Wimping Out

Last month we had a grand plan to rebuild our garage ourselves with some skilled hired help. We checked out all kinds of books on framing to peruse while we designed the building in Google SketchUp so we could submit our plan to the City of Portland.

Mostly final garage plan done in SketchUp

While the design process was fun, it also helped us realize how much we're not up to the task. Even though we were hoping to do this project on the cheap, we also want the garage to be framed and finished correctly. And the carpenter we were talking with also seems to have disappeared; perhaps he's just too busy to pick up his voice mail messages...

So now, with our design in hand, we're looking at Plan B. We've asked a number of contractors to give us estimates for making the project happen. Luckily, we got a pretty good tax refund this month so we were able to bring the budget to a not-entirely-unrealistic number.



Our favorite contractor so far is Autumn Pardee with Sun Dog Construction. We really connected with him and would feel comfortable writing a check and letting him handle it. But, alas, our budget and his estimate are way too far apart...so it's probably not to be.  =(

So we continue to solicit estimates from less experienced and less expensive contractors as we're hoping to get this one hired out as soon as possible. Our goal is to get moved out of the garage in the next four weeks so the project can start shortly after.