Quote from @Account Closed:
One unit in the duplex, which is two beds and two baths is a smoker room- and I’m looking to get it renovated, but I don’t want to get ripped off by contractors. What is an average estimate to rip out the carpets and replace them with laminate wood flooring, paint all the walls, and anything else..?
Your question is going to vary widely based on the size of the space, and your location and exactly what needs to be done. You can pull the carpet out yourself and use a box knife to cut it into manageable pieces if you are looking to save some money. As for flooring, I would say the cost of the flooring itself (plus any sub flooring material if necessary), plus about $1.50 - $3/sf to install as a ballpark guess to install laminate / plank flooring. But it can depend on if it is glued down, or floating. There are just variables we can't know about your situation, so prices can vary widely. We paint our properties ourselves, because, again, it's not terribly hard.
I would search for a couple of handymen to give you a quote, as well as a couple of painters. Any full time painter is probably going to be much closer to retail than a reasonable handyman. If not careful though, you can get what you pay for going cheap.
Be sure to really lay out what you are looking for... like, is the trim going to be painted? The doors? The ceilings? Is it going to take 1 coat or 2? Make sure they are responsible for cleaning up any mess they make (like if they walk through the paint and track it around, or mess up the ceiling painting the walls, get paint on the door hardware because they were lazy and didn't take it off, etc.) We have hired handymen on both an hourly and job basis... sometimes it's a win, sometimes its a fail.
Setting expectation is critical. If you hire hourly there is no incentive to go fast, and if you hire by the job, there is less incentive to dot the I's and cross the T's because they will want to get out of there fast. Whatever you do - don't pay completely up front. Offer to buy the materials up front. More than that you risk them not even wanting to start the job. If you pay them in full, there is no reason for them to show up or finish the job. We will pay ours along the way (as the job gets done, we meter out the pay). You can break it up by room... for each room that is completely finished I will pay you 1/x of the money - with x being the number of rooms to be painted. The quality expectation is that there is no break-through color from the previous paint showing, and that the trim has no drips from the walls, and the ceiling has no paint from the walls either, etc. Be specific and you will be closer to happier than sad when done.
Hope some of it helps!
Randy
