Maybe just buy a different house (or get more complete bids). Because after that, you're going to have to move stuff around---like the kitchen cabinets and appliances. Wow, big project. I wouldn't want to take on all that construction if I didn't live close by.

Those prices sound right for this area but would expect higher in Florida. As far as AirBnb more places are banning them so unless you have checked with both the city and country do not expect to use it for that purpose. Long term rental perhaps but not short term. More and more areas are banning them.

I should have clarified, I would be doing a full remodel of the kitchen. These were just the two things that shocked me right off the bat.

It’s a vacation home, how much time are you going to be in the kitchen? Isn’t the point more the location than the actual interior? The kitchen wouldn’t necessarily be my focus when I was looking for a vacation rental.

Florida used to be much cheaper compared to other parts of the country, but that is no longer true. Yes, it is still cheaper that the major metro areas on the coasts. Covid material and labor shortages, increased demand for housing and limited inventory have also played a role in driving prices higher in a short time. Historically FL RE has had some large ups and downs, so you can always wait till the next down!

In my experience Vacation rentals are more about “cute” than convenient or efficient...it is also usually a very demanding kind of tenant...who requires lots of hand holding...i would either try to get-a full timetenantwitha low enoughrate that would

Sorry...a regular tenant at a low rent...who will not be so demanding...to cover as much of the mortgage as possible...until you are ready to do improvements or move in yourself....

I would expect the amount for the windows for sure. Impact windows are not cheap and 12 openings is a lot so that price seems about right. The other I can't judge because I'm not local.

I have just built and moved into a very small house. This is my experience...

It sounds like you're wanting eventually to downsize and move into the place you have posted or something similar in size, even if soon-ish you're only downsizing part-time.

Summary of my points: if you have to have a kitchen like the one on your wishlist, you likely can't live in a small house.

1. Downsizing is not IME "taking your life, getting rid of stuff, and squeezing yourself into the same floorplan you had before only smaller." A downsizer is not mini-fying a past life. Downsizing to a smaller home is actually a whole different paradigm in living. You'll have to re-look at everything you do and invent new ways and priorities that go with having a smaller footprint.

2. Appraisability Part I. Unless you're paying cash, you're SOL if the house can't be appraised commensurate with what it costs. Essentials like power hookups, foundations, site prep are a larger proportion of a new small-home build than a new large-home build. For instance, you can't cost-miniaturize your sewer lines to the the Town manhole; big house or small, they've got to be dug.

3. Appraisability Part II. Because the home has to be appraisable, and required infrastructure eats up a disproportionate percentage of the overall home cost, everything else has to be super-tight dollar-wise. Imagining a kitchen of your dreams and trying to get an expensive design past the appraiser is a non-starter with new construction (which might account for specific design features in the home you are looking at) and/or will make it likely impossible to recoup your investment when the next owner tries to get an appraisal.

4. #1, #2, #3, #4 are interlocked.

Biggest take-away so far: #4. Downsizing and house features are interlocked.

So, I recommend evaluating this small home for what it is, rather than for what it doesn't have. It's possible, for instance, the kitchen HAS to be built like that for some reason (appraisability!!!!).

I'll give you some interior examples of how I had to get my house appraisable.

1. Instead of designing a kitchen I would just love to have (and would be unappraisable), inch by inch, I determined what cabinet spaces my must-keep kitchen implements needed. That's what I got. No fancy countertop either: it wouldn't have been appraisable.

On the other hand, I got everything I need!

2. I got over worrying about living room space and kitchen space being kind of blended. Sure, I wasn't used to it! But no one has come in my front door and said oooh ick. Not at all, most everyone wishes they had a functional space like mine.

3. Closets and egress windows have to be included in every bedroom. Code. And appraisability. A closet can be the difference between a two-bedroom house and a one-bedroom house. Even if you don't want a closet, you pretty much have to have one.

To give you an idea just how constrained this can get: to bring my house into appraisability range, I had to eliminate all but 3 "luxuries": an interior barn door, white cabinets, and a rain shower. Oh, and I had them paint the front door a color.

And, finally, I recommend thinking of small-house living as a different paradigm, not as mini-fying a former lifestyle. I will tell you, that no amount of getting rid of stuff (I actually paid to abandon almost everything I owned at a U-Storage facility), will make you a happy small-house owner.

Bottom line: if you have to have a kitchen like the one on your wishlist, you likely can't live in a small house.

I live in the same area. Impact windows are pricey so that sounds about right especially if you have a slider or two. Get a few more quotes, go to pella directly, price out home depot, etc. We've used both in prior homes, no issues. The reason your quote for the wall being taken down is that high is because it's a small job for most contractors, they don't want to do it. Everyone is extremely busy down here!!! BIG jobs. It's insane, everyone is moving down. I get why lol. We're trying to renovate our pool/pool deck and all companies we got quotes from are giving us start dates of 3-4 months from now.

Tangerinedoor - I really enjoyed your explanation of small house design decisions. I'd never thought about why things are done the way they. are - this explains a lot.

You're welcome. Nothing like an under-appraisal to teach you a few things, lol.

TangerineDoor, I love your philosophy. And while I love the kitchen I posted, it's definitely a smaller scale I'm looking at for the home we are purchasing. This home is actually not much smaller than my existing home. It just bothers me that literally the biggest room in the house is the Florida room, and by far the smallest is the kitchen. My husband and I do love to work together in the kitchen, and a 3-3.5' aisle would make that difficult.

We did downsize significantly when we moved into our current home, but there are only two of us, and we barely ever even used the upper floor in our old house, so even though our house size cut in half, our actually-used-space stayed pretty similar. We did get very creative with storage solutions, though, using built in closets in the eaves, a breakfast nook with storage in the benches, practically useless small hall closet converted into an extremely space efficient pantries, etc.

I have talked to a couple of other contractors, and I am getting the impression that the other contractor was highly overpriced. This was confirmed when I looked at some of their permits, and $2000 per impact window was on the low end for this company, one recent job ran $10,000 per window, which is absolutely bonkers. I suspect the person above who said that they are pricing it higher because it is a small job. I get the impression that these guys charge about the same price whether they are doing 5 windows or 30 windows, based on their permits.

Get two more bids. Thats the only way to see the true market value of your renovation. Prices vary wildly by region. The local market dictates what things cost.

Just me but it seems odd that being under contract to purchase a place that you are now asking for advice. But then you really did not ask for advice on any particular issue other than the cost of renovations in Florida which is always area specific. It also seems odd the two pictures you posted. I could see the one with the door circled perhaps going with a house with cloth wiring but that type of wiring does not even fit that house as it appears much newer than when it was used. If the picture of the kitchen is what you would like to have you would need to update all the wiring in the house if it does indeed have cloth covered wiring.

Alright, so based on the advice here along with some feedback from a couple of contractors, while the wall removal is possible, to do it in a way to be fully confident we would never have an sagging (and risk our plaster ceilings) I have decided that that is too risky. The contractor gave an alternate idea of recessing the fridge and pantry into the adjacent utility room (which, like the Florida room, is actually bigger than the kitchen) and I love how this looks. I also love that it leaves a fun wall that we can really play up as an accent wall. My thought is to maybe do a herringbone pattern on that wall with a driftwood style wood, then use a mother of pearl scale backsplash throughout the rest of the kitchen. Soapstone counters, white cabinets with max space efficiency, and open shelves to help it feel bigger.

I've done up plans in a couple of different programs, so here is a shot of each side, sorry they are different, but the programs had different functionality, so this is the closest approximation I could get. I don't love the over the fridge cabinet pictured, but you get the idea. The doorway is just to the right of the fridge. With the money we are saving with the smaller footprint kitchen, I'm thinking we could do an outdoor kitchen (same counter on other side of the window, built in barbecue, etc) and the Big Chill Classic French Fridge.

While I know some of the advice was to completely leave the kitchen as is, it is truly unworkable. The cabinets are a weird frankenstiened setup where the previous owners tried to use shallower depth cabinets with a normal counter, and it just came out extremely weird with all fake drawer fronts that slope downwards.

This will be a higher end short term rental, with a beautiful tropical outdoor pool and outdoor living area, so we do need the kitchen to be nice. Not "dreamworthy" but nice. We will also do a coffee bar in the dining room with a Nespresso, and room for a small microwave.

Exciting stuff!!!

This will be a higher end short term rental, with a beautiful tropical outdoor pool and outdoor living area, so we do need the kitchen to be nice.

If you want the kitchen to be nice, then by all means go for it. But don't use the rental aspect as a justification for needing it. People aren't going to rent it for the kitchen. They are renting for the pool, the area, the nearby attractions. No one goes on vacation and plans on slaving away in the "luxurious rental kitchen".

@suedonim75 -- Actually, I disagree on this one. :) We just went away for a long weekend, and the very nice kitchen in one available cabin totally trumped the meh kitchen in the other one. I and one of my teenagers both like cooking, and we love cooking in nice kitchens in not-our-house. ;) I always look at the kitchens when choosing AirBnBs.

Emily, We are the same way. Especially in an area where there are a lot of options. I would have noped on this house based on the current kitchen, as an Airbnb-er, unless it was the only option with a pool. But I also nope out ofhouses without a bathtub, so I'm kind of weird. We did a pros and cons list for this house, and my first pro was "clawfoot tub" lol.

I will add, we stayed in a TINY 1BR/1Ba (calling it that is a stretch, actually) Key west place, and due to the kitchen, which was maybe 30 sq ft, but was so nice and well equipped, it was one of our favorite stays! The pool and outdoor living spaces were amazing, too, but we do not like to eat out 3 times a day.

We have a vacation home about 2.5 hours away from our primary residence. The amount of time we use it has varied greatly over the past 20 years. Since you’re not yet planning on splitting your time, I would wait until you’ve spent some time there before making any major decisions. See how the house “feels” to you and how you actually use the spaces. Once you know that, you’ll be able to better assess your needs.
And just to make you feel better 😉, we are looking to expand our very small master bathroom and create a larger closet. Our quotes...$48,000-$67,000! And yup- as someone mentioned above- we live on the east coast in downtown Boston.

@Dianna B We bought/renovated a house near the beach 2 years ago, got all the permits to list it as a vacation rental (this was an ORDEAL, so make sure you look into what it required!), signed a contract with a property management company, got pictures taken and the website set up to list it on all the vacation rental sites, and were ready to go live... on March 5. Yes, that would be March 5, *2020.* :P So, instead of renting it out, we moved our family into it -- since everyone was working/schooling remotely, it was perfect. And every single day, I'm grateful for our beautiful kitchen!!!! (The house we rent where we 'live' is a tiny homage to the 70s, in all the bad senses of the term homage. The greenish-yellow counters, the inability to open the fridge and the oven at the same time, the lack of a functional venting system... well; at least it's very space-efficient! haha)

So yes, to @Inside Out Staging and Design's point: you never know how you will use your vacation house. :D

Very true Emily! We rent our place occasionally and honestly, if it wasn’t so profitable I wouldn’t do it!!! I’m pretty anal though and I have a locked closet for my stuff 😉!
With every improvement, it’s harder and harder to rent. Inevitably something always happens- astounds me that we’re there all the time with no issues and someone manages to almost set the place on fire in a 3 day weekend!!

@Inside Out Staging and Design Well, one of the many upsides of renting our own place to ourselves for almost a year now is that our family has USED IT WELL -- we're the ones who've left the scratches on the new hardwood floors, spilled on the new rug, chipped the new countertop (aughaughaugh), and dinged the new cabinets. That does make it easier to contemplate strangers sitting on my new couch and cooking in my new kitchen. ;) Of course... now that we've been here for a year, we've also filled it up with so much personal belongings (a new drum set! a standing desk + treadmill! all the guitars! school-from-home supplies for 3 kids!) that it's going to be much more of a pain to get it rental-ready.

houzz://user/michelle_maurice were you looking at an addition, or just changing configuration for that space? That seems crazy expensive!!

Sorry, I clearly have no idea how to tag someone in a post. Or edit a post, ha.

We’re doubling the size of both the bathroom and closet. Plumbing is a major issue and we are moving things. That said, it is crazy expensive!