Basement Theater/Game Room [Finished!]

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javeryh:
So I talked to an architect yesterday - she is coming out to the house to take a look next Thursday. We spoke for about a 1/2 hour and I think I'm going to use one (not necessarily her though). She had a lot of good ideas and it gave me a level of comfort that the project will be done correctly. She also said that her firm is handling three jobs right now that involve lowering the existing basement and they have structural engineers on staff which is perfect because that is what I want to do (for the basement theater and gameroom, of course!).

javeryh:
I had the first architect out to the house yesterday. It went OK. She runs a very small operation but she seemed very confident and she had a few good ideas what to do with the space. I also liked that she wasn't afraid to tell me my ideas were crazy or that we could make better use of the space. She also told me that after seeing my plans (that I drew myself) that most architects would just say "yes we can do that" without putting any creative thought into the project which is something I definitely do not want to happen. I am totally open to a crazy/unique layout as long as it works. She also spent about 90 minutes at the house (for free) so I appreciated that as well.

One of my concerns after talking to her is that I am afraid that I'm not going to be able to get all of the space I want out of my basement. We are planning to underpin it and dig down about 3-4 feet. The architect said it was doable but she really didn't understand why I would want to - she just didn't seem to grasp the idea of a game room/bar/home theater. She just thought the costs of doing something like that would not be worth it. Her idea was to underpin 1/2 the existing basement and use the other 1/2 for storage and laundry with the assumption that underpinning 1/2 the basement would be less expensive than doing the whole thing. I guess I'm open to it if the floor plan works.

Tomorrow morning we are meeting with another architect who should give us a different perspective. This is the larger firm I mentioned that told me they have structural engineers on staff and they do underpinnings all the time (or at least have a bit of experience with it). It is pretty exciting stuff and although this is a SLOW process at least I feel like I'm moving forward instead of just talking about it.

Oh yeah - I was told that the ballpark amount for the architect will be about 7% of the overall cost. Not bad I guess.

javeryh:
Ugh. Just met with the second architect. She had a lot of good ideas and seemed way more knowledgeable than the first one we had in but our hearts sank when at the end we were talking about costs and she said that "$100,000 is a ridiculously low number". We didn't get into any more specifics but we were thinking $150,000 MAX for this project so if $100,000 is "ridiculously low" then I'm afraid of what she had in mind as the actual cost. She was walking through the house and mentioned changing a LOT of the existing structure to make it flow and work with the addition we are proposing (including completely redoing our kitchen and relocating the downstairs bathroom) so maybe that is where a lot of the costs are in her head.

It seems crazy to me but I don't know anything.

:banghead:

Hoopz:

--- Quote from: javeryh on September 16, 2010, 12:09:45 pm ---Ugh. Just met with the second architect. She had a lot of good ideas and seemed way more knowledgeable than the first one we had in but our hearts sank when at the end we were talking about costs and she said that "$100,000 is a ridiculously low number". We didn't get into any more specifics but we were thinking $150,000 MAX for this project so if $100,000 is "ridiculously low" then I'm afraid of what she had in mind as the actual cost. She was walking through the house and mentioned changing a LOT of the existing structure to make it flow and work with the addition we are proposing (including completely redoing our kitchen and relocating the downstairs bathroom) so maybe that is where a lot of the costs are in her head.

It seems crazy to me but I don't know anything.

:banghead:

--- End quote ---
I'm sure those additional items that she wants to change in your existing home are the reason she said that 100k is too low. I'd strongly suggest that you make a list of the things you want done and then have them quote them out individually. If adding the new structure is X amount and the basement is Y, then you can prioritize them over changes to the existing structure. Heck, a complete kitchen renovation can run 25-30k pretty quickly. Moving a bathroom can get price too. Unless those were part of your plan initially, I would take those suggestions with a grain of salt until you and your wife decide if those things are a priority.

javeryh:

--- Quote from: Hoopz on September 16, 2010, 12:17:53 pm ---
--- Quote from: javeryh on September 16, 2010, 12:09:45 pm ---Ugh. Just met with the second architect. She had a lot of good ideas and seemed way more knowledgeable than the first one we had in but our hearts sank when at the end we were talking about costs and she said that "$100,000 is a ridiculously low number". We didn't get into any more specifics but we were thinking $150,000 MAX for this project so if $100,000 is "ridiculously low" then I'm afraid of what she had in mind as the actual cost. She was walking through the house and mentioned changing a LOT of the existing structure to make it flow and work with the addition we are proposing (including completely redoing our kitchen and relocating the downstairs bathroom) so maybe that is where a lot of the costs are in her head.

It seems crazy to me but I don't know anything.

:banghead:

--- End quote ---
I'm sure those additional items that she wants to change in your existing home are the reason she said that 100k is too low. I'd strongly suggest that you make a list of the things you want done and then have them quote them out individually. If adding the new structure is X amount and the basement is Y, then you can prioritize them over changes to the existing structure. Heck, a complete kitchen renovation can run 25-30k pretty quickly. Moving a bathroom can get price too. Unless those were part of your plan initially, I would take those suggestions with a grain of salt until you and your wife decide if those things are a priority.

--- End quote ---

Thanks - I think you are right. Her ideas sounded great but I think she had her head in the clouds - like this is what she would do if money didn't matter. We were just thinking of the new structure plus basement - we hadn't considered any of that other stuff (although her ideas were VERY cool but every time she opened her mouth all I could think of was "that sounds expensive"). One of my concerns was that just tacking on a box to the back of the house wouldn't feel right and disrupt the "flow" of things and that is when she started getting nuts with all the revisions to the existing house. Maybe we just do the addition and basement now and then in 5 or 10 years if we want to do some of that other stuff we can.

The problem is that the next steps are going to cost money - if we want to move forward she is going to put together a "term sheet" listing out everything we want to accomplish with this project and once we sign off on that she will draw up the plans. This all costs money obviously.

One thing I really liked about her was that she said the basement underpinning was really no big deal and that it actually wasn't that expensive - a couple thousand for the underpinning and a couple thousand for the steel support beams. Digging it out and removing the dirt is no big deal because we will be getting a brand new basement for the addition and they will be digging out anyway. She said when people just want to dig down and nothing else the removal of the dirt is VERY expensive because it basically has to be done completely by hand. She really seemed to know what she was talking about here.

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