On friday (Dec 3) morning Nicole & I had our Tothburg structural appointment with Tiffany at the design center. We were there for about 4 hours and Tiffany was helpful and also very patient with us. She went into more detail in answering most of our questions which were non-structrual in nature.
Our upgrade price sheet is currently over-our-budget and we've already cut things (deleted the open stairs to basement we wanted which was a biggy) and also took out some obvious ones like Bell/Cable hookups (will get buildinghomes.ca to do it for us after), shower door, fireplace mantel, etc.. Take a look at our "list" at
http://rick.dilorenzo.com/upgrades.htm
Questions..
(1)
Plywood Subfloors (upgrade to 5/8" plywood subfloors in lieu of standard OSB). This is
$2621 for the Tothburg. We're only planning on having hardwood floors in the upper hallway & common room. And the hardwood flooring we are planning (Bruce Natural Refelections) already includes 3/8" plywood subfloor! Tiffany mentioned it's still good to get this upgrade, lowers squeeks etc through house. Any comments? Especially others who may have gotten standard OSB instead? If most of the house is carpet, and you are not planning on going hardwood floor in most of the house do you really need this? What are the benefits?
(2)
Kitchen countertop upg to Group 3 Granite is $9761 for Tothburg. Some people mentioned doing granite counter-tops after through a third-party contractor. How much would you actually save? The tothburg has a lot of counter space. Could another contractor easily take the old countertop off and put a new one in seamlessly making the finished kitchen look just as good if Mattamy did it all themselves? Any ideas on what reputable company/contractor could do this and what type of savings are we talking about over mattamy's $9761 cost? Mattamy also charges around $8500 for "lower" group granite selections.
(3) Energy efficient windows. Tiffany mentions there's an upgrade for the windows to bring them from R1 to R2 levels? We forgot to add this to our wish list and get the price. Anyone doing this upgrade?
(4)
Apply earthstone stain to 1 stairclase $941.60 Lot of people said do this after yourselves but I wouldn't trust myself to do a good job, so would want a contractor, and would be worried about them matching the stain properly to the floor. Any thoughts? This is something we'd want right away, just see-sawing between having Mattamy do it or hire someone else to come in and do it the first week after we move in.
(5)
Upgrade to Trim pack 2 plus the 5.5" baseboard ($2.8k + $1.6k = $4536.46 for Tothburg) Ouch! But what would it cost to hire someone right away to rip out all our old trim (or get mattamy to put none in) and put in bigger-sized better-looking (2.75" step casing & 5.5" step or colonial baseboard) trim? And then also painting it white (which mattamy would already do of course since we are going standard white (crappy) paint).
(6)
Looking at either the small ($2000) or large ($3544 maybe) moulding on the kitchen cabinets (AYA). Anyone look into if this is something that after we move in (post-closing) we could hire Aya to do directly? Would there be savings? We like the look of the large mouldings around the aya cabinets but for Aya Group 5 the moulding cost is either $3544 or more (not sure yet) through Mattamy.
(7)
Insulated Garage ceilings with foam insulation $1864 Tiffany didn't mention this but we saw it on the big price list she gave us when we got home. The Ensuite Bathroom is right over the garage. So if there is an upgrade for this, it means that normally there is no insulation for the ensuite bathroom? The floor would get fairly cold during the winter since the Garage itself isn't insulated?? Any past Tothburg owners who can comment on this? I assume this is something you could easily do-yourself after you move in? (or hire someone).
Question we've asked Tiffany and she's finding out for us is WHY would the moulding or elite upgrades cost more when moving up each aya group level? It doesn't make sense for some of group differences. I.e. if you had Aya Group 3 Vermont in Cherry/Espresso or Aya Group 5 Charleston in Cherry/Espresso it SHOULD be the same price for moulding/elite upgrade. Because the wood is the same, the finish is the same, the only difference is the door shape/style which wouldn't make any difference to the moulding or interior elite upgrade. They would be doing the identical same thing, same material, same finish. The outside door style shouldn't affect the moulding price. It would be more the finish/wood that should affect moulding prices (i.e. blackened espresso moulding would probably be more than normal espresso, same thing with glazed versus non glazed, or oak wood versus cherry). Anyone else ask this question??
We may just do zero-kitchen-cabinet upgrades and have it all done after through an outside contractor. Still looking at pros/cons. But if we have a big list of "things to do third-party after" it means after we move in our weekends won't end up being free for a loooong time. We'll be spending our time looking/talking to contractors and having someone available to let them in the house to do work on weekdays while we're not home, etc...