I have been planning my basement renovations for the past 2 months.
The project first started with emptying the basement, before I could do that I had to make space to move the basement stuff to. First thing I did was to build a storage loft in my garage. This was built using 2x4's on a weekend.
Then I spent the next two weeks moving items from my basement to the loft in the garage.
Once the basement was empty I measured all the walls and figured out that my basement was not square at all, it was narrow in the from and widened towards the back. Knowing this really helps as you do not want to install floor and drop ceiling showing the unsquareness.
I then created a list of items I would need to move ahead with the construction. Once I had a pretty comprehensive list I took the list to Lowes, Rona, and Homedepot.
Lowes: I had to get a contractor card which would allow me unlimited $20 deliveries as long as I bought something from them. Then they took my list and provided me with a quote. I had priced my items based on prices from Home depot, Lowes immediately save me about $1000. The only issue I had was the turnaround time on the items I added to the quote, as it had to go to the head office to the pricing department, they would price it and Pro desk would get back to me after that, about 2 days turnaround.
Homedepot: Do not offer any discounts, you can get their contractor card, which gives you a chance to collect points. So Homedepot did not offer anything at all.
Rona: Provided me the best price and this time saving me about $1500, 10% off on all the items listed. They also had free deliveries on purchases above $500. If I got their contractor card I could get 3% off quaterly on all the charges made on the contractor card in the form of Gift Cards. The good thing about Rona was that the 10% was at the quote level, I could add and remove items whenever and it was immediate, no waiting for 2 days like at Lowes.
We finally decided to go with Rona. Getting the lumber and dricore floors delivered tomorrow...will keep you posted on the progress.
