In the last post I showed you our home project list and let you know that I was going to start pricing out and prioritizing the projects. If you missed that one, you can see it HERE. As I explained, we haven’t needed to do any major home repairs until now and they’re all starting to pile up. The problem is that since I haven’t needed to shop for items or services in a very long time, I’m having severe sticker shock. Keep reading to see what I mean…

STEP 2: Make the Spreadsheet & Gather Estimates
The first post was Step 1 and Walking Room By Room to create the project list. Some items on the list are necessities and others wishes. Now on to Step 2 and pricing it all out.
Let’s walk room by room again…
Kitchen

Paint the walls & woodwork. Estimate 3 gallons of paint @ $50 each.
Purchase a new stovetop, oven, and microwave. These appliances are going to cost about $2,000 each. This was probably my biggest sticker shock of the entire project list. Prices have really increased since we last purchased them 19 years ago.
Replace the laminate countertops. Rough estimates for stone countertops are: Granite $40/sf, Marble $65/sf, and Quartz $70/sf. We have 63 square feet of counter space so a granite countertop would run approximately $2500 and quartz $4500. After some looking around, I really love the countertops with a lot of white in them, but I don’t think I want quartz. I prefer granite that has the look of marble. Similar to this one:

Undermount kitchen sink. $300
Hallway

Paint the hall walls & stair risers. $0. The paint I purchase for the kitchen can be used here.
Update the flush mount light fixtures. $300 for 2 light fixtures.
Add carpet stair treads. These run anywhere from $49 to $130 for sets of 15 treads. You can see them on Amazon HERE.
Ruggable Runner. $200 for one runner. You can find them on Amazon HERE. The Kamran Farmhouse runners on Ruggable are my favorite.
Dining Room

Find and Install a wood mantel surround on the fireplace. Approximately $300 for the wood if we build it ourselves.
Paint the walls. $0. We would use the kitchen paint.
Living Room

Paint wall(s). $30 since I only need about 1 quart of paint for the fireplace wall.
Office / Study

Install french doors. I decided these are not a priority and have not priced them out.
Install wood or faux wood blinds. These could average anywhere from $50 – $100 per window. We have 3 windows. You can see the style wood blings on Amazon HERE.
Half Bath

Paint the walls. $50 for 1 gallon.
Replace two light fixtures. Approximately $250-300.
Upstairs Hallway & Master Bedroom

Replace the carpet. New carpet is an average of $5-6 per sf. At 500 sf that would be around $2,500-$3,000. This was another item that was coming out higher than I expected, but since our last dog soiled it quite a bit, this project is high on the list.
Paint the walls. $50 for 1 gallon.
Whole House
Repair Roof Shingles. To replace the entire roof would cost about $12,000, which I really don’t think we need to do. If we can find someone that can find the leak and just do a repair on the one section, I’m expecting it to cost $1,000-$2,000.
Paint the ceilings. $160 for a 5 gallon bucket of ceiling paint and a paint roller.
Refinish the Wood Floors. We decided this project can wait since it’s really only one or two small sections near the kitchen cabinets that’s worn.
Replace the wood baseboards on the main floor. This will also wait until it is time to refinish the wood floors.
Pave the driveway. I still need to get an estimate on this.
Install the exterior stone staircase. This is a wish list item that can also wait.
STEP 3: Shop More
My first few shopping trips were just to get the rough estimates mentioned above. Once I had those, I sat down with my husband and we prioritize the list so I would know where to focus my efforts. Here are the top 4 priorities:
- Repair roof
- Paint ceilings throughout the house
- Paint upstairs walls, then
- Replace the carpet in upstairs hall and master bedroom
Have you made your own home project list?
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