Contractors: Your rate *plus* Take a vacation on Lake Champlain

Boston MA

Description

It seems there is a slight shortage of quality contractors in NY’s Clinton County. I live two doors down from the lake with a nice view, two spare rooms, big lush yard, and a sporty&safe boat that fits six comfortably. It’s under an hour to Montreal or Burlington VT. The town is pretty forgiving with required permits, and fast with the few they require. I’m looking for some help getting my new-to-me 130yo 2300sqft house ready for winter. My highest-priority contractor-worthy project: demo the first floor walls and put in new windows, insulation, sheetrock, and then paint both the walls as well as the ceilings. Other priority projects — install a dog door — install 2-3 heatpumps — take down a wall in the kitchen — upgrade the electrical if you’re an electrician — route new electrical to porch, attic, backyard (note: not being able to do electrical/plumbing is not a dealbreaker.) Lower-priority projects include — install gutters — route W/D plumbing to mudroom — insulate & finish the attic, mudroom — finish the master bdr closet — reno master bath — build & install back outdoor staircase I’ll pay your normal reasonable rate, but since it’s a haul to get up here I was thinking, what if the contractor just… stayed on site? And after you work for however long you need/prefer, chill for a week fishing/boating on the lake or exploring North Country and the Adirondacks or whatnot. Your family can join, hell you can even have extended family park a camper in the driveway or set up pup tents in the yard and host a big family reunion BBQ; I’ll ask my neighbor with a dock 40yds away if I can park my boat there for the day so you have easy access. (You gotta fill up the gas tank though, I need this work done because of the brutal winters not because I’m sitting on piles of cash. 😅) If you need to come up and do an assessment of the house and what supplies you’ll need me to order and have here waiting for you (and we each can assess if we think this will be an acceptable contractor-client relationship), bring the fam or a friend for a weekend getaway. I’m not much of a chef but I have a grill and there’s always iced tea in the fridge. I’ve got bocce, croquet, badminton, giant-jenga, chess… If you want the house to yourselves and the 3rd room, I could potentially schedule myself to get out of dodge (and do already have some travel lining up). Anyway I guess what I’m saying is, I love my big dumb fixer-upper but she needs a lot of love beyond my skillset, and I thought maybe a creative solution might be possible. (Again, this solution is not in lieu of payment for work.) Questions/alternative proposals or ideas welcome. (PS- In case it wasn’t clear by my inviting your family and offering up badminton/bocce: this is not nor will it become a sex/swinger/fantasy/roleplay thing.)