Making the "Bacon Race" Theater - Page 55

Yeah I am already mentally preparing myself for the cost we probably can't pay for. We will likely need to figure out how to work it in stages. We could probably do the whole thing in another year, but my wife isn't good with the whole "wait" thing.

Well fortunately it won't sneak up on me. My neighbor did quite a lot of pool work and gave me the entire run down of not just his costs, but how horrible pool companies are in general with delays, additional fees, etc. I don't expect it to be cheap by a longshot. I already know I won't be able to do the whole plan as rendered at once. Will probably start with the pool work itself, which will likely be $60-80k. It's not a huge pool, but there will still need to be the rear-wall excavation work as well as the pool digging due to the fact it goes up against a hill. Then at a minimum we will have to do the stamped concrete. It will probably be around $10 sq/ft or so, give or take. So that will probably be $20-40k just for the flat part. Then you have the additional stonework for the firepit, fireplace, staircase, and the built-in kitchen area... that will all be extra. We will have to put off things like the landscaping, fence, and maybe things like the pavailion/fireplace until next year probably. I'd guess the entire thing would cost over $200k as rendered... at least I'm sure the quote from the pool company to do the whole thing will be that amount easily. It might even top $300k since they will charge more than contracting it out individually would. We're buying a copy of the design plan from them, and then will call companies like Graystone Mansonry, which we have used before, for the hardscaping quote on the concrete. We will likely call another pool company too to get a 2nd estimate on the pool. It wont be cheap no matter who does it.

We have no HOA in our neighborhood. That is a HUGE plus.

As far as the county, well yes, there is a county code provision. But when does that get enforced? Construction doesn't have to be labelled as complete. No one can force you to finish construction. You need to draw all of that to obtain the permit, as far as making sure it obeys rules for distance from the house, well, septic, properly lines, and how drainage works. I know we will have to get the fence put in, it's mostly timing.
Edited by damelon - 1/17/13 at 6:44am

I'm sure that when we call to get the pool added to the policy it will be a provision. I won't know until I call! They might not insure it until there is a fence, or it might just cost more until there is one.
Edited by damelon - 1/17/13 at 7:41am

No, putting it off as long as I can get away with is in no way my goal. If we have to break down the construction into pieces then it just might have to not be immediately done at the same time. We can't do the patio before the pool, we can't do the fence before the patio. Things have to go in a certain order. I'm not implying I want to wait on it. Also, I don't have "neighborhood kids" either. There are no sidewalks or things like that in my neighborhood. All of the lots are 3-5 acres. I didn't even have a single trick-or-treater for each of the last 2 years. I fully plan on putting the fence in as soon as I can, hopefully at the time of everything else but possibly later in the year if we can't immediately afford it.
Edited by damelon - 1/20/13 at 9:09am

No, and I didn't ask either. But yeah, I was quite surprised by their display. The other best buy's I had been to had crappy gear and their theater rooms were no more than a projector and a screen. I really like the wood paneling they had. Stained wood in a theater room just looks classy. Even if it is just a little bit of trim, it adds a lot to the look of the room.

I purchased my rack from B&H Photo and Video. You can get them from a lot of places. It is a middle atlantic rack. The type and model is up to your specific needs.

The door, i got on ebay for a great price. It's an easy mount. There are holes on the front of the rack, You just screw the mount bracks into the holes and then the door slips right onto them. Takes a few minutes to do.

So I got the pool quote today. I laughed. A lot. The estimate from the pool company for the whole project was....... $420,000. I'd put a shotgun to my face and pull the trigger before I paid anything close to that. Their line items were even funnier.... that outdoor pavilion, without the fireplace, they listed at $84,000!!! It's just 4 posts and a roof! That's worse than the initial offers you get from the worst car salesmen!

The company was Lewis Aquatech. We loved their designs, and their reviews were better than most. None of our neighbors used them though and about 40% of the people in our neighborhood have pools. Most used Blue Haven, or Town and Country. We like their design, but I think pool companies are a lot like home builders when it comes to what is worth it. Traditional advice when building a home, is that anything involving structure, like bump outs, are relatively cheap since builders build. But when you ask them to do other things that are subcontracted out, you pay a huge premium. I think the same is with the quote. The pool price itself wasn't too far off from what I expected, but some of their other line items were a joke. I'd like the dimensional plan from them, but with all of the 3d renders we got from them, we could probably get a lot of estimates using those renders alone.

We absolutely plan to sub out the concrete work. We were going to have Graystone give us a quote on that as they did my wife's patio at her last house and did a good job. As soon as we get plans we were going to start asking for individual estimates, so I would always be interested in another company's quote.

I'm a little confused as to what you mean by "riser depth in TWO locations". I only have one riser! It is 7'6" deep from the drywall. Since the treatments were 4" deep and the columns on top of that stick out a ways, I should have made my riser more like 4" deeper from the back drywall to the front of the riser. It's pretty close to perfect but a tiny more room would have been better.

As far as distances from the rows, the front row is 12' or so (give or take 6 inches) from the screen and the back row is 18' or so (give or take 6 inches) from the screen.

From the front row, the screen size on a widescreen movie is absolutely perfect for me. Enveloping but not overwhelming. From the rear row, I'd like the screen to be a little bigger.

So we got our second quote. Our original estimat included everything other than the landscaping and was quoted 419k by the pool company who designed the plan.

This estimate was for all of the work other than the pool, the retaining wall directly connected to the pool, and the fence. It came to 115k. This seems like a much more realistic number to me, though the number still seems big, it is a lot of concrete and masonry work. That is almost the entire estimated cost of the pavailion + the fireplace form the original quote LOL. Pretty much halved the total cost of the project overnight. Going to call a few pool companies and get them to cost out the pool work alone. The fence of course we will need to get estimated by a fencing company.