As promised, we got our bids from our contractors over the weekend.  And it wasn’t as bad as we thought…it was worse!!  :(  We knew that it was going to be an expensive reno, but we never guessed it would cost us so much just to get into the house, much less make it look pretty.  To say the least, Charles and I were pretty bummed.  I even had to cancel my chicken and waffles date with the girls because I was in such a horrible mood.  (Did I mention NC State lost too?  NOT a good day!)  After a lot of discussion, Charles and I decided to step away from it for a bit and come back to it on Sunday.

Sunday rolled around, and we felt much calmer and rational about the whole thing.  I created a spreadsheet (yes, I’m a nerd that loves spreadsheets and checklists) to compare the two bids.  Each bid in and of itself was a little depressing.  But we organized our list into the “musts” and the “wants,” then compared the two.  It turns out that if we combine parts of each bid, it leaves us in a much better financial situation.  I have come to terms with the fact that I’m not going to get my dream master bathroom this go-round, but that just means I get to use that entire room as my closet for a while!!  Could be worse, right?  This girl loves a big closet! 

Basically, we are going to have one contractor do the woodwork around the house (including stabilizing the porches, reconstructing the eaves, and replacing the gutter system) and plaster work in the interior, and another do the exterior painting and HVAC work.  There’s a lot more to it than that, but that’s the jist.  When we combined what we want to do, we settled on a plan that leaves us about $10,000 under budget, which will give us a comfortable contingency fund. 

So what’s the next step?  We are setting up an appraisal for hopefully sometime this week.  The appraiser will take our bid and go through the house, appraising it as if every item on the list was done….the floors, the walls, the bathrooms, the kitchen, the entire exterior, etc.  That will give us the figure that we can borrow against.  Just keep your fingers crossed that it’s enough!