Oak Floors
a type of hardwood flooring made from oak trees, which are known for their strength and durability
Let’s talk about wood floors.
Actually, I don’t really have much to say about wood floors; what I do have is a story of how we went from a $12,000 project to a $70,000 project in the blink of an eye.
It all started when the homeowner said she wanted to upgrade her home without starting a gut renovation project. The idea was to keep most of the walls in place, and renovate the bathrooms and kitchen, along with some new plumbing, electrical, and fresh paint. We discussed sanding the existing wood floors to bring them back to life.
However, after the contractor finished the initial demo and we brought in the flooring company, their immediate recommendation was to remove all the floorboards and install new floors. They explained we had several issues – for one, the original floors had been sanded numerous times before, which made them very thin. Some of the boards were also splintering and splitting, and there were loose and protruding nails throughout the apartment. This was NOT the kind of flooring that was worth salvaging.
We agreed to take the recommendation of the professionals and braced for impact as we waited for the revised pricing.
The General Contractor had originally estimated around $12,000.00 for sanding and sealing the existing floors. After we met with the wood flooring contractor, we received an updated bid for $61,000.00 which included:
$5,000.00 to remove existing flooring
$2,000.00 to nail down all the existing sub-flooring
$1,000.00 to install plywood wherever we had gaps in the sub-floors
$3,000.00 to supply soundproofing material to go underneath the wood planks
$35,600.00 to supply and install 1,800 square feet of Rift & Quartered White Oak 18” Long x 2¼” Wide in a Herringbone pattern
$9,000.00 to sand and seal the floors after installation
$5,400.00 in sales tax – YES, you pay sales tax on this type of work in New York City
Now, in addition to this, the General Contractor was paid $3,000.00 for installing plywood on top of the sub flooring and installing the soundproofing. Lastly, due to sequencing issues and project delays, the wood floor company requested an additional $6,000.00 for doing 4 different mobilizations and adding border details that had not been designed prior to their proposal.
So that’s how this project budget increased $58,000.00 in one site visit!
On the other hand, agreeing to replace all the floors opened up the project to more possibilities; in the end, this allowed us to move walls, create a better flow of the space, and take care of random corners and mistakes that were done years ago and wouldn’t do justice to this beautiful apartment. To read more about the gut renovation process, head to the previous post.
Next week I’ll talk about how we got the kitchen installed before we ever had some ceilings framed – crazy, I know – but as I’ve always said, in construction you need to be ready to adapt at all times.
xx
Luciana