Asking Contractors & H.T. builders/owners - "ballpark" cost of our project?

[garyrc]

We're seeking a way to see if we can afford this.

I know there is at least one contractor on the forum, and many of you have hired contractors to put in, or help put in, home theaters or music rooms. We're trying to get a rough idea -- a plausible range (nothing more accurate) -- of what it would cost to get professionals to remodel an existing room into a specific kind of combination music room / home theater / library, in Oregon -- or in your state (please specify, and I'll try to adjust that figure, quite approximately, by comparing regional cost of living data). The room would have no fancy aesthetics, and none of the visible trappings of home theater (decorative lamps, wall designs, etc.), but would have to be built to our specs as to proportions, and be rigid (for Klipschorns as main spks), relatively earthquake safe, and not rattle (even with super-bass from K-horns and a 15" subwoofer). We realize that we will need a permit, approval by an engineer, and perhaps someone to draw better plans than our skill level will allow.

We've decided we are not skilled or physically fit enough to do the work except for the kinds of finish work that creaky older people can do -- painting, putting up some bookshelves, diffusers, absorbers, the projector, screen, and audio equipment, staining window frames (yes, there will be 4 windows with blackout shades), etc. We are wondering if this job would cost nearer $40K, $50K, $60K or $70K for labor + materials. We're also wondering what the approximate cost per square foot might be.

Here are the provisions:

1) No equipment included in the price -- we would have a separate equipment budget, and use most of the equipment we already have. We are also not counting features such as electrically operable blackout shades at this time.

2) The room size (dictated by the current room and roof) would be about 17' x 25' with a ceiling that would vary in height from about 8' to almost 13.'

3) The existing ceiling is much too low, and is the worst thing about the room, audio wise. It (sheet rock, joists etc.) would have to be taken off, and a new system put in to hold up the existing roof in the "A " shaped front half, so that new sheet rocking (and insulation) could be applied, making the new ceiling follow the "A" shape of the front part of the roof. We're visualizing 2x 6s being sistered along the existing 2 x 4 roof members to make room for the needed insulation, while still allowing maximum ceiling height. The front half of the ceiling would start at about 8 feet and go to about 10' at the peak of the "A." The rear half of the ceiling is would not be "A" shape, and would slope up, following the roof, to a height of about 13.' Some appropriate wiring would need to go to the projector location, and to track lighting.

4) The floor in the front half would need to be taken off, and replaced -- two layers of 3/4" plywood would be fine -- no fancy hardwood flooring needed, because it will be totally covered by carpeting -- that's what's there now, but the plywood is floppy (put in by a former owner). The joists look good and firm. While the floor is off, the foundation bolts should be given the larger, modern, more earthquake safe washers and nuts, shear walling installed in the corners and mid wall area of the crawl space, the air conditioning ducts moved away from the front half of the room where they put convection currents in front of the speakers (a "no no," we gather), and new 20 Amp or greater wiring routed to the subwoofer location, and to the main audio system location. No speaker wires need to be strung; we have that covered.

5) The sheetrock would need to be taken off of the side walls, and the framing inspected. One large window on each side would have to be taken out, some of the area framed in, and these two windows replaced with smaller, beefy, double glazed ones. We will deal with the blackout shades. Near the front of the room, for five feet (only) out from each of the two front corners, where the Klipschorns will live, we would like additional studs inserted between the existing ones, making the resulting studs 8" on-center, rather than 16" as is the case now. We did this in a former house, and got much improved bass and impact/attack from the Klipschorns. If this costs too much, we might get talked out of it, if the walls can be made very rigid some other way. The side walls would then be covered with 2 layers of 5/8 sheetrock (staggered seams), or 3/4 plywood for shear strength, if the code permits, and then just 1 layer of sheetrock. In the rear portion of the room, the walls would have to be extended upward to join the sloping ceiling/roof. Now here's the quirky part. You thought you already read the quirky part? In the front of the room, where the main speakers and roll-down screen would be, we would like to have a baffle wall about 5' high (and 17' wide) built about 21" into the room from the front wall. It would have 8" O.C. 2 x 6 studs and 3/4" plywood front and back. It would join the side walls, providing strong corners for the Klipschorns, and our Belle Klipsch center channel would be embedded -- flush mounted -- in that baffle wall. Above the 5' high level, where the baffle wall ends, there would just be open space (a few studs would go all the way to the ceiling for added strength) with a deep space (from the baffle wall to the original wall) in which we could place various diffusers and/or absorbers by ear, then the whole baffle wall, the Belle (its own grille cloth taken off) and the empty space above would be covered with somewhat acoustically transparent grille cloth (prob Acoustone FR 93). We would handle putting in the non-resonant decorative trim which will divide the space into fabric coverable areas. From the room, with the proper lighting, and everything behind the proper color (experiments are favoring the "theatre black" to match the non-reflective black Belle), this arrangement would look like a fabric covered wall, that would be partly obscured by the movie screen when it is rolled down.

6) We would probably want a new (additional) power box (a ____ amp main) in the garage, dedicated to the audio equipment.

What do you think this would set us back?

[DrWho]

Wow, that's quite a bit of work [] I'll be interested to see how this turns out.

[dkp]

Garyrc,

I would think that your best course of action would be to contact a number of contractors local to you (by referral only) and have them provide you with a detailed estimate of cost of goods and labor for the various projects you have described above. Houses each have their own issues that need to be worked around and can often impact the price of the job significantly so a general estimate from someone who has only read a description of the project may be difficult. I am not a contractor, but whenever we have needed someone to do work on our home they have wanted to come out and take a look, even at some of the most simple projects, for the reason I mentioned above. I don't want to discourage you from investigating this on the forum, only mention this to you as a consideration. Have you thought about having someone come out for a look?

-David

[garyrc]

We did contact two contractors a couple of months ago and informally discussed the project with them.

One produced a ballpark guess of $40,000, "+ or -" and the other guessed at somewhere around $75,000 or more, saying that we wanted Cadilac quality construction, and that it would be cheaper to add a whole new room, foundation, roof, and all, than to make the changes we were asking for, while leaving the roof, foundation, framing, siding, etc, alone, except for adding some rigidity near the Klipschorns. We don't have the land to add a room, and we assume that tearing down the existing room and starting over would cost even more, plus creating disposal problems. We thought we were asking for Chevrolet level construction, with the normal West Coast earthquake safeguards (intermittent shear walls in crawl, good nuts/washers on the foundation bolts), plus staggered seam double sheet rock (or sheetrock + plywood, for shear strength), to decrease the amount of midrange and treble the neighbors could hear (stopping the deep bass is beyond our budget). We wondered afterward if this particular contractor had a different hourly rate for "Cadilac" jobs than for "Chevy" jobs.

Everyone agreed we needed detailed drawings (but probably not professionally drawn blueprints), but in the course of laboriously producing the drawings, we realized that we didn't know how elaborate we could get, because we had no idea if we could afford the any of the more elaborate designs. We felt the need to get some outside indication of what would be a fair and realistic range of prices for the job (new readers, please see my original post -- the third one back).

[DrWho]

There is no harm in going over board with the detailed drawings.....it's easier for the builder to cut back on the cost when he knows what all you want to do versus going to the builder with something less than what you want to do. Basically, the builder will know better how much certain things will cost and will be able to take your ideal plans and turn it into a system of least compromise better than you can probably do yourself (since you don't know the cost of everything).

[Fish]

As was mentioned,this is a very hard job to bid without detailed plans and seeing the existing dwelling first hand.That said,if you were building that room(425 sqft) in Southern IN,elevated ceiling and all brand new,$45,000 would do a really nice job.