Selecting A Contractor

So we are now at a fork in the road. Which contractor to pick?

Being new to this remodeling thing, I desperately want someone who I can trust, since I don't know what I'm doing.

So far there are two candidates for a general contractor: the guy who did the house inspection and my realtor's husband. Choice #1 is to go with my realtor's husband. He builds custom homes, has a good eye for details and probably has a vested interest in keeping his wife's repeat client happy. Plus this would be his only job, which would make schedule go faster, presumably.

In preparation for discussion the plans with these two guys, I doodled out a couple of sketches to add to the Ikea models. I also had the grand idea of how to fit in my kitchen table in to this configuration for a little breakfast nook.

Here's the view of the expanded kitchen looking toward the back door and stairs to the basement:

This layout isn't taking any actual room measurements in to consideration, so I don't know if it will work. But my idea is to move the fridge to the wall on the left, which would free up a little wall area in which to scoot in the kitchen table. There isn't enough room to fit both the kitchen table and island in the middle of the room, so this is a good alternative. It would take out some of the planned cabinet space along the wall on the left, but with the island I don't think counter space or storage will be an issue.

Here's the same layout viewed from the back door looking toward the living/dining room wall:

The kitchen table would jut out in to the lower left corner of the sketch had I put it in. I got a little excited about the whole drawing part of it and forgot the main purpose of adding the table!

I've scheduled to meet with contractor pick #2 on Friday to review the plans, after which he will prepare a cost and schedule proposal. Then on Sunday I will meet with contractor pick #1 (agent's hub) to go through the same exercise.


On interesting thing I learned yesterday is that it's highly likely that the kitchen floor has original Douglas Fir hardwood floors buried underneath (what I hope is no more than) a couple layers of lenolium. Very cool! Of course with this revelation also comes another glitch: the original hardwood would end where the original exterior of the wall stood, which is the wall of the kitchen that I want to knock down, ie. that darn load bearing wall. So, I now have to consider the transition of flooring from original hardwood to...something else without making it look too broken up or awkward.

Oh the decisions!!