Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thank you everyone! I was hoping to stay below 100k. The house is actually small. The first floor is about 800/900 sqft and less than half will be impacted. The hardwood floor is recent and we were told we won’t have to redo the whole floor and probably less than half.
Only one wall will come down and will need a high beam to support the rest of the house. We will increase the size of other 2 wall opening on this floor, but those are not load bearing. The half bath is already there and all it needs is a new sink that we will provide and wall paint/paper. Apart from cabinets and appliances, why would the rest cost more than 100k? We just won’t even start looking for GC if the price is so outrageous.
OP, there are a lot of reasons. I think as new homeowners it’s easy for us to imagine that if a renovation is “small” or “only the kitchen” that the price should scale down accordingly. But in many ways, it doesn’t. Because the units for ordering some materials, and hiring trades, and overhead and 1000 other things aren’t infinitely adjustable in that way.
Furthermore, $90k jobs are probably not a sustainable way for a general contractor to stay in business. You can find someone smaller and deal with them being more flakey and hard to schedule, but your job isn’t a simple pull and replace. You need an engineer and a lot of know how, and I think it will take a considerable premium to bring those people to a job your size.
So yours is just a tricky-sized project I think.