Well DNA Dan, I'm taking your advice. I lined up some contractors to come out to the house and take a look and start giving me estimates. I totally agree about doing things now rather than later if you have the means (which I do... sort of... I think). The whole point of building a kickass basement and making the house bigger is for my kids (6-1/2 and almost 4). Every year I wait is lost time.
Tomorrow the first contractor comes over to take a look at the house and the plans I've had drawn up. He seemed to indicate that if I have the floor plan he can just run with that as most of their projects are designed by their internal team rather than an actual architect. We shall see...
Javery, I've worked with lots of contractors and I am going to assume you haven't. If you have, ignore this advice or at the least - don't take offense to it.
When it comes to the payments, there should be milestone payments setup to protect both you and the contractor. I prefer to not pay until the milestones are accomplished, but sometimes I pay before hand. For example, we just had a pool installed and the milestones were:
Agree on plans, sign contract = 5%
complete digging hole = 5%
Delivery of pool = 50%
Installation of pool = 10%
Installation of Electrical/plumbing = 10%
concrete installation = 5%
Final Grade of yard/cover/misc = 5%
I only paid as the job proceeded and inspections were passed. I've been burned in the past and would hate to see anyone else put in the same position. If a contractor needs a lot of money up front, it's a red flag to me. I've seen these guys get caught up in their own pyramid type schemes completing work for past customers using future customers money. In the end, somebody is going to get burned.