Home Addition & Renovation Project Costs: Planning & Estimating Successful Projects

We were planning on adding a garage to our existing home so I bought this book, not only to see what our costs might be, but also to get an idea of what is involved in such a project. I have to say, this book covers it all. It has great detail about all the various home projects that one could think of and gives some wonderful tips. The only problem came when it was time for the contractors to bid our project. Using the guide in the book, we estimated a cost of about $15K to $25K for a simple garage addition. The contractors had other ideas. The most reasonable bid came in at $45K. So, I'm not sure where the authors think you're going to be building, but I would use this book merely as a reference point and NOT a guide to the actual cost.