in touch with the architect.
- Late September - Multiple meetings with the arcitect
- Early October - Got the first draft of the plans
- Mid October - Finalized the plans
- Late October - Working on getting permits
So now, it's just a matter of waiting for the permit for the house to come through, hopefully by the end of the week, and then we can start work next week! We'll see how the permit for the garage pans out. The contractor told me it would take about 2 months to do the work, so hopefully by the start of the new year, it'll be ready for me to move in!
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