condo upgrades are ridiculous!!!
 

I have officially bought a condo! Totally excited about it. But seriously, the upgrades are out of control! Listen to how much these things cost!

Natural hardwood is not considered an upgrade, but to have it stained a colour costs $750!!! WHAAAAATTTT?

To have hexagon mosaic tile on the bathroom floor instead of just standard 12 inch tile is a $600 upgrade! SERIOUSLYYYYY???!!!

For granite countertops in the kitchen, they are saying $4500. AS IFFFF!!! Apparently, you can get granite countertops for like $2000.

To upgrade to stainless steel appliances in the kitchen, it's $1500 and to have a stainless steel microwave hoodfan, it's $650. REDICKKKK!!!

Not sure if you cared or not, but I can't believe how much they charge for these upgrades!

ONE LAST THING!!! THIS IS THE DOOZY! To have a feature wall, meaning a wall that is a different colour than the others, they want $500! FOR ONE WALLLLLLL!!!

I will paint it for $400. :D

:laugh:
exactly.
those upgrades do seem outrageously expensive. :shocked: The upgrading to stainless steel seems like the best deal, though. I'm not sure how many appliances that involves? but I think I would want that. And since I don't know how to install kitchen things I'd probably pay for that one. Anything that has the word "stainless" in it, I'm a sucker for, though. :D

Just roll the cost of the upgrades into your mortgage... you probably won't even notice it in your monthly payments. But yeah, those prices are pretty outrageous. It's like buying a car and paying for all of the extra little things.

So, wanna come to Calgary and to the job?! :wavey: Seriously though! That is for ONE WALL!!! I can't believe how lame that price is! But whatever. It is what it is. And I don't like feature walls anyway!

For ****s and giggles, I went online to check out the sitch on the price of stainless verses white or black. They really aren't that much more. I priced them out at around $150 -$300 per appliance. But those might have been crappy appliances. I didn't invest that much time. The kitchen includes fridge, stove and dishwasher. So, a maximum of $900 for the upgrade. Yet, they're charging $1500. I have to stop talking about this. I'm gonna barf!

Totally. I priced out the difference between just the basic condo verses with all my upgrades (which there are TONS of) and it's only a difference of around $50 per month. So, piece of piss really.

and now to play the devil's advocate: i own a remodeling company and can pretty much give you a price for anything that can be done to a residence. the first thing that people don't realize is that i pay a ridiculous insurance premium for every hour that every employee works. workers comp, liability, taxes, licenses... all adds up. for a guy that makes $15/hr, he actually costs me $41/hr. that gets rolled in to the price. and that's a fairly low wage. anyways:

if it is a new installation, they may have purchased one color in bulk. if you want a different color, you pay a different price. specialty pergo flooring goes for roughly $arm+leg/room fully installed.

you can get basic 12" tile for $1sf or $4sf installed. with a specialty tile, the price of that tiling can go upwards of $10sf. grouting a smaller hex tile also takes a lot longer, and uses more material. just today i put down a 16'x21' floor with 2" webbed mosaic tiles. 336sf of 12" tiles would have been done before lunch as it is 336 tiles. however, as the owner was kind enough to pick out the tiling, if it wasn't webbed it would be something like 8 thousand tiles. do you know how much grout that was... i will forever hate this homeowner.

you can purchase a granite ctop for that. then you have to pay to have it professionally cut ($200 or more) and delivered (very heavy) and installed (four hours labor = ton of money)

i didn't type this out to be a cow about it or to tell you that you're wrong, more to help you see that you're not being ripped off. at least no more than anyone else.

oh and as for the feature wall: one man to paint a, we'll say 14'x10' wall... that takes half an hour to prep, fifteen to prime, thirty to let dry, twenty to paint, thirty to dry, twenty to paint, half an hour to clean up... 3 hours = $150 for the guy plus $50 for material plus $150 profit plus $50 for the hell of it. why, jim hit it right on the mark ;)

That was amazingly helpful! I really appreciate your taking the time to explain all these upgrades for me. As a graphic designer, I am constantly struggling with clients to justify my pricing. I have to explain my process CONSTANTLY! So, I really, truly appreciate your taking the time to explain this stuff to me!
:xoxo:

Two of my neighbors have stainless steel refrigerator and stoves in their condos. One neighbor said she uses this special spray to clean the refrigerator. The other neighbor's refrigerator looked all streaky and smeary last time I was over there. I think they might be hard to keep clean. So perhaps it's a good thing to take a pass on those upgrades. ;)

Laura

Yeah, word on the street is they are kinda a bitch to keep clean, but they are so beautiful! I think they have special coatings on stainless now to help with cleaning. Not sure though. I guess I'll find all this out when I move in. I for sure have to have stainless. In all the condos I looked at, the ones with stainless in the kitchen looked AMAZING. Thanks though!

If you are brave, you can find a jack of all trades who can stain and finish your floors for probably $10 an hour. I suggest going to Home Depot (if you have one) early in the morning and hiring one of the guys standing out in front waiting for a job.

For the appliances, I would go to Scratch and Dent - usually a Sears Outlet - and ceck out what they have. I have lucked out and gotten a $3,000 refrig. for like $1,000 because the side panel was damaged, which did not matter because no one ever saw that part of it because it was built in.

As for the granite, Home Depot does a great job and is reasonable. But, if you can find a solo granite man, all the better for you.

The thing about paying the condo upgrade fees is you are paying extra for the convenience of not having to secure the labor and materials yourself, which is worth it to some people. I have done more than one renovation, so I learned that I can secure the labor and materials just as easily as paying someone else to do it.

Good Luck!!!!

LOL - where ere you in my life four years ago :xoxo: :xoxo: :xoxo: I coulda used ya!!!!

LOL - was it white or dark grout. At least with white grout the water bucket does not have to changed as often as the dark grout. I once grouted a kitchen with white 12x12 and dark gray grout - AND the place had no running water so I had to carry the MOTHER FUC*ING bucket to the basement like every ten minutes :eek: But, the floors turned out great though it took me over two days to do the 20x18 room :laugh: