tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51614009589863501512024-02-18T20:51:57.841-08:00A Japonesque RenovationJapanese / Canadian house in Ottawa.Darrenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00230771763285373052noreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5161400958986350151.post-71851278639061559532020-04-23T13:20:00.002-07:002020-04-28T20:23:32.134-07:00Financing a renovationIt can be a lot of fun to dream about renovating a house and come up with ideas. But then comes the question of financing. In the beginning I had no idea how much it would cost to do a major renovation. Financing a big project like that was another total mystery. So in this post I'll write about renovation financing.<br />
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To start off with, you can get some idea of renovation costs by searching online, but the information will probably not be very reliable. Costs vary a lot from one place to another, and building costs in your city might be a lot different than somewhere else. The best way to get an idea of renovation costs is to talk to some local builders or architects and ask them what a building costs in your city are. They will probably tell you a price range per square foot. Here in Ottawa, a ballpark building cost is around $250 per square foot. A big suburban developer building town homes might be able to build for much less, like $150/sf, because they're building a whole bunch of similar houses at the same time. And a high end custom builder could be much higher, like $350/sf. A lot depends upon what you want to build. If it contains a lot of steel work, high end custom millwork and finishes, high-end windows, and cutting edge features you can easily blow past that ballpark figure.<br />
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I haven't calculated the final square foot cost of our renovation. I'm actually a bit scared and would almost rather not know. But $250/sf is definitely not an overstatement. I think it's quite a bit more than that, and really more than it should have been since we had a lot of problems with the first contractor and had to replace him with a different one.<br />
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You might think that if $250/sf is the cost to build something new, it should be a lot cheaper to renovate an existing building. That's not really true. If all you're doing is repainting the walls and replacing some fixtures then sure, it'll be much less. But if it's a serious renovation where you're planning to go in and bring everything up to modern day standards and a like-new condition, renovation can actually end up costing more. Depending on how extensive the renovation is, you might want to seriously consider a complete demolition and new build. Once you start taking walls down you can find a lot of surprises. One of our surprises was that the entire house was built out of cinderblocks, including all the exterior walls. The architect, engineer, and contractor all failed to identify this when they were inspecting and coming up with the initial plans and estimates. Then my neighbor told me "you know all these houses are cinderblock walls, right?" This caused a change of plans that ended up costing several thousand dollars, extra time, and certain weird details on the resulting floorplan.<br />
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Once you have an idea of building costs in your city, the question is how to pay for a big renovation. In my case, I bought our house more than ten years ago in a little neighbourhood that somewhat of a hidden gem near downtown, but tucked away in a quiet corner near lots of green space. There were a lot of smaller, older houses in area so despite being a great location, it wasn't considered a ritzy neighbourhood. After a while though, a developer came along and bought up a few ramshackle houses on the street, renovated them and sold them for a lot of money (or tried to). Many of the other houses had been renovated already in the 80's and 90's, but one by one the remaining older houses started to get renovated too, and some very nice modern homes started to pop up. Someone said to me that our quiet little neighbourhood "had been discovered". So property values started to go up by a lot. I was surprised to find out that my property was worth much more than I had bought it for.<br />
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I got a professional appraiser to come and do a valuation on the house. The was worth almost double what I had paid for it. I knew that if I sold the house, the next owner would renovate it. Instead of letting someone else renovate it, I wanted to take the increased value of my property, and use that money to renovate it. If you buy a house for 100k, and 10 years later it is worth 200k, you can talk to a bank and say look, I owe about 50k on my mortgage, but my house is now worth 200k, so I would like to refinance and borrow against the new value. So you get a new mortgage for, say, 200k, pay off 50k you still owe, and then you have 150k left over to renovate with. That is roughly how it works anyway.<br />
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Once the basic plan was in place and we had started working with an architect to come up with a plan, and started talking to finance people about paying for everything, the house next door to me started to get renovated. And it was a huge renovation with a very high price. I knew how much the developer had paid to buy the old place that was there. It was as much as my house was worth. And then he tore it down. So I went back to the appraiser and said look, someone just bought the place next door for this much money, just to tear it down. And now they're building a big mansion on it. So that means property values around here are worth more, just for the land without a house on it even. And I paid him again to re-appraise it. Based on what was happening next door -- the sale of the old place for land value and the mansion they were putting up -- my land, without the house even, turned out to be worth even more than what they had appraised to whole package at previously. This was good, because by that time we had already started some demolition work on our house and we knew the renovation costs were going to be higher than we originally thought.<br />
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Now for the final bit of important info. You do not want to go to a mortgage broker to talk about renovation financing. Mortgage brokers are well and good if you're just looking for a typical, run-of-the-mill mortgage at a good rate. But mortgage brokers generally are not in the construction financing business. The mortgage broker I spoke to, who had been very helpful before, nearly ruined us. He tried to steer us into a loan from a third party lender that had very, very high interest rates. Now, he said we didn't need to worry about it at all, because the bulk of the borrowing would happen right at the very end, so we'd only be paying high interest for a very short period. He sounded very positive about the whole thing, probably because he was going to get a big fat commission from it. But it would have ruined us when we hit problems with our contractor with long delays and cost over-runs. Fortunately, the way events transpired, there were hold ups and delays in getting the paperwork sorted out, and while we were waiting for it all to come together, we were introduced to a Construction Financing specialist from one of the major Canadian banks. I didn't know this, but it turns out that banks like CIBC do have construction mortgage specialists on staff, and if you can get in contact with them, they are the people to talk to. The bank's interest rates on construction loans are higher than a regular mortgage, but still much, much lower than the 3rd party lender that the mortgage broker was trying to hook us up with. The banks are "prime lenders" and for a construction mortgage you'll be much better off with one of them. I would avoid using any financing outside of one of the main banks, at all costs. Even if it meant not doing the renovation. Now, I know people who have done it both ways and come out ok, but the construction financing specialist at CIBC told me quite frankly, "We see people all the time that have gotten stuck with one of these 3rd party lenders and they come to us in a total panic trying to get out of it. It's really unfortunate."<br />
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Typically what will happen is the bank will agree to give you a deposit to start the renovation project that is worth a certain percentage of your land value. That should be enough to get going. The total amount of the construction mortgage will be based on what they think the final value of your house will be once the renovation is all complete. This will probably be a conservative estimate, but they want to make sure that once your house is done, it'll be worth what it cost to renovate. The bank, and the independent appraiser that they use, will have a certain amount of money allocated for each major component of the build. You can ask them for the breakdown. You are expected to use the initial deposit money to get the first phase of the project done which is typically to have the structural and framing work done. At that point you can apply for a draw against the construction loan. The inspector will come out and see how much you've gotten done. Based on the amount of work completed the bank will release funds to you, and then you can carry on with the next phase. If you have a good builder, they will complete work quickly and have a month before their own bills are due on the work. They should also have accounts with building suppliers that allow them to carry a balance for 30 days. A good builder can get a lot done in 30 days, invoice you, and leave enough time for the city inspector and bank inspector, and possibly the architect and engineer, to inspect things, approve the draw on your construction loan, and get the funds sent to your contractor.<br />
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You'll generally need to work with a lawyer who specializes in construction financing too. The bank will probably recommend one. Your lawyer will approve the draws and release the funds. You can have your lawyer release the funds to you directly, and then you pay the contractor, or you can have your lawyer send funds to the contractor's lawyer. I would suggest the latter... have your lawyer issue funds to the contractor's lawyer. This means less running around for you personally and a better paper trail. A lawyer also has a bit more clout and will do things "by the book". If you establish this early on, you can avoid bad situations like the one I found myself in, where the contractor started pressuring me to give him money directly, outside of the normal schedule of bank draws.<br />
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Next time I'll post a rough breakdown of costs that was used by the appraiser showing what percentage of the finances are allocated to each portion of the build. This can be useful in estimating how much various sub-contracted jobs like foundations, drywall, painting etc. cost in proportion to the rest of the build.Darrenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00230771763285373052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5161400958986350151.post-30130834104290394072019-10-16T17:47:00.002-07:002019-11-17T08:35:00.604-08:00Interior / Exterior PalettesI've been wanting to get back to writing about our renovation to finish parts of the story and keep a records of some things I learned along the way. It will soon be 3 years since we finished the reno; the dust has settled and I've had time to reflect. Also, it gets dark earlier now, so instead of pottering around in the garden outside, I'm behind the computer in the office, listening to the rain.<br />
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One thing that was really helpful for our renovation was to have a good idea of the palette of colours, materials and textures that I wanted. Basically, anything you can decide that you want ahead of time is going to save you a lot of stress later on. Fortunately I knew what I wanted for interior / exterior colours and materials from early on. I shared this with our architect, too, and got a "looks great!" in response, so I figured we were on the right track. I guess the architect must have forgotten or just chose to ignore my preferences though because later on when we needed to make some final decisions they proposed something really different.<br />
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Here’s a link to the final materials palettes on Pinterest: <a href="https://pin.it/iktj63hilbdjmo">https://pin.it/iktj63hilbdjmo</a><br />
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Here's the exterior palette I started out with.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjitxW4uf9Vqywls9Jm4O47XBCmPvqac6fsshdBV7r2uX7HjahXTs-yzo_S-Doe6KYyi4yfiKAJZNpDTmfT7lXhMKCj8-rsg0ZLV6ctik_Nq9Bw1h3WbfB5KtacfBjdGGHC740zm5ZSCUF2/s1600/orig-pal.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="413" data-original-width="404" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjitxW4uf9Vqywls9Jm4O47XBCmPvqac6fsshdBV7r2uX7HjahXTs-yzo_S-Doe6KYyi4yfiKAJZNpDTmfT7lXhMKCj8-rsg0ZLV6ctik_Nq9Bw1h3WbfB5KtacfBjdGGHC740zm5ZSCUF2/s320/orig-pal.png" width="313" /></a></div>
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This is basically cedar with a typical transparent "natural cedar" type of stain, an almost-black charcoal grey that's still a bit warm, some dark brown (actually charred) wood, and glass. From this starting point I ended up simplifying things a bit, going with cedar siding, black aluminum trim, and grey stucco.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAsAUx8nfAB9ehR8hfg_XqSmIOIpL9KYUDdNGBqBAMxvpsOWCvX70_JWJwZL8uUq1X2mLDwwCoMwGkWrguRaI4-Ip5ck5Rk-0LWmA0uA2STRvLy83cozhGf8JteMvFTaqYzrtYNMGwcxGo/s1600/ext_pal.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="152" data-original-width="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAsAUx8nfAB9ehR8hfg_XqSmIOIpL9KYUDdNGBqBAMxvpsOWCvX70_JWJwZL8uUq1X2mLDwwCoMwGkWrguRaI4-Ip5ck5Rk-0LWmA0uA2STRvLy83cozhGf8JteMvFTaqYzrtYNMGwcxGo/s1600/ext_pal.png" /></a></div>
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The actual materials are Maibec "Algonquin Amber" siding, Adex stucco in a shade called W-206-5E and black aluminum on the window frames, fascia, soffits and flashing. We have quite a lot of large windows too which makes glass a fairly prominent material in the exterior palette as well.<br />
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I was seeing these particular colours being used in quite a few new builds, both residential and commercial, and I was a bit concerned that this would be a "fad" that would fall out of style fairly quickly. But I actually have liked this particular colour combination for a really long time, and there are buildings that have been around for a long time that use similar materials, and they still look great to me. This is a nice looking scheme that has a timeless quality in my opinion. The grey stucco is a nod to concrete or stone, the wood siding gives it a nice natural feel, and the black trim gives it an architectural touch. I think a lot of people stay away from black because it's just so... black. A few years ago lots of people were using "commercial brown" for their windows and trim. I was never a big fan of it. I say if you want dark trim, go with straight black. It looks really sharp.<br />
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A useful tool for nailing down the materials palette was houzz.com - I saved a bunch of photos of houses I saw on there that had colours and materials that resonated with me. Here's one I used as a main reference.<br />
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<a href="https://www.houzz.com/photos/maybell-modern-exterior-san-francisco-phvw-vp~68316" target="_blank"><img alt="" border="0" height="320" nopin="nopin" oncontextmenu="return false;" ondragstart="return false;" onselectstart="return false;" src="https://st.hzcdn.com/simgs/9b41f1800c81905d_3-9067/modern-exterior.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<small><a href="https://www.houzz.com/pro/sdg-architects/sdg-architecture-inc" style="color: #444444; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Photo by SDG Architecture, Inc.</a> - <a href="https://www.houzz.com/photos/exterior-home-ideas-phbr0-bp~t_736" style="color: #444444; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Browse exterior home photos</a></small></div>
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I think this house is from 2013 or earlier, and somewhere on the California coastal area. The mix of modern & asian influences and west-coast vibe here were the perfect example of what I was going for. I think this cedar / grey stucco / black trim look has made its way from the west coast and can be found pretty much everywhere now. But this is a look that I know I can be happy with for a really long time.</div>
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Here's a link to my "ideabook" on Houzz for exterior materials. I think it can be viewed by anybody.<br />
<a href="https://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/1417243/list/houzzerd-s-exterior">https://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/1417243/list/houzzerd-s-exterior</a><br />
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The interior color palette took a little longer to figure out but I knew that I wanted to contrast the darker shades of the exterior palette with a much lighter interior. Also, since our house is actually quite small by modern standards, I wanted lighter colours to make the space feel more open. We ended up going with an interior palette like this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1OIWUP5QRTCwNxlUBCr2Ab29EAVq8J5FSNT2kkwBHRJGsMOKSbT1SpWSNagRB7gbbUyudDwOJ6JwtcXJ_vIsZH3irn0ye7PiyoII-kss2Dkc4RnL3T7uNaFakChgT4PwVaPzN7p2tlt2C/s1600/int-pal.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="145" data-original-width="382" height="121" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1OIWUP5QRTCwNxlUBCr2Ab29EAVq8J5FSNT2kkwBHRJGsMOKSbT1SpWSNagRB7gbbUyudDwOJ6JwtcXJ_vIsZH3irn0ye7PiyoII-kss2Dkc4RnL3T7uNaFakChgT4PwVaPzN7p2tlt2C/s320/int-pal.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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Basically it's white, light wood, charcoal, and grey (especially concrete). Since we completed our renovation I've started to see this particular combination more and more. It's gotten really popular. Again, when you pick a style and suddenly everyone seems to be doing it, you have to wonder if you just got swept up in a trend that will soon pass. But I really like this mix of materials, and have for a long time. This is white oak, a white paint called "Chantilly Lace" (which was one of the only material recommendations our architect gave us; the other was a light), a very dark but warm grey called "Iron Ore" (it's actually a very dark shade of greenish grey) and a concrete-look tile called Ragno Sound Smoke if I recall correctly. There are a couple of other touches, such as the natural slate tile we have in our entrance, but basically the whole interior of the house sticks to this same palette, and it works great because our house is very open concept without a lot of doors. The spaces flow together and the unified palette makes it feel more spacious. It's very zen-like.</div>
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You really don't have to look far to see lots of examples of this kind of colour scheme. Even the latest IKEA catalogue was featuring this kind of look. But the way I decided on this combination was by looking through a large stack of Japanese architecture books that I hauled with me back from Himeji on one of our trips there several years ago. Basically, light wood and white dominated nearly every single featured interior. There were one or two houses with darker wood, mostly larger places, but there was a really clear dedication to the natural beauty of wood (lots of it) against a clean, airy backdrop of white. </div>
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My interest in concrete probably also started there, in particular by looking at a design called "Dual House" by Kenichi Komura, which you can see here:</div>
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Even though this is an exterior view I really liked the monolithic concrete they used for all the hardscaping. This house has got to be one of my all time favourites. It must have been super expensive, because the whole thing is pretty incredible both inside and out, and located in one of the most expensive cities in the world too. Anyway it got me thinking about concrete. Then I saw pictures of a concrete backsplash in a kitchen, which I thought was pretty cool. We eventually found a local craftsman who does concrete backsplashes and were glad to have his work in our kitchen and main bathroom.</div>
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I got to like the idea of charcoal black accents as I started to consume more books, magazine and online posts about modern architecture. Black seems to lend an architectural quality to a house because, I think, architects draw with black ink. I've always like pen and ink sketches, especially architectural renderings. One of my favourite books as a teenager was "Rendering with Pen and Ink", which I still have. The black seems to give certain elements like window frames, trim, hardware, etc. a "drawn" quality that harkens back to something a draftsman would sketch. I think having black frames on the windows inside allows the outside views to really take centre stage, creating a crisp border between the white walls and the outdoor scenery. The charcoal black is actually that "Iron Ore" shade I mentioned earlier. When I first saw the windows installed in our house, I was actually a little disappointed because I was thought we were getting more of a neutral of bluish slate grey. Quite harshly modern. But I have to say the subtly warm tone of the Iron Ore has really grown on me. It's black, but with just a hint of warmth that works really well with the white oak floors and concrete tiles.</div>
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Here's a picture of a house with windows from the same manufacturer we used, and the same colour of window frames. I think this was the picture that when I saw it I was 100% convinced that black windows were the way I wanted to go.</div>
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<a href="https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/600x600/123547287_S3Vx9av8beOOnuK64bJA7F3fTwYxG9CLxSO2oSM21Ho.jpg"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/600x600/123547287_S3Vx9av8beOOnuK64bJA7F3fTwYxG9CLxSO2oSM21Ho.jpg" width="320" /></a>
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Along with the window decisions we chose to not have the windows trimmed out in the traditional way. Instead we have drywall returns, so the drywall just wraps around to meet the window frames and there's no moulding around the windows at all. It definitely gives things a very clean and simple, modern look. I would have gotten rid of the baseboard trim too, if I could have, but it turns out that not having baseboards is a lot more expensive, if you want to do it right. So instead we have a simple, flat 3" baseboard without any contours or fluting.</div>
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There's a neat YouTube channel called the 30 x 40 Workshop where an architect named Eric Reinholdt talks about topics like window trim, materials, design and all sorts of architectural things. I got quite a few ideas from watching that as well, even though I think our renovation was mostly done by the time I got into watching it. Here's a link to his website with the videos:</div>
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<a href="https://thirtybyforty.com/architecture-video-tutorials">https://thirtybyforty.com/architecture-video-tutorials</a></div>
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All of the materials we ended up using are slightly "warmer" than what I originally thought I wanted. But now as I look back I think the stark neutral colours you often see in modern design would have been a little too harsh. The slightly warmer greys, blacks and wood tones have a very modern feel without being austere. They're very warm and welcoming. </div>
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People who've come to our place have commented that it feels so peaceful. It's a zen-like quality that pervades the whole house, and I'm pretty happy about that. It came about intentionally, but at the end of the day it's really just about sticking to a limited palette of lighter, natural materials. Against this backdrop we have a lot of possibilities for placing a few accents here and there which can really stand out and refine the space. One of those is the indoor garden, or "tsuboniwa" that I'll write about maybe in the next post.</div>
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I realize this is a long ramble about probably boring stuff, but I wanted to write this all down anyhow, even if it's just for myself to go back and reminisce about in a few years' time.</div>
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<br />Darrenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00230771763285373052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5161400958986350151.post-56627532186576606762017-10-11T22:41:00.003-07:002018-06-01T07:05:38.252-07:00The Top of the SlopeAfter a year-long hiatus I've been wanting to get back to this blog because a lot has happened in the meantime, and a lot of interesting stuff that did happen throughout our project hasn't been written about yet.<br />
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I recently watched a Youtube video where some people started a renovation and the host of the program remarked that they were on a "slippery slope". I think this is the way a lot of renovations seem to go; you end up dealing with a lot more than you bargained for in terms of time, money and stress. It also seems like a common thread that people get the idea that they want to do a renovation and they start out being very ambitious and really stretching themselves to the breaking point. Everybody has their own story for how they got onto the slippery slope, I guess. For me it was this Dwell magazine from February 2010.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcijxEFwhWREWkVf23fw6fzqyp6c8fMOBFoB_sJV2Nn1KecLmfAm6qbkB8W-zgtWIO0XrOmrDuJw12ERw7V262jazHvOmV0lruUc0JszmUXEfSPLmPET5K6ebUoVuDSpnF0nyD4-4sBFmQ/s1600/make-it-new-renovations-in-action-february-2010-vol-10-issue-03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1239" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcijxEFwhWREWkVf23fw6fzqyp6c8fMOBFoB_sJV2Nn1KecLmfAm6qbkB8W-zgtWIO0XrOmrDuJw12ERw7V262jazHvOmV0lruUc0JszmUXEfSPLmPET5K6ebUoVuDSpnF0nyD4-4sBFmQ/s320/make-it-new-renovations-in-action-february-2010-vol-10-issue-03.jpg" width="247" /></a></div>
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Yep, way back in 2010 is when the seed of what would become this crazy renovation saga was planted. This magazine cover really jumped out at me, and believe it or not I think the reason is because of that green car on the cover, which I've since learned is a '63 Thunderbird. I'm not a car enthusiast, at all, but for some reason that car really grabbed my attention and I think it's because when I was very, very little, I had a tiny green matchbox car that looked like that green mist '63 T-bird. It turns out the house in the picture is in Michigan, where my grandparents were originally from, and which I visited once as a very small child, and it has a kind of eastern US mid-century modern vibe that must have triggered the neural remnants of some deeply buried childhood impressions. Plus it's a damn cool house.<br />
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So my girlfriend at the time, who is my wife now, said "Why don't you get it if you like it?". So I did. And flipping through the pages I began this journey into all things housey and designery and architecty.<br />
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Truth is before I became an engineer, I always wanted to be an architect. I like drawing, and I drew a lot of buildings as a kid. I also bought the house I was living in with the idea that one day I would renovate it, and add a second storey on it, like many of the houses in our neighborhood have done over the years. So the idea to renovate was already there but this magazine kind of kick-started my interest in it for real. One of the ads in this magazine was for the Turkel Dwell Homes Collection which is manufactured by Lindal Cedar Homes. One of the pictures really stood out as a nice design for a narrow city lot.<br />
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<a href="https://inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2010/09/Dwell-Turkell-Lindal-Homes-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="800" height="200" src="https://inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2010/09/Dwell-Turkell-Lindal-Homes-3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I thought this house was really cool. Turkel is a west-coast firm from California so it probably resonated with my west-coast roots. I got a little obsessed about finding out all the details of this plan and managed to track down some layouts for this and other Turkel-designed Lindal homes. I found the efficiency of the designs incredibly interesting. Architecture is such a cool blend of practical and efficient use of space, mixed with artistic concessions, kind of like a tension-release interplay between hard-cold science and creative, emotional art.<br />
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Around this time I stumbled across some pictures by Toronto firm SuperKul who did this amazing house there called the Crescent Road House.<br />
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This also kind of resonated because the lot size is and layout is pretty similar to ours. The house isn't much wider than ours, and although this was obviously a really high-end build (it has an elevator inside) I thought this could be a pretty good source of inspiration. I contacted Superkul to see if they could do a project where we live, but then I started thinking it would be hard to work on a custom design with somebody so far away. I like this house enough that I tried building a 3D model of the layout.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-sdrHUia-8u0ucolNAOpqmh6LX0Z4BHBervpG4806zNBaUtrEnNq1rjY9K6tqDXLkCyRZCqF9vFhjKRMSnVHiMQXmIjnxNoz9jhe6nH1PEqon25TYrGDSF1hu6MQa_dop5FOxeLjzgQRa/s1600/Crescent-Base.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="849" data-original-width="1600" height="169" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-sdrHUia-8u0ucolNAOpqmh6LX0Z4BHBervpG4806zNBaUtrEnNq1rjY9K6tqDXLkCyRZCqF9vFhjKRMSnVHiMQXmIjnxNoz9jhe6nH1PEqon25TYrGDSF1hu6MQa_dop5FOxeLjzgQRa/s320/Crescent-Base.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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It turns out that this house, as well as the Dwell-Turkel-Lindal house were both too big for us to be able to build, because I found out there are restrictions on how big of a house you can build on the lots in my neighborhood, since they are close to the 100-year flood plain. So I started messing around in Sketchup. Just tonight, I stumbled across a few of the old Sketchup models that I started making back then to try and come up with ideas for a second-story addition and extension on our house. Here are a couple of them.<br />
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I know these are not very good, but they were kind of fun and more importantly, I started to realize that unless you are building something pretty standard, it's <i>hard</i> to come up with a good design where all the details fall into place. Take the carport for example. Way too high for one thing, owing to the fact that our house was originally constructed as a "storey and a half" bungalow with the basement half sticking up out of the ground.<br />
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After messing around with Sketchup I realized that even though it was fun it was not really a good way to approach designing a floor plan. This is what architects call "the program" I guess. You have to start by figuring out what rooms go where. You do that before going all crazy in Sketchup. So I found an website called Floorplanner, which was really cool. You can design your floor plan and even put little pieces of furniture in it, and then click a button to see what it will look like in 3D. This is kind of like playing with legos or a doll house, but for grown ups.<br />
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It turns out that the designs I was playing with in Floorplanner are still there, and it looks like they were made back in 2011. So this was well before we started our renovation. You can only do one "project" on the free version of Floorplanner.com so I ended up making a few different storeys with a few different designs for each one, until I filled up my quota of possible layouts on the free tier. Here's what some of those looked like.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKHPDdN70-WMVl-Spx7KmXQaAAwqbWw9H4MVLwh4La8pPQUCEr1g3oNoMnUjtOtt9QIUW21dZoo2ynahQW0GtMkuoIInky4JsgXkAtJWsbVQIRcxOo59mIq3o_kPGq7r282la4H4quOHi-/s1600/Floorplanner+-+Concept+Reno+2017-10-12+01-05-06.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="503" data-original-width="992" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKHPDdN70-WMVl-Spx7KmXQaAAwqbWw9H4MVLwh4La8pPQUCEr1g3oNoMnUjtOtt9QIUW21dZoo2ynahQW0GtMkuoIInky4JsgXkAtJWsbVQIRcxOo59mIq3o_kPGq7r282la4H4quOHi-/s320/Floorplanner+-+Concept+Reno+2017-10-12+01-05-06.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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This was the first attempt and it was pretty boring. It also moved the stairs to the right side of the house and I realized that keeping the stairs in the same location where the existing basement stairs were, was probably a better option.</div>
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The next one I liked a little better. It re-used exactly the same original footprint of the house without any extensions to the foundation anywhere. When you think that the original house fit in a 24' x 28' footprint and had two bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room, entry with closet, a dine-in kitchen, as well as stairs to the basement and a linen closet in the hall, that's pretty amazing. They were small rooms for sure, but they sure packed a lot into a small space.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLikZKbN1mkXhfqqB_ABTRpMj0mqCmItFKmw4zdoX7KeykcPM9pgOm60b7_VAOxMdtnCq-RW4rPwEehqockeSRuqjif_5_IaNaq3R9s93eE9OIQuaEtxEL4zzLK8PVhuyYJ3pWuv0Gzf-F/s1600/Floorplanner+-+Concept+Reno+2017-10-12+01-11-15.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="492" data-original-width="463" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLikZKbN1mkXhfqqB_ABTRpMj0mqCmItFKmw4zdoX7KeykcPM9pgOm60b7_VAOxMdtnCq-RW4rPwEehqockeSRuqjif_5_IaNaq3R9s93eE9OIQuaEtxEL4zzLK8PVhuyYJ3pWuv0Gzf-F/s320/Floorplanner+-+Concept+Reno+2017-10-12+01-11-15.png" width="301" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC4jT13H4z5avidDD_YPxejCEvaTCaSL_4dOWzxmWmKmEYKVncdTk-ACvIYoONXpkQRRbOojUhQOKFACvnV-Xy5rE4XyVgIubjurHaIl0lD-bge1psc6nyGBKSchn7p91sGip61QzFmyRR/s1600/Floorplanner+-+Concept+Reno+2017-10-12+01-10-32.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="536" data-original-width="962" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC4jT13H4z5avidDD_YPxejCEvaTCaSL_4dOWzxmWmKmEYKVncdTk-ACvIYoONXpkQRRbOojUhQOKFACvnV-Xy5rE4XyVgIubjurHaIl0lD-bge1psc6nyGBKSchn7p91sGip61QzFmyRR/s320/Floorplanner+-+Concept+Reno+2017-10-12+01-10-32.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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I kind of liked this layout because there was a fish tank embedded into the wall between the entry and the tatami room. How cool would that be? Also instead of a full tatami room I tried making half of the room with raised tatami mats. The table would sit in the middle, half over the raised tatami mats and half over the regular floor. That way you could either sit on the tatami mats, like a bench, or on a chair if you prefer.<br />
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Next I tried switching up the kitchen and the tatami room, and here's what that looked like:</div>
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This was the last iteration of the floorplan I came up with and the one I think I liked the best, based on trial and error from my previous attempts. This layout basically took the kitchen in the existing house from the front left and pushed it to the back right of the house, replaced the bathroom and one of the bedrooms with a japanese-style tatami room, pushed the front door to the right, and used up the space where the kitchen used to be, for a living room. Even looking back on this now, it's quite an efficient layout. The only downside was that the front door would have been separated from the driveway on the opposite side. This can mean a lot of snow shovelling in winter to get from your front door to your car.</div>
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Coming up with a good layout for the second storey addition must have been hard, because I don't have any designs saved on floorplanner for that. I just remember spending hours and hours messing around with this site, trying to come up with something modest yet beautiful, and ultimately getting kind of frustrated and finding it can be a lot harder than it looks, and thinking that this is why people hire architects, to solve these kind of problems and come up with the right "program".<br />
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In hindsight, I'm not sure we were terribly far off from having a workable layout. If I'd come up with a good plan for the 2nd storey, that last iteration could've worked pretty well despite the door and driveway on opposite sides. What's a little snow shovelling?! It would have been a way more affordable build, too, because it required no new foundation work, and we would not have had overhangs on the 2nd storey either. I doubt that we could have given it the same beautiful aesthetic on the exterior if we'd designed it all ourselves, and no doubt a structural engineer would have required some changes, but it's interesting to see how far I actually got with this back in 2011 before we started looking for an architect who could refine our goals into a workable plan with a mix of Japanese and modern Canadian features.<br />
<br />Darrenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00230771763285373052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5161400958986350151.post-72647091671907706472016-09-29T21:51:00.000-07:002017-03-06T18:47:42.009-08:00The Walkout: floods and formsThis is a post about the walkout basement at our house, which has been a kind of ongoing source of drama even since I moved here. The picture below is one I found after rooting around in the Photos app for about 20 minutes. It doesn't show the full walkout, but you can see the part of the basement door, retaining wall and sunken entrance. I took this photo from the top of the five steps going down to the basement door.<br>
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The walkout basement was a pretty nice feature of the house and I kept my music stuff there - a lot of keyboards including, for a while, a beautiful Hammond B3. From the basement, you could look out the french doors to an unobstructed view of the back yard. There was a big lilac tree growing right outside the door, which you can see in the photo, and a pear tree, and it was a really nice place to be in the summer especially.<br>
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The problem was that about once a year in the late summer we would get a really heavy rainfall, and it would rain for two or three days and things would get so waterlogged that the sunken entrance of the walkout would start to fill up with water. It never got to the point of flooding the basement, but there were at least a couple of times that the water came right up to the bottom of the door. The basement had a hardwood floor, but it was raised up on sleepers, so although I expect there was some seepage from time to time, things were mostly ok, as long as when the massive rain storms hit I had a plan and was prepared.<br>
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I knew that this could be a potential problem, so the first time we had a big rain storm I had a couple of buckets and spent a couple of hours in the middle of the night bailing water out of the walkout. The next day I went and got a submersible electric pump, and connected a garden hose to that, and it emptied out all the water in a matter of seconds. After that it was pretty easy to get water out of the walkout, but it usually meant furkelling around with a pump and hose at 2 o'clock in the morning, which for some reason is when the rain seemed to peak.<br>
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Anyway, the rainwater getting into the walkout was a pain, so one of the main objectives for renovating the house was to excavate around the whole foundation, waterproof it, install weeping tile, and build a better concrete retaining wall around the walkout so that rainwater wouldn't get into the walkout stairwell.<br>
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For quite a while during the construction we had an open pit at the back of the house where the excavator had exposed the foundation but had not backfilled it yet. More excavation was needed to finish the walkout but our first builder, Bramel Developments, had run into some issues with the excavator, Ken Brown, who had put a lien on our house after not getting paid what he thought he was owed. If you know how construction financing works, you can't have liens on your house or the lending institution will stop lending you money for the work. I did a little research and found out that Ken Brown has been in the business for a long time and he doesn't screw around. A couple of the cheques he'd gotten from Bramel had bounced, and in hindsight I can see that our builder was trying to cut a lot of corners and held off on doing the full walkout excavation. He billed us the full price for excavation, and promised that Ken Brown would be back to finish the walkout in the spring, but that never happened, and who knows where the money went.<br>
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So we had a big pit behind our house for a long time. During the summer, this was ok. But as we got toward fall, and into the rainy season, I started to get pretty apprehensive that we might get a real deluge and that without any retaining wall whatsoever, the pit could fill up with water and flood the basement, which we had just finished drywalling.<br>
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Sure enough, right near the end of August we had a rainstorm to beat all rainstorms. It poured all day and then at night it started dumping buckets, and I knew I needed to go check on the house. It was a Friday night, and our new contractor, Michanie, had finished up that afternoon and was away for the weekend. When I got to the house it was dark and raining hard and thundering. Sure enough water was filling up the pit behind our house and rising fast. The little pump that I had used in the past had been broken by Bramel's crew so I couldn't use that. Instead I found a bucket and started bailing. It was a frantic effort. At first I seemed to be making some progress but as the minutes went by it started raining harder and harder. I bailed as fast as I could, almost in a panic, trying to keep the water from reaching the bottom of the basement door and flooding in, but it was no use. <br>
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I made a frantic call to Michanie and got Chantal on the line, who suggested that I could go to Home Depot and rent a pump to get the water out. She kindly phoned one of the nearby stores and confirmed they had a pump available. As we talked, rain got in my phone and it quit working.<br>
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I would have loved to get a pump from Home Depot but it was a full on state of emergency. The water kept rising and I could see it gushing and streaming from beside the house straight down into the pit. I also noticed, for the first time, that our neighbor had the downspout of his gutters leading into a hidden drain pipe which went under a gravel path and emptied straight into our property. The water was shooting out of his gutter drains straight into our walk-out pit!<br>
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At this point I just said "&^%$ it!". I could see that my efforts were futile, I was completely soaked to the skin, and the water just kept coming. I left everything, got in the car and raced off to Home Depot, got there 5 minutes before closing, rented a big pump and hose, and raced back home. The pit was alarmingly full of water by the time I got back, but by that point I was past the point of panicking, just sort of morbidly resigned to dealing with the mess and doing whatever damage control was needed after.<br>
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Setting up the pump was easy enough, but getting electricity was another matter. There were extension cords on site, but none of the outlets were live, except on in the basement, so to get power to the pump I needed to crack open the sliding patio door to the basement and feed the extension cord through. The water was already above the base of the door by that time, but I had no choice, so I just opened the door and let the water pour in onto the concrete floor while I fed the extension cord out and got the pump plugged in as quickly as I could. Now, when you're dripping wet and it's raining like a typhoon and you're standing in 18 inches of water, plugging in an electrical device is a little unnerving. There wasn't much I could do about it. Fortunately I didn't electrocute myself, the pump went on, and the 4 inch hose went completely solid as water started shooting out the far end like a jet. The pump was a thing of wonder. Within just a minute or two it had completely emptied the pit and was gurgling away in the mud.<br>
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With the pit now empty of water, I disconnected power to the pump and turned my attention to the neighbors gutter system that was draining straight into the walkout. I grabbed a bunch of rocks and an old tshirt and whatever else I could find, and tried building up a little barrier wall to divert water from beside the house and from the neighbors gutters, and channel it towards the backyard. Then I found a big sheet of plastic and tried to attach it to various points at the back of the house, where there was some scaffolding, so that it might keep out some of the rain. Then I ran a couple of extension cords from the basement live outlet up to the main floor and out the main-floor back door, so that I could close and lock the basement patio door. The pump I'd rented can actually be left running dry for a few hours without burning it out, but I unplugged it and went home.<br>
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It was probably close to midnight by the time I got home, but shortly after that I got a message from Chantal at Michanie that they'd been by the house to check and there didn't seem to be any damage. They'd been at a family event, but came all the way back into Ottawa after midnight to check on things. It goes to show how much they cared and were willing to go out of their way to help. The next morning when I got back to the house, I saw that they had set up two huge blowers in the basement and a commercial dehumidifier. These machines move a massive amount of air, and are used mainly by commercial drywallers. It seemed like these machines had gotten the basement floor almost completely dry overnight.<br>
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Following this near disaster I spent most of the rest of the weekend rigging up a better tarp over the walkout, building up a better temporary retaining wall and channel to drain water away from the pit, and getting a sump pump with a flotation valve to put in the pit in case water filled it up again.<br>
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Setting up the sump pump was an adventure in itself that involved a few trips to Home Depot. And to make matters even more interesting, through all of this battle with the rain water, my neighbor who had been secretly diverting his run-off through a hidden underground pipe onto my property for the past 15 years decided that the water infiltration he experienced through his 50-year old, non-waterproofed foundation wall, was somehow my fault, and he got very, very nasty about the whole situation. His wife said he was so infuriated that he was threatening to get a lawyer involved. So I said I'd love to show the photos of their drain shooting water into my yard and all the clean-up we had to do as a result. After that I didn't hear much more except for a couple of nasty emails, which I ignored.<br>
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Finally the excavation of the walkout got done, not by Ken Brown, but by Michanie's people. As a commercial builder, they have all the equipment and people to do this sort of thing. Here's a picture of the excavator having dug out the area for the new retaining wall. They got right down the water table so in a couple of the low spots you could see water flowing. If you look closely, you can see an orange bucket behind the excavator, down in the mud, where I put the sump pump, and a hose for the pump going up out of the pit.<br>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">The base of the footings was supposed to be insulated, so there were a couple of layers of high density foam insulation that were put down first. Then they installed the form-work for the footings.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">A lot of rebar then got put into the space. As I watched this thing take shape and compared it to the simple stacked-block retaining wall that used to be there, this all seemed a bit over-engineered. But I'm pretty sure that Michanie was doing all this concrete work for us for practically no profit margin on this part of the job. And that's probably because they originally proposed to build the retaining wall from blocks, but got push back from the architect and engineer who said it had to be poured concrete in order to satisfy the permit requirements.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">The footings for the retaining wall were incredibly wide. Evidently this is because they need to hold back quite a bit of weight of the dirt behind them. In the picture below you can see just how wide the footings are, and the rebar where the wall itself will get poured.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">After the footings were set up for a couple days the formwork for the walls went up. Again there was a lot of rebar that went into the walls. This is one solid walk out retaining wall.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">The wall got poured, the top looked very smooth. When I saw the concrete work that was done by Michanie compared to the concrete work that had been done by Bramel, the difference was like night and day. Michanie's work seemed to be very solid and precise. The texture of the finish was always very clean and smooth with Michanie.</span></div>
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After the retaining wall was set up for a couple of days they removed the form work, then came and patched up any small pockets and air bubbles by hand.</div>
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The outside of the retaining wall also got insulated, and then back-filled with sand.</div>
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The base of the walkout got a few inches of clear aggregate. This is the view we could see looking out of the back of our kitchen, for a while.<br>
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We were already living in the house by this time, and every morning at 7 or 7:30 we would see Sylvain and often another carpenter working at the back of the house. At this point the fencing was down and most of the construction debris clean up. We had sand and dirt for our front and back yard and these tractors were parked there for a few days. It was really a good feeling to have the signs of activity and daily progress that were evident while Michanie was completing our renovation. The neighbors who used to hesitantly comment that things seemed to be taking a long time and that our first failed builder, Bramel, was almost never on site, now commented on how nice things were looking and how impressed they were with the professionalism and dedication of the workers.</div>
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Darrenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00230771763285373052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5161400958986350151.post-8140063141096618332016-09-24T21:25:00.000-07:002017-02-27T21:55:07.547-08:00September review<div>
<i>Note: This post was written last last year and continues the story of our renovation through the fall of 2016.</i><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">We're now at the end of October and a recap of September's progress is overdue, before covering everything that went on this month. Work has stretched out into the Fall, mainly due to the installation of the siding which took at least two or three weeks longer than expected. They did a nearly perfect job of installing it though. Lots of furring out crooked walls and squaring up corners. With the previous builder I don't think I saw a level or a square on the job site even once. Even though it is an older foundation to start with, the walls which were built brand new even weren't square and true. They just didn't care. But fortunately the new builder and his subs did care and they made sure everything lined up. If you look at the corners of the house, for example, all the joints of the boards line up perfectly on both walls.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Michanie had a gentleman named Patrice come and do the front deck. A retired auto body mechanic who has been working as a carpenter as a retirement "hobby". His work on the deck was beautiful.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">On the interior, final trim work and painting has been mostly completed. Michanie did quite a bit of drywall patching and paint touch ups to correct a variety of issues left behind by the original contractor.</span></div>
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Installation of the modest kitchen had a few hiccups, but they were quickly resolved. I got to help a bit one evening to install a panels and trim boards. The countertops, ordered through IKEA and installed by Uniform Custom Countertops, were unfortunately not shimmed to the correct height and therefore the gas range trim was sitting proud of the countertop. Sylvain, the foreman and main carpenter who did the majority of work on our house, didn't hesitate to get right in and jack up the base cabinets to bring everything to a proper height. It required a bit of creativity with a drill and screwdriver where the cabinets attach to the walls, not pretty, but it works and you can't see those attachments anyway. We had some adjustment of the hinges and rails to get all the doors square and even. Fortunately the IKEA cabinet hinges are pretty easy to adjust.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrV2xe9TUAlPGKuHHZjXeKFoDMiPAhzXUfbwvfM9yHt3EkU0QSqPnyfqXjSlT61Lu-JXOYbThFi5rH0-ECeUM_fD7CESec4N-vc8VsOyC2DYoThUxRUNXv692hL7c1O1OGYw55ROKoVPut/s400/blogger-image-921384502.jpg" width="400" /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">The space in front of the kitchen is intended as a small living room / relax area. It's not really big enough for a large sofa but it could accommodate two or three lounge chairs.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">The original house had a similar window configuration here: the small side window and a large front window, which is now a (narrow) patio door. The morning sun streams into the house here, filling it with light. It's a beautiful quality of light, too. Hard to describe, but one of the things we really like about this place, and people who visit frequently comment on it. By opening up this space, the entire area has become full of light.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsDshFb9d73h6jHwizxdR-IeLQv5wt7VCgSv8ovELlbUkzfKUzbxq9x0wJjejyd5cyaM36uwuMWds787VVEmhOCMuNp5qbuqelxHR1joFFfDHVPNWInZDClIomKGAppfKr-anfODz-ygjb/s400/blogger-image--1298550778.jpg" width="300" /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">One of my weekend projects in September was to stain this barn door. It's a simple, off-the-shelf product from Home Depot, and a little incongruous to hang a rustic, country-style barn door on a modern stainless rail, but it actually turned out ok, since the color of it is pretty close to the color of the wood-grained tiles in the master bath, which you can see through the open door in the photo below.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQIq1-hJg7_dccRnugE7pUVQp5heGJwHYrlDUXueNtNi98P2rC3pZfb1Lf57W25b1tAm_o8q2uvlC0fSxZLKpeC9D_eDelGj64_3FIrnnK8LD6FC-4ofsxWiR6G3qIjhLVKOztNVwJKCdO/s400/blogger-image-780475782.jpg" width="300" /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Here's a closer look at the tiles in the master bath. I though the tile installer did a very good job. I was pretty impressed with the workmanship. No complaints on the tile.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhalWEDab1SpJUGIDSZFF38gYSVncvQMrnuAHvdOLwRuSgT0iNRxRCiCeu1gHTO9JXkx0lUy9fc-MuPd8gfLnLIYkXiZuTPvo3WfvNnyUXSdYTaF0B2uRQzrbMAAJCtWs2oXqdRzX1InmcV/s400/blogger-image-2089485193.jpg" width="300" /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">We used the same simple white 8x16" tiles in the "Japanese bath" (which is called a wet-room configuration here in North America). The main difference is that there's a second tub filler below the shower. This is a Grohe Geotherm 2000 system that's normally used in a bathtub. We have it over the shower pan, with a separate tub filler for the tub itself, because with the Japanese bath you would use the faucet outside the tub to fill a wash basin for lathering up and rinsing before entering the hot bath. I'll post more on the Japanese bath later on.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwWLpCtQJo4PbmCqiSLl9aPGXHizBWP5Mj2KLRg_EHXvlz-o2FwiLtTzT71qjOSe5w92apLzuJR8xVRFEMzVsKnLRImcyzZXBkNEh-oDahyliL-0y-4DY3ymTTuJZ9lKlPJ4qM6Wupxtv1/s400/blogger-image-29418797.jpg" width="300" /></span><br />
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The siding on the house took a very long time to complete, again mainly because none of the walls were square, but I'm glad they took the time to do a good job. There is unfortunately a bit of "caning" visible on the wide fascia in a couple of spots, if the light hits it right. There is a bit of corner trim left to install.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJM8tfxSYXqsxOeCc1_eZxUxfzk2SJfc7G-28vKyXY4s4WB-g_xjbM2uYt5Cb3hDERlKcgl7_4XFcfTs_X0OoWSbI_rc2r4ybsahvG7U503RDXpknF-9sJqUovVC_sCYklKVPS9LRTx6DT/s400/blogger-image-140454958.jpg" width="400" /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Originally the porch roof was meant to extent across the entire front of the house. The engineer, however, said this wasn't feasible due to load bearing issues on the overhanging portion (we get a lot of snow in winter here). So the plan switch to make a pergola (open trellis) over the steps -- and then maybe install some plexiglass over that, once the final inspections were done.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghwl_QgOgX8RcwF4CmYNeE6KLQsd6rrccWMZbUN-Ze0D88gOc4dVydkSM9LGCvUFwGruad1miiwmXGTQZClQTpHtcd9mgvctMLMZBd5-84f646QkBZjgahexR7oUbgsECQfG3KTai1QhyphenhyphenQ/s400/blogger-image--1963743529.jpg" width="400" /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Finally, near the end of October, we rented a truck, got our friends Yves, Michael, Lillian and Jared to help us out, loaded up our stuff, and moved back to our house! They offered to do another load to pick up some of the smaller stuff, and I said don't worry. Later on, after making about 2 dozen trips back to the rental condo to get moving boxes full of stuff, I wished that I had taken them up on the offer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrJJnOinJ2vRAKtHc9h1B2uSSYxWshyphenhyphenAsFmajfqn5sZlASE54QSK3eyAqpNCnw-PZ9V28mFR10c734TVYVB9zLeuTvwqzewtVRfyeksZMEyS0nb9dt45FqB-CsWBjzwzAwcttsl1XOfKsd/s640/blogger-image-341326349.jpg" /></span><br />
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Work continues to complete the rear walk-out basement retaining wall, footings and deck, and to finish a bit of exterior trim and porch detail at the front. I'll post details of the rear basement walk-out and deck in another post.<br />
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Being back home has been such a relief. Before we found a good builder to rescue us, we were living in a nightmare. Even afterwards the costs and many problems discovered as we worked to complete things were very stressful on already frayed nerves. But since we moved back into the house we really feel like the nightmare is nearly over. And while the ending is not exactly as we had hoped, we have our house and our lives back and we can now deal with settling in and fitting out the interior of the house as time permits.<br />
<br />Darrenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00230771763285373052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5161400958986350151.post-3580793472179721202016-08-24T04:20:00.001-07:002017-02-22T20:45:14.671-08:00August updateDespite the long radio silence a lot has been happening in the house. Michanie has continued to find many problems but they have not hesitated to keep moving ahead and fixing things.<br />
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Trim was installed.</div>
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Appliances delivered.</div>
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Basement stairs installed. </div>
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Siding work progressed.</div>
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Pocket doors installed. We tried a whitewash pickling stain and it made the doors pink! So we tried a medium brown stain over that and ended up with more or less of a teak color. At this point I said, whatever, good enough.</div>
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Insulation and resilient channel on the basement ceiling for soundproofing.</div>
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Badly placed light switches relocated and drywall patches made.<br />
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Basement drywall completed.</div>
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Wood siding started.</div>
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Vanities installed.<br />
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Stairs installed.</div>
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Disaster averted - a severe rain storm hit us and the neighbor was diverting all his gutter runoff into the excavated walk out pit behind our house... Water quickly rose and filled the pit. I spent tense hours and worked into the night bailing, digging and installing a pump to evacuate the water. The next day I returned to install a tarp and shore up the sides of the pit where the neighbors runoff had been pouring in.</div>
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Basement subfloor in the bathroom area.</div>
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Electrical work done.</div>
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And the work continues...</div>
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<br />Darrenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00230771763285373052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5161400958986350151.post-65302180047737862852016-07-25T21:32:00.001-07:002016-07-25T21:32:44.279-07:00Beyond remediation<div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">For the past month and a bit since we started with our new builder Michanie, most of the work has revolved around remediation. A lot of very expensive remediation. Our neighbor is a general contractor and used to come by on a regular basis and tell us in a kind of gloating bravado what a crappy job was being done, and how this and that needed to be ripped out and done all over again. We aren't particularly eager to hear his opinion most of the time, but he's not shy on offering it anyway. But since the new builder started he's only been by a couple of times. He seems a little sheepish even. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">The latest time he came over was to actually pay a compliment, which I don't think I've ever heard him do before. He ended by saying "that's what I would've done too".</span></div><div><br></div><div>Anyway all that to say that we are basically done with all the major remediation work and now moving on towards making some actual progress on the house. There are still issues cropping up here and there but they have mostly to do with design problems. Things like the location of light switches weren't specified on the plans, for example, and in some areas there wasn't adequate space on the walls for them. So we had to make all kinds of on site adjustments including removing a pocket door, reducing the width of door openings, and altering walls in order just to get light switches in the places we needed them. But moving a light switch isn't the end of the world, and Michanie has been great at fixing issues as they come up - as issues always do. </div><div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">We're not as far along as we'd hoped to be by now but we're also not that far off schedule as far as I can tell. We can see stuff happening daily and that's encouraging. Here are some pictures toshow what's been going on lately. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj8d63qx4BFEzSGX-SGxSoVfNnZbchQFOyCIdu_dVwNwHbJAUd_UWbjJkWi-glMXzfcJ-gW5Cgbke1sDSBJDeS-JsSCCxkPfmfz_i8fKPYGIpxtLFrEKSJTAozB-tdAdh7ASd_gSwzxFWi/s640/blogger-image-479047923.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj8d63qx4BFEzSGX-SGxSoVfNnZbchQFOyCIdu_dVwNwHbJAUd_UWbjJkWi-glMXzfcJ-gW5Cgbke1sDSBJDeS-JsSCCxkPfmfz_i8fKPYGIpxtLFrEKSJTAozB-tdAdh7ASd_gSwzxFWi/s640/blogger-image-479047923.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgRQvvjkHShmsmQ-8JCOEz6MMMX-l7Zn_tKb9klz2-rrTv1JADpFUrQU3Yn1C1uF8TY802t9jVTQ116NsL6aRH_gzkE0OiavaWkbuejumN0y2nFCYjVrPuWOV8vD3rYy4BNy17HUIMDHYL/s640/blogger-image--915533499.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; 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It was a simple pop-the-top and build straight up sort of idea. But there was one problem. The Japanese-style bathroom was only accessible via the master bedroom. Now, I know it's all the rage the have sprawling master bedrooms with large ensuite baths. But a Japanese bath is a family thing. You wash yourself thoroughly before getting into the tub to relax. Because the tub stays clean, the whole family can use it without having to drain and run the water between each person. Which is good because Japanese baths are usually very deep. Now, it might seem a little odd to westerners but it is really no different than using a jacuzzi. And when you have little kids they may go with mom or dad to have a bath. In Japan when you go to a hot springs resort, you have to wash yourself thoroughly with soap and hot water before you go into the hot springs. The men's and women's baths are separated, so you just go in, wash and bathe with a small towel. When you get in the hot pool you leave the towel out of the water, sometimes by folding it and putting it on your head. And when you get out you might just hold the towel in front of you for modesty. If you're modest. </span></div><div><br></div><div>Anyway, there's a whole bathing culture in Japan that's a far cry from running a hot bath and jumping in to stew in your own grease. And having the Japanese bath be accessible to the entire household was important. So this meant the design needed to be tweaked.</div><div><br></div><div>What we thought would involve relocating a doorway proved to be exceedingly difficult since we were working with a very small house to begin with. The architect tried dozens of ideas but eventually resolved that the program couldn't be completed without introducing an overhang, where the second story is slightly bigger than the first. So that is how the overhang came to be.</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMnnPTTg8nYUnNIeg4p5ocWk5zJ7x1iv8n2SaSrg2RLa7_2o1AD-jrUh1Kw1yO57QJM4ZiakZHJhtQBZCyk-HQF6p4LxbPRPPTUHhSvkTb27w-FVFURPN98Tj-ccVwBt85_u7m2GDq8mSp/s640/blogger-image--234264980.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMnnPTTg8nYUnNIeg4p5ocWk5zJ7x1iv8n2SaSrg2RLa7_2o1AD-jrUh1Kw1yO57QJM4ZiakZHJhtQBZCyk-HQF6p4LxbPRPPTUHhSvkTb27w-FVFURPN98Tj-ccVwBt85_u7m2GDq8mSp/s640/blogger-image--234264980.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Now with the overhang, we had an odd unused space beside the stairs where they came up from the main floor to the second floor. What to do with this space? The architect decided to make it a small indoor garden. In Japan this is called a tsuboniwa, and they're common in the old merchant houses of Kyoto. So that sounded really great.</div><div><br></div><div>The only problem is this garden was positioned sort of halfway up between the first and second stories, on the level of the stair landing, so the floor and walls of the garden would have to be supported from below by either the carport structure or some funky internal steel structure. </div><div><br></div><div>When it turned out - much to my frustration - that the carport had been designed without regard for the city bylaws on setbacks, it became necessary to go the route of the internal steel structure, and hope to be granted a minor variance to build the carport later. </div><div><br></div><div>So we hired the engineer to redo all the floor structural design and specify the required steel. The builder then installed the steel beams, but here's the trouble: he didn't install the steel parts on the ends of those beams to support the garden. There were just these two big steel beams serving no purpose whatsoever. What the engineer specified was simply ignored. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnMXaSzTy0mka5lN956d8z01sXC9S99UtEWHDgscmUQenlkKGuk6kqYm5-gqba8sbNLCU3PXsxVBb5CFnRx0qgHDQZZu2X1X5FxLemrC90wqv5GNGmkluLPclhrObq_ks7TwEQgOcZn6DR/s640/blogger-image-1520909245.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnMXaSzTy0mka5lN956d8z01sXC9S99UtEWHDgscmUQenlkKGuk6kqYm5-gqba8sbNLCU3PXsxVBb5CFnRx0qgHDQZZu2X1X5FxLemrC90wqv5GNGmkluLPclhrObq_ks7TwEQgOcZn6DR/s640/blogger-image-1520909245.jpg"></a></div> </div><div>Those red steel beams were supposed to have drop-down steel "hangers" welded onto the ends to hold up the garden. Instead the garden was built with nothing holding up the floor, wall and roof above.</div><div><br></div><div>When our builder walked off the job, he left us with these serious structural issues and more. The carport had to be phased out due to cost, and both the engineer and architect strongly recommended opening the walls to add the requires steel supports instead.</div><div><br></div><div>Now, at the end of the day I'm not convinced that opening the walls and welding in steel posts and saddles was going to be all that much cheaper than building on the carport, but everybody including the new builder said it would save a bunch, so we went with it. We can add the carport later and it'll be a "belt and suspenders" approach to the garden. </div><div><br></div><div>With all that backstory out of the way, the new builder was hard at it this week to complete all the structural deficiency work. Although they're awaiting some soil tests and a bit of strapping material, the end of fixing the structural issues is in sight. In the past week they completed the structural remediation for the hanging garden, a major part of the work. It was quite amazing to see this happen in the space of two or three days. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDCm4tRi6kHxtYTwggKUzocQrIxkXyA7zSMB4FR5f1BZaujW4F7ltyjeljmGWxoY9LmAnWux7In1fO-zt7BxdvswThi8cOxN_GILygnEmZPENF5ZW1Oat4VS0meNtPN_rqt16up6gGm4eL/s640/blogger-image--1916714313.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDCm4tRi6kHxtYTwggKUzocQrIxkXyA7zSMB4FR5f1BZaujW4F7ltyjeljmGWxoY9LmAnWux7In1fO-zt7BxdvswThi8cOxN_GILygnEmZPENF5ZW1Oat4VS0meNtPN_rqt16up6gGm4eL/s640/blogger-image--1916714313.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioQPb4aYQtX1KatoPvJJE1IrhTY07QgtoQ-RBNy7GXQwvSghL1WEhAEcWcAVoe86UobU5PzD5R-NuWoITGS_gGa-UnJ-fNWWN6i6hNSTdIo5RZbQjYh7hyphenhyphenGdEIT2WUy3UKrYSGFIXuM6Mv/s640/blogger-image--1665224348.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioQPb4aYQtX1KatoPvJJE1IrhTY07QgtoQ-RBNy7GXQwvSghL1WEhAEcWcAVoe86UobU5PzD5R-NuWoITGS_gGa-UnJ-fNWWN6i6hNSTdIo5RZbQjYh7hyphenhyphenGdEIT2WUy3UKrYSGFIXuM6Mv/s640/blogger-image--1665224348.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUdcfoXCsdUoE7HKmung07lOB1MnwurAXQAygi7WSB4xfeC7c4eDelCHfNrlU0mM25xk1GzJeaCI4juBYf3tOHbPMZIJNyIToOYMcM8tUqaNKMUXMKtzgwIsCqHAWaD2Xf2oJre6Qzz_cG/s640/blogger-image--1843906003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUdcfoXCsdUoE7HKmung07lOB1MnwurAXQAygi7WSB4xfeC7c4eDelCHfNrlU0mM25xk1GzJeaCI4juBYf3tOHbPMZIJNyIToOYMcM8tUqaNKMUXMKtzgwIsCqHAWaD2Xf2oJre6Qzz_cG/s640/blogger-image--1843906003.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi84ibGs9nGDUsZvJi6EiM45L8cFOpoD0Z7uB2uVTQrIa5APpUQGjyK5fUXp0JPI_RvmSkyTJ1VGCdSCcFTXVBXv5dX8aYnsF-FNas4jdrXMXqNonAq5GB-0QoHDXuJT-8ypOOc8Jvhrduh/s640/blogger-image--1883985328.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi84ibGs9nGDUsZvJi6EiM45L8cFOpoD0Z7uB2uVTQrIa5APpUQGjyK5fUXp0JPI_RvmSkyTJ1VGCdSCcFTXVBXv5dX8aYnsF-FNas4jdrXMXqNonAq5GB-0QoHDXuJT-8ypOOc8Jvhrduh/s640/blogger-image--1883985328.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkNJBzfHnmMDj8aDHrVz3Ao1FCY3oX2ONcXK5PdajwK7EWJPb80Xv-M_Adw-4JlhNaI71FaZjkyjNzvSq_y-Epd59SibbGJgCs3BapsDST5DnK4BUF6WcOLHJZE4YqSsr2B7JdI4N0yFYK/s640/blogger-image--1945428409.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkNJBzfHnmMDj8aDHrVz3Ao1FCY3oX2ONcXK5PdajwK7EWJPb80Xv-M_Adw-4JlhNaI71FaZjkyjNzvSq_y-Epd59SibbGJgCs3BapsDST5DnK4BUF6WcOLHJZE4YqSsr2B7JdI4N0yFYK/s640/blogger-image--1945428409.jpg"></a></div><br></div>The beam that supports the outside wall had to be dropped below the existing garden floor to avoid ripping the existing garden floor and interior drywall, so the bottom of the garden now sticks down about a foot lower than before, but I think that's ok. A major issue now finally solved and sorted out. We're one step closer to getting our home and our lives back!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">And while the exterior structural work was happening, a tiler has been busy at work on the inside, and what a difference it makes to see the tile going on. It seems that he's done a very good job particularly with the difficult areas around sills and ledges. Our new builder also went the extra mile to level the ceiling above the bath, which the old builder had done such a bad job of that it drooped down about an inch in one of the corners. When you install tiles, nice and square, with straight grout lines, and crookedness in the walls and ceiling really stand out. So the new builder, without even being asked, simply cut out the drywall and leveled the area.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdmHrlEAbh0T_5b6rmOE_e17IWauZ4fl2_YmMdf8yy5l_kIG-JZ5Xa_YRXMCxCUA_D0NZt568XyImYOkVw3np3mLWXIOW-1gdw5foezQvyK9p7YRKyTZrR2qja7Xfh1YAynZaETsbGby71/s640/blogger-image-1172364874.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdmHrlEAbh0T_5b6rmOE_e17IWauZ4fl2_YmMdf8yy5l_kIG-JZ5Xa_YRXMCxCUA_D0NZt568XyImYOkVw3np3mLWXIOW-1gdw5foezQvyK9p7YRKyTZrR2qja7Xfh1YAynZaETsbGby71/s640/blogger-image-1172364874.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6S6drKDOJv2bLShaGxfBOpg4QfxfBmEY3N57K2dNDhQEtLDaFIESdqNf08o_oZ82bHaBStzfjn8sXgh_aoE00OCjUViX7jzvMEFkxhTchK1G-cVwAtJRab8Bl7CxWrrmE10k0mWr0mscj/s640/blogger-image-1661121892.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6S6drKDOJv2bLShaGxfBOpg4QfxfBmEY3N57K2dNDhQEtLDaFIESdqNf08o_oZ82bHaBStzfjn8sXgh_aoE00OCjUViX7jzvMEFkxhTchK1G-cVwAtJRab8Bl7CxWrrmE10k0mWr0mscj/s640/blogger-image-1661121892.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga7jzhaJ-mtX5ujbeFC__6NK9L_c9bVHxCDuOJdsj7bQlGTJVpXICbmlRvjp3g5rSByvwBsDxUD2B2YQI91uDML5vpbJIR21ViQW5z_5q0FSDsSX_ZDayhiRBWFBQY6Cdx2teFLT9Nr_Fp/s640/blogger-image-108806617.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga7jzhaJ-mtX5ujbeFC__6NK9L_c9bVHxCDuOJdsj7bQlGTJVpXICbmlRvjp3g5rSByvwBsDxUD2B2YQI91uDML5vpbJIR21ViQW5z_5q0FSDsSX_ZDayhiRBWFBQY6Cdx2teFLT9Nr_Fp/s640/blogger-image-108806617.jpg"></a></div><br></div></div><br></div><br></div>Darrenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00230771763285373052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5161400958986350151.post-14686175616385015922016-07-05T21:53:00.001-07:002019-10-21T09:10:59.936-07:00JuneTime for an update. After running around in May looking for a new builder and feeling like the world was coming to an end, in June we began to see things start to happen. We've had a crew on site every day from 7am with the site supervisor continuously present and directing the work. Unfortunately all the work has been about fixing stuff that was done badly or just plain skipped, so the bank financing won't pay for that. They expected it to be done right the first time. We've spent tens of thousands of dollars just on correcting deficiencies, and it's all coming out of our own pockets, which needless to say is a... huge bummer.<br />
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But today in addition to a bunch of structural repair work underway to repair the deficiencies left by the previous builder, I saw some things that actually count as "progress" towards completing the house. It's not a lot, but the kitchen cabinets were pulled out, the floor leveled (it was full of bumps and lumps and the tiler refused to tile over it) and the tiles installed. So here's that:</div>
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Because they had to put more self leveling cement down to cover the crap work from before, the tile sit slightly higher than the hardwood, but they out a thin metal transition piece down and hey, lots of houses have worse so it is what it is. We can live with it.</div>
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Also prep work in the bathroom areas getting ready for tiling. There's a waterproof epoxy coating they've put on the walls.</div>
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This particular wall actually had to be redone three times by the old builder because they kept messing it up. With the new builder you look at their work and it just looks way more professional, which you can see in the previous post too.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMXujGIBAO11cXFuxKuM3CrIGAXCmqEnJOUkoBtbfqPS3VsbZ7KTB4Y4f9UyRtPJL8s46ruRhux8uM3aqBvI0WozinRlkWDmUBwyA1U9I6T8zlN0XGLTXIM4YkLOHOgLsiDjz_Th1s8zJm/s640/blogger-image--1987873578.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMXujGIBAO11cXFuxKuM3CrIGAXCmqEnJOUkoBtbfqPS3VsbZ7KTB4Y4f9UyRtPJL8s46ruRhux8uM3aqBvI0WozinRlkWDmUBwyA1U9I6T8zlN0XGLTXIM4YkLOHOgLsiDjz_Th1s8zJm/s640/blogger-image--1987873578.jpg" /></a>One of the basement support posts that had been skipped by old builder. He did remember to charge us for it, but forgot to actually build it, like the carport.</div>
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Trying to properly fix the damage caused by the old builder reefing on the corner support post and breaking the wall.<br />
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And we can get in the door now... Not the final latch set, but it works.<br />
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And some of the pot lights are in now. They're cool lights. They're super thin, like only 1/2" thick. LED.<br />
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The basement patio door is in.</div>
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And they are getting ready for stucco.</div>
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<br />Darrenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00230771763285373052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5161400958986350151.post-46967088357124197902016-06-16T17:32:00.001-07:002016-07-02T06:33:20.405-07:00Making it rightHere's the "sump installation" we were left with from the previous builder.<div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNVxEZ99oFtVBUfRfAsO3IcfO0JYXljkMLSbNu3FWbWZdTHoX5pvSWw-lE9QRqFbhOMhVvngNA9m-tm8tSQ-oLxEXcC8stGhBxJAlzxsWo3Koxky-cXxYuasuRVRFa3yN06pmzgrGP3G5V/s640/blogger-image--71583998.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNVxEZ99oFtVBUfRfAsO3IcfO0JYXljkMLSbNu3FWbWZdTHoX5pvSWw-lE9QRqFbhOMhVvngNA9m-tm8tSQ-oLxEXcC8stGhBxJAlzxsWo3Koxky-cXxYuasuRVRFa3yN06pmzgrGP3G5V/s640/blogger-image--71583998.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>The city inspector just shook his head and said "it's really too bad".</div><div><br></div><div>Here's the sump pit after 48 hours of the new builder on the job:</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0BQGWcAT0hFgLccCwJu8USmBGv9c3jmA0HgZZnGzwobzKsSB-6ngGByVGLkBS_m3C7bJZ-vfeVX3qedtyjA3zJSJUPYe3SVGMlnr7UabVAYm44vs3RAsaaM8U84mmygrG-YqHgPswkpus/s640/blogger-image-1971481890.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0BQGWcAT0hFgLccCwJu8USmBGv9c3jmA0HgZZnGzwobzKsSB-6ngGByVGLkBS_m3C7bJZ-vfeVX3qedtyjA3zJSJUPYe3SVGMlnr7UabVAYm44vs3RAsaaM8U84mmygrG-YqHgPswkpus/s640/blogger-image-1971481890.jpg"></a></div><br></div>Notice the concrete was cut and repaired as well. </div><div><br></div><div>Also done at the same time, the footing for one of the primary supporting posts.</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoezuEQ3tNf_C3tPs16Ht9d5NXxmc0h4sFt4kB-bep3VkdCiIEG0QMUPdeTFKDeCPBTSqa64RUEP8avijOSNGvmnHKuWRTFIn4GAr1W1OhW9RaOEtzuAeO8JCwY59inAdz5myerwVUuX6l/s640/blogger-image-957289275.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoezuEQ3tNf_C3tPs16Ht9d5NXxmc0h4sFt4kB-bep3VkdCiIEG0QMUPdeTFKDeCPBTSqa64RUEP8avijOSNGvmnHKuWRTFIn4GAr1W1OhW9RaOEtzuAeO8JCwY59inAdz5myerwVUuX6l/s640/blogger-image-957289275.jpg"></a></div><br></div><br></div><div>This was the washer box installation which the city inspector made us rip out: </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGfFagVFoHdMpfbYFMzt3v9mshQQLivhBIc4s5nYI44oDjPG9HQU9uuBk0xs1U8U8t1BlDxjN3yhLdLboJ1IYiPQJQ3IqoRTMAoRE_W0eNBZrEhyphenhyphenccYg_p0DNVmeUoGf-n0FKRRbDRZtrQ/s640/blogger-image--552769174.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGfFagVFoHdMpfbYFMzt3v9mshQQLivhBIc4s5nYI44oDjPG9HQU9uuBk0xs1U8U8t1BlDxjN3yhLdLboJ1IYiPQJQ3IqoRTMAoRE_W0eNBZrEhyphenhyphenccYg_p0DNVmeUoGf-n0FKRRbDRZtrQ/s640/blogger-image--552769174.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>The new builder cut it out and replaced it with a new one. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiybf0Nyz7QzFyHK7KoIrsk3AZ5Dkh6P60zV3eAstjv5ykQSUECcBQTF-vGrO8vXqOFabYP8K1pVvfpEJj7ji4KfZSLKqyIBxqYbFxtnCbiP6dG6W8Zvi_cxMdxt5tWex-MRZg6OQct4WQI/s640/blogger-image-1472440799.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiybf0Nyz7QzFyHK7KoIrsk3AZ5Dkh6P60zV3eAstjv5ykQSUECcBQTF-vGrO8vXqOFabYP8K1pVvfpEJj7ji4KfZSLKqyIBxqYbFxtnCbiP6dG6W8Zvi_cxMdxt5tWex-MRZg6OQct4WQI/s640/blogger-image-1472440799.jpg"></a></div><br></div><br></div><div>The porch has to be mostly rebuilt - the inspector wouldn't pass it:</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsl1AgN6tQpflgLK8l_NxL2kDUJ4BwqFsW0ixKD3Msojsc323SZoi3g5eU6qXsplyGHQJHTO_FoUNV1yAZvRImmsdkW4FZowGMvMgEkOhyK30zk9FEEYKcRM-IrkbWP0pY7iTP5jeXs1iL/s640/blogger-image-1973802474.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; 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margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7f9fXlR4YcC2LZWQ936_XiapHaEnLRVA-x2jr5aTUFnlw998mbVt7Z9D0LAknCFMxq42Fzn3fw1xEWPThS0eydeMt47_t8dvNzplkbm4HqVpXm0LbITam2VtZdF-UDR6JcHSDRWDeTJ3Q/s640/blogger-image--889017885.jpg"></a></div></div><div><br></div><div>Our patio was destroyed too. This one we'll have to fix by ourselves.</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinEbkUEJVCrN8P45oP2hK8O9576O7ED4r3KyoT90pV9ANDnxFM2eqYkgfkTEabbbuJItESrBCxwrsawKV8GsHk5MNpstME3MyP0ZOBYm_ksOGneOHp23J6Cas7QbveJ5SpVj371OO0444M/s640/blogger-image--905113717.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinEbkUEJVCrN8P45oP2hK8O9576O7ED4r3KyoT90pV9ANDnxFM2eqYkgfkTEabbbuJItESrBCxwrsawKV8GsHk5MNpstME3MyP0ZOBYm_ksOGneOHp23J6Cas7QbveJ5SpVj371OO0444M/s640/blogger-image--905113717.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>The cabinets that were supposed to be saved for the basement were</div><div>found scattered around in the garbage or tossed in the dirt.</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidGDobgSY-aAro6SWVJJH9BX1en4tDBinc2bYWv4ArFZsG8xgSLZeU4lNs40CY3nA4UD2thXI8WL-CmM7JjcwHVam03LDgVZqZTbEIZHpKohuVdmhxyJucPPaBmVjWnZ5UgLXUauqETwzx/s640/blogger-image-817148944.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidGDobgSY-aAro6SWVJJH9BX1en4tDBinc2bYWv4ArFZsG8xgSLZeU4lNs40CY3nA4UD2thXI8WL-CmM7JjcwHVam03LDgVZqZTbEIZHpKohuVdmhxyJucPPaBmVjWnZ5UgLXUauqETwzx/s640/blogger-image-817148944.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>It turns out that in addition to some very serious deficiencies and breach of trust issues, materials left by subcontractors for the completion of their work were reported missing. So we will have to pay for new paint and some electrical and HVAC components. The tile prep work has to be redone as well. We learned that the professional tiler who we were told was doing the work, actually had nothing to do with it. Once brought on site, he was quite taken aback that we thought he'd done it.</div><div><br></div><div>But what a difference to see a foreman and full crew on site daily at 7am, going full force to complete our renovation and doing authentically professional work. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfmL6m46cJL6pJ8EwhzxHZIVdw6EbOXSyLHe069z4BAV_Ra2Qt6aX4VuzkYLPj0DnzT7Fdv4LU1V7sZkeduBqJKtKw3rtA-KcZMgMoit5iBCNS-yH4fK9zNUpZff70UDXS4GJc-5Ns0M9R/s640/blogger-image-1149754959.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfmL6m46cJL6pJ8EwhzxHZIVdw6EbOXSyLHe069z4BAV_Ra2Qt6aX4VuzkYLPj0DnzT7Fdv4LU1V7sZkeduBqJKtKw3rtA-KcZMgMoit5iBCNS-yH4fK9zNUpZff70UDXS4GJc-5Ns0M9R/s640/blogger-image-1149754959.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div> The trucks are there every day, things getting done before you knew they were started. These guys don't mess around. We're so impressed and thankful. It's been less than a week so it's a bit too early to say how things are going but they've certainly gotten off to a good start.</div><div><br></div>Darrenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00230771763285373052noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5161400958986350151.post-11008837842639220212016-06-14T20:17:00.001-07:002016-06-14T20:22:32.463-07:00A new chapterThe last month has been a real roller coaster but today we signed a contract with a new builder to complete our renovation. It is a large commercial builder yet a family run business. In addition to building schools and large commercial buildings they also specialize in restoration and maintenance of historic houses and in the renovation of rental properties for high end property management firms. Our project to them is small. Why would they even bother? Well, some friends of ours who own an historic house and who have worked with this company made a personal appeal on our behalf. They came to see the house and agreed to help. It took a couple of weeks to finalize, but they gathered all the original trades on site and had a massive meeting, confirmed everyone's prices to complete the work and spent dozens of hours estimating and meeting with the city inspector and engineer. The effort they put into their contract proposal alone was impressive. Even though we've been shaken to the core by a nightmare of a building experience from before, we had confidence to proceed with this new builder on the recommendation of our friends and the strong effort they put forward in good faith to make a proposal that would work for us.<div><br></div><div>At this point our worries go from being a million different things - dozens of deficiencies, months of delays, dishonest billing, contract violations, breach of trust with bank funds, bullying and extortion, and even a break and enter where materials were stolen - to being really just one thing to worry about, which is the financing side of it, since the costs to finish are now about double what they were supposed to be.</div><div><br></div><div>The new builder didn't waste a minute getting into the job either. They were on site today and already cut the basement slab for footings if the structural supports. I imagine our neighbors will be hugely relieved to see work finally happening on the house, with a full crew on site in a daily basis. Finally, a real builder.</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVlhCRPOhwYVtG6gfIRBu3O_tOfK_8Ac7k5ZCInEjT-y0eKmPBDlcoGmG-JCKds8DEIdnKczesAUNHNhzGTHT0IhtVCCWKaRTonEOHGAMLk5WqJTMywVH5vrqqatpu4amIziTm36FtGYT5/s640/blogger-image--175991015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVlhCRPOhwYVtG6gfIRBu3O_tOfK_8Ac7k5ZCInEjT-y0eKmPBDlcoGmG-JCKds8DEIdnKczesAUNHNhzGTHT0IhtVCCWKaRTonEOHGAMLk5WqJTMywVH5vrqqatpu4amIziTm36FtGYT5/s640/blogger-image--175991015.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>No time wasted getting started: concrete work for structural supports started immediately. Shoring up the beam with proper equipment as well. What a difference already.</div>Darrenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00230771763285373052noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5161400958986350151.post-66890256546813567862016-06-08T15:04:00.001-07:002016-06-08T21:13:45.533-07:00Getting back on our feetOn this cloudy and cool June day we met with the new builder to review costs and scope of work. The builder met with all our original trades to firm up prices and gave us a revised proposal. The cost was higher than their original estimate and there were also a few TBD items and some details about the retaining wall and porch that need firming up. It far exceeds our original budget even after cutting the carport and greatly reducing the back porch. The stairway that was supposed to be a central feature of the house will end up being a typical, rather nondescript affair. Cheaper materials are likely to be used in several places. There is a lot of remediation work needed. But we have to move forward, and we are at least thankful that this company can get the work done in a two month time frame with a full time dedicated crew on site. <div><br></div><div>Once the work begins, we can hopefully start to sleep again.<div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikOciqXIeaIK6JkirKRhZABEXH8Zlc7ZBl23YKkk236oayllJlgblte32EHmEC6tM701M5NdACVRDRJER8syb_iPVyved7tw5j2fLhfkZxrENz74eu-bBXilC9a2cbY6bTOYiLt3H_v7gE/s640/blogger-image--951238233.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikOciqXIeaIK6JkirKRhZABEXH8Zlc7ZBl23YKkk236oayllJlgblte32EHmEC6tM701M5NdACVRDRJER8syb_iPVyved7tw5j2fLhfkZxrENz74eu-bBXilC9a2cbY6bTOYiLt3H_v7gE/s640/blogger-image--951238233.jpg"></a></div><br></div></div>Darrenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00230771763285373052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5161400958986350151.post-9616509897816967842016-06-04T07:00:00.002-07:002016-06-04T10:41:20.128-07:00An update, but still in limboIt's been nearly four weeks since our previous builder walked off the job and left us with a half-finished house, large cost over-runs, and major deficiencies. It's been a very stressful time trying to get the project restarted and a brief update for friends and family who're following this story is probably due.<br />
<br />
We contacted the subtrades and ensured that they had been paid. We were also given a staggering invoice from the builder, and according to the contract budget and the work done, I calculated that the invoice was four times higher than it should have been. There are many deficiencies and problems that hadn't been corrected. A lot of work was so poorly done that it has to be redone.<br />
<br />
Significant structural work was left uncompleted. This is very disappointing as the City Inspector, the engineering firm we hired, and the architect's office, were all ostensibly monitoring progress and keeping things on track. However, the builder had made several unauthorized deviations from the plan, removing a critical part of the foundation and leaving out required steel supporting parts. And although we had been invoiced and paid for the carport excavation, footings and structural work, no carport was actually built at all or even started. <br />
<br />
So, this means we have jack posts with concrete pads to install in the basement, and we have to open the exterior walls and weld in some steel hangers, install and LVL beam, and add a Simpson strap and tie-down to a post that was supposed to be metal and for some reason was instead replaced with a stack of 2x6's by the builder.<br />
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In any case, after clearing up the trades we retained a lawyer to draw up a release letter to close things off cleanly with the contractor, and negotiated a settlement to pay half of what they wanted, which was still double what it should have been and leaves way more than that amount worth of deficiencies that will have to be fixed.<br />
<br />
Then it turned out that the builders crew damaged the Hydro One power lines last fall during demolition and didn't want to pay for it. Our lawyer said in no uncertain terms that this is completely the builder's responsibility, as is fulfilling all of his debts and obligations to his suppliers up to the time of the termination of the contract.<br />
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Evidently materials that were left by some of the subcontractors to come back and finish their work had also disappeared from the site as well. We know the builder's crew illegally broke into the property to retrieve a ladder, taking some private property as well. <br />
<br />
We spoke to some potential builders and through some friends were put into contact with a company that is now working on firming up a contract to complete the work. Needless to say it will cost a lot more than we planned for and will take away most of our equity in the house that we had built up. It has to be done, though. And I guess it's necessary to take this time to get properly restarted with a new builder. Hopefully next week I'll be able to write about the plan going forward.Darrenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00230771763285373052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5161400958986350151.post-87024488919218807662016-05-21T07:11:00.001-07:002016-05-22T19:26:00.182-07:00One chapterAn update for those who've been following along... Things on our renovation were moving very slowly to this point. In four months, only the insulation, drywall and primer got done. Week after week went by with not much progress, sometimes none at all. I started mentioning this in our weekly meetings, but then the project manager left to join another company. Why were things moving so terribly slowly? It may be due to other projects that the builder has going on. One of them I happened to pass by this week and found it seems to have been stalled over the past year.<div><br></div><div>Getting stretched thin across too many ongoing projects is a problem. If one of the projects runs into problems it could affect all the others, and that may have been the case here. There should be someone dedicated on your job site every day, and work happening continuously. That wasn't happening for us.</div><div><div><br></div><div>I spent a lot of time the past two weeks running to meetings, emails to the engineer and architect, talking to our lawyer, and trying to figure out next steps. We closed things off with the original builder, but we had to settle with a compromise and lost a lot of money. We'll need to fix a lot of things that were incomplete, broken or not done right. It's sad.</div></div><div><br></div><div>We've been talking to a new builder and the good news is they're willing to take over. The bad news is it's going to cost a lot more. We're hoping we can find some ways to cut back. One difficult chapter closed, but we hope the next one is better.</div>Darrenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00230771763285373052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5161400958986350151.post-58848390446740670142016-05-12T06:30:00.001-07:002016-05-12T06:34:27.810-07:00On HoldUnfortunately our builder quit. Things were getting tense and delays were ongoing. Some things were invoiced and paid but were not built. Finally the builder quit. He pulled his crew and equipment and left us with a half finished house we can't live in.<div><br></div><div>When people talk about the stress of renovations, I get it now. We've had it in spades. We're now trying to line up a builder who can complete the work to get us into the house and finish the exterior.</div><div><br></div><div>A sad turn of events but stay tuned. It'll be a triumph or a train wreck but either way an interesting story.</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9Gr57n24mN-JAiEi-CPtF9A29-uZZPLLyddTEugd6Mpn7TE9zbMwa_c3Cbjk71gKcIS4Yz9sG1Is-VaKhmcqCY4NmvAiS8KOeQZP4-Bdwm7wCoFX1RBCgenxfOP6MDfy9nPJT9psb6p2J/s640/blogger-image--269886766.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9Gr57n24mN-JAiEi-CPtF9A29-uZZPLLyddTEugd6Mpn7TE9zbMwa_c3Cbjk71gKcIS4Yz9sG1Is-VaKhmcqCY4NmvAiS8KOeQZP4-Bdwm7wCoFX1RBCgenxfOP6MDfy9nPJT9psb6p2J/s640/blogger-image--269886766.jpg"></a></div><br></div>Darrenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00230771763285373052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5161400958986350151.post-42247887319915021332016-05-03T14:59:00.001-07:002016-05-03T14:59:27.086-07:00May update, week 1Well, needless to say we didn't move in on May 1st as planned, and we're certainly concerned with the building schedule, which originally showed that everything would be completed by now. At this point there is still a lot to finish before we can move in, and we've been out of our house for one year now. There are structural things like posts in the basement and under the stairs, as well as the carport and basement walk out. At the start of the project we hired an engineering firm to review all the structural work and sign off on it, which now seems like a good idea since there are currently a lot of temporary supports holding up various bits and corners.<div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzwon1y2EvrW5qMQWsi5Rl0zEu4lmTuN9piApccW2iJc1NpUH9QaEHSfg0XxSL6M2Ma6JZsHbRfT_JuUw91TChqUIwG9kBjMAlcaEvci7Sc_KOv7TOlTLa1HQQ91vLinZTTL_PYDDmKF_3/s640/blogger-image--1197851326.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzwon1y2EvrW5qMQWsi5Rl0zEu4lmTuN9piApccW2iJc1NpUH9QaEHSfg0XxSL6M2Ma6JZsHbRfT_JuUw91TChqUIwG9kBjMAlcaEvci7Sc_KOv7TOlTLa1HQQ91vLinZTTL_PYDDmKF_3/s640/blogger-image--1197851326.jpg"></a></div></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBH7WGNcne2E8XyI79TkvQWQldDOPdEgCWnXq2dXn8yOxVFY9de6WiCaLeYOrAJS3Vj2M3pqm5qtiWF6ox67jTC_R49KAvdXQ9H4s-BJ9l-dG-ImC-O9aE9jtAHi1ax1VwQTALv1FsicBN/s640/blogger-image-546656105.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBH7WGNcne2E8XyI79TkvQWQldDOPdEgCWnXq2dXn8yOxVFY9de6WiCaLeYOrAJS3Vj2M3pqm5qtiWF6ox67jTC_R49KAvdXQ9H4s-BJ9l-dG-ImC-O9aE9jtAHi1ax1VwQTALv1FsicBN/s640/blogger-image-546656105.jpg"></a></div><br><div>The flooring has been mostly installed and the good news is that it looks really nice. I wasn't sure how well I'd like it but I'm actually really pleased with how it turned out. However, the flooring installers accidentally put hardwood throughout the area meant for the tatami room, so they ran out of material to finish the front part of the house. We'll just make the best of it; the bright side is that there's now flooring through most of the house so it's closer to being complete. The tatami room platform and mats would've taken more time to build, but tatami mats are something that we can add later after the dust settles.</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhB3y8IUMY1OrtdX3bd4Pmnd8Xa9rEnnqlsCXCjXn-ViBNdz-UrzCIwmVoFSC9Mh_xax365TSelmUEefjaBcPH3mRFIXDB2Q-MoNEo2IbXBkpndHynwB9Uv3RFDjP1PP_-DZ7XS7-MRevi/s640/blogger-image-1219841439.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhB3y8IUMY1OrtdX3bd4Pmnd8Xa9rEnnqlsCXCjXn-ViBNdz-UrzCIwmVoFSC9Mh_xax365TSelmUEefjaBcPH3mRFIXDB2Q-MoNEo2IbXBkpndHynwB9Uv3RFDjP1PP_-DZ7XS7-MRevi/s640/blogger-image-1219841439.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1b678cevftwCtTN9_kdfnFmlJQuJEZumU6TfHStufzLJRuUrruSkexBZHaeaHh7ib0HXfxppA22xd7NzWzqg7mnCnvorU7ibvrub7KoHTKbLrQbcrM43Jpb2KQZ8w9qBdlrRR-N-deaYw/s640/blogger-image-427282931.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1b678cevftwCtTN9_kdfnFmlJQuJEZumU6TfHStufzLJRuUrruSkexBZHaeaHh7ib0HXfxppA22xd7NzWzqg7mnCnvorU7ibvrub7KoHTKbLrQbcrM43Jpb2KQZ8w9qBdlrRR-N-deaYw/s640/blogger-image-427282931.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">We also got the kitchen cabinets delivered and the boxes are now put together and some of the cabinets hung. We went with IKEA cabinets because they're cost effective. We thought of installing custom doors on them, but decided due to time constraints to use their standard doors in birch and white.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYy-LIqBZUyZEVWLazHLpLxsayBIoKhdq_ZZCMRUZrCSrV3qhyphenhyphenPhS5Zhdt3JVYZfm2SfJadj_bgd0pATvnqBG6xwk2h4TIOfNB7fsVCFTsLa8gwrOZ7phW3Uef0QMaMFLklMsFZDzW_zco/s640/blogger-image-310197382.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYy-LIqBZUyZEVWLazHLpLxsayBIoKhdq_ZZCMRUZrCSrV3qhyphenhyphenPhS5Zhdt3JVYZfm2SfJadj_bgd0pATvnqBG6xwk2h4TIOfNB7fsVCFTsLa8gwrOZ7phW3Uef0QMaMFLklMsFZDzW_zco/s640/blogger-image-310197382.jpg"></a></div><br></div>The tiles were supposed to go down first because we bought enough to do the whole floor including under the cabinets. I'm not sure if that will be done now or if they'll just tile under the stove and fridge areas. The builder, Bramel Design and Build, prefers to put the cabinets on wooden plinths and finish them with wood instead of the cheap plastic legs and tie kicks that normally come with IKEA cabinets. That should make them a little more solid.</div><div><br></div></div>Darrenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00230771763285373052noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5161400958986350151.post-90144084665532000272016-04-26T19:54:00.001-07:002016-04-26T19:54:27.079-07:00Progress updateWe were supposed to be moving in within a week or so. That isn't going to happen as you will see from the photos. Nevertheless, this past week saw some further work on the porch and a start on tiling. There were a few things that needed to be redone with the porch framing. Linebox has provided input on ways to simplify things, which is much needed at this point to speed things along. One of the peculiar issues is that it was noticed rather late in the game that the planter in front of the house would need to be a "permanent structure", and hence built upon concrete footings to be immovable, if it were to be considered as a barrier in front of the deck to eliminate the need for a guard rail. Such footings were not part of the original plan however, and so they were not excavated or poured. Although we could add a permanent planter in the future, for the sake of expediency we will probably skip it for now. That means however that the guard rail will probably need to be extended across the whole front of the house, which is frankly a disappointment to me, because it really changes the character of the design and the view of the beautiful corner window. Perhaps the change will grow on us, or perhaps we'll be able to install a guard rail initially and replace it later with the planter idea. The main thing at this point is simply to get the house completed as we've now been out of our house for a year and really need to get back into our home.<div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3KIKh_RP1LoigWifpXvtkGQttSHHJY_oLECI0K1oXPDGoPZMp2OxAgmxQQcmxqQyxlt7gnXtZKZtnimXUo0bOcQIj_esF7dOYGUXdJ0NuLgjX1ZmjJZm0Z4bcR77mDzynvVTU03rN8J8j/s640/blogger-image--1450860981.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3KIKh_RP1LoigWifpXvtkGQttSHHJY_oLECI0K1oXPDGoPZMp2OxAgmxQQcmxqQyxlt7gnXtZKZtnimXUo0bOcQIj_esF7dOYGUXdJ0NuLgjX1ZmjJZm0Z4bcR77mDzynvVTU03rN8J8j/s640/blogger-image--1450860981.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">It's really neat to see the house beginning to look like the drawings. The porch adds a whole new dimension to the house. We can't wait to sit and enjoy that space.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Although delays are ongoing it's nice to see some things moving forward. The slate tile in the entry is looking quite nice, I think. Although the thickness is these natural stone tiles varies slightly, requiring wider grout lines, it has a really authentic and natural look. This is a good fit for the "genkan" entrance, a reflection of the fact that in old Japanese houses the entrance was actually just stamped earth. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnjUHaDQPc150_locil_PgRItsaJbOAoe-M2njlg8rxVxWicEoaJwXSvHXvCNtvzeF3c_lxDvdAW6l0aaYI2bfMAMYFTq4jTk7cWcFyFZihcnXeOC0EL-6R75009DpKHuiEaGnxPHWbOq9/s640/blogger-image--1754591686.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnjUHaDQPc150_locil_PgRItsaJbOAoe-M2njlg8rxVxWicEoaJwXSvHXvCNtvzeF3c_lxDvdAW6l0aaYI2bfMAMYFTq4jTk7cWcFyFZihcnXeOC0EL-6R75009DpKHuiEaGnxPHWbOq9/s640/blogger-image--1754591686.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Still waiting for the front door lockset to be installed, but the tile is looking nice.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">This setup on the floor here is one of the WarmlyYours heating mats embedded in a self leveling cementious mix. Tiles go over this part. There's a cable and a sensor wire that will run under the floor and then up to a wall mounted thermostat to the left of the door.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigw6PQE48P79WB1EJa8fAt2o_3Vw0o9Q20EmU6WX-K2NoGHqzx1xcGKzAlYRUKeFxYqYvhYlBmIXgdXAKgLQBBRds9LfhfOhtDaKCXwVqxo8gbJnmZkUiE_QsTaM7HsSv77aW5o1ZFyNQF/s640/blogger-image-320046001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigw6PQE48P79WB1EJa8fAt2o_3Vw0o9Q20EmU6WX-K2NoGHqzx1xcGKzAlYRUKeFxYqYvhYlBmIXgdXAKgLQBBRds9LfhfOhtDaKCXwVqxo8gbJnmZkUiE_QsTaM7HsSv77aW5o1ZFyNQF/s640/blogger-image-320046001.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">The missing circuit checker showed up in the mail - WarmlyYours sent it fairly promptly after a bit of phone discussion. Initially I nearly got punted back to HomeDepot until I insisted that the order had shipped directly from their warehouse to me and it was clearly an omission on their part and not a problem with the order placement from HomeDepot. I think I would recommend going directly via WarmlyYours so you deal directly with them for the whole process and don't get the runaround trying to blame the middleman. In the end they dealt with it. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqRoRwKnPgNKu1ONYhXx2VH2geOX07Qom047r_k_EfkCQC5PTYtaFLuiH0Sp6HA6TwrsRBmJO8hNiBrTtqqv5rjy5HKp1J26WTZSkztSObrOTuHHZHVb9s73T9LvUwM5oDQWQOjQ0suyDO/s640/blogger-image--1713796766.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqRoRwKnPgNKu1ONYhXx2VH2geOX07Qom047r_k_EfkCQC5PTYtaFLuiH0Sp6HA6TwrsRBmJO8hNiBrTtqqv5rjy5HKp1J26WTZSkztSObrOTuHHZHVb9s73T9LvUwM5oDQWQOjQ0suyDO/s640/blogger-image--1713796766.jpg"></a></div></div><div><br></div><div>After you connect the wires to the right places, the circuit check will emit a siren if there's a break in continuity of the wires. There was no siren, and I tested with one of the wires disconnected to make sure the siren worked, so all seems good. It turns out that Canadian Tire had digital multimeters on sale at 29.99 down from 69.99 so I have one of those now too, and that's what they actually recommend for testing the resistance before during and after installation. </div><div><br></div><div>So I'm hoping in the next update to show some tiles and flooring as well as the basement slab poured. As for doors and trim it turns out Home Depot takes two to three weeks to get any special order doors in, so we can forget about that. We will have to try a building supplier that carries doors in stock or go with a paint grade slab door option and potentially upgrade them later to the wood doors we prefer.</div>Darrenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00230771763285373052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5161400958986350151.post-78245255383460310962016-04-17T05:35:00.001-07:002016-04-18T19:22:46.851-07:00Prime TimeThis update is almost a week since the last one and it feels good to be getting back to more regular updates.<div><br></div><div>The taping and mudding were completed, for the most part. There are a few areas that need further work, in particular the Japanese bath we room where the wall had to be modified to make a shower ledge and still needs side built up so the glass shower door will fit flush against the edge. It's too bad this wasn't completed as planned since now there will need to be more mudding and painting again afterwards.</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF9G_hYrm-AqQDKQwboZsaRuHLSOggKspbhpxFhjietpMqBREtndcgj6MrynMp68KgSc9y6A49N7W3Em8SRlH05eabo_hD6TkbTA3vdbBdcFj9tDUfYZc0StkuA7uutRxYdjeJ3VOAoYdU/s640/blogger-image--719540509.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF9G_hYrm-AqQDKQwboZsaRuHLSOggKspbhpxFhjietpMqBREtndcgj6MrynMp68KgSc9y6A49N7W3Em8SRlH05eabo_hD6TkbTA3vdbBdcFj9tDUfYZc0StkuA7uutRxYdjeJ3VOAoYdU/s640/blogger-image--719540509.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>The shower areas are awaiting waterproofing as well, and now that the drywall and priming are done it should be happening this week and tile started.</div><div><br></div><div>Also needed is to install the lockset on the front door, which is currently boarded shut, so the drywall mudding and painting couldn't be done around the door.</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzgD64JSk1EZJFuGpreXpbpfpA5U-P4-OUfpcLEgsIjV45CD4qe3ShmdUrky7ScqOBeFDvK2seqWB6XDJD8wafMQP3vdFQLJXfyGFO5S5MSCdcDAlxb3Tj_vZS83icQg52C0ktOCmxvFGf/s640/blogger-image--1673590666.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzgD64JSk1EZJFuGpreXpbpfpA5U-P4-OUfpcLEgsIjV45CD4qe3ShmdUrky7ScqOBeFDvK2seqWB6XDJD8wafMQP3vdFQLJXfyGFO5S5MSCdcDAlxb3Tj_vZS83icQg52C0ktOCmxvFGf/s640/blogger-image--1673590666.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div><br></div><div>We purchased a wall hung vanity for the ensuite. It's not exactly what we had in mind but it proved incredibly hard to find one we liked without getting it custom made, which would have been a lot more expensive. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd4l9X-hZsrE-pipeB87Ao_ldTprOA7ILT8IiqQgCNyvU-2GelnurgcV3E1U_FP9NWzro5rVnMx83tW88Y52SDrgU02eG3LRydCadfcrxQj7t7wX61yzBILxubVWW4UFpEZhvOVlm38Nu3/s640/blogger-image--1000163393.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd4l9X-hZsrE-pipeB87Ao_ldTprOA7ILT8IiqQgCNyvU-2GelnurgcV3E1U_FP9NWzro5rVnMx83tW88Y52SDrgU02eG3LRydCadfcrxQj7t7wX61yzBILxubVWW4UFpEZhvOVlm38Nu3/s640/blogger-image--1000163393.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">We also received in the mail two electric radiant floor heating mats from Warmly Yours, which we ordered through the Home Depot website. They sell the product online only. It came pretty quickly but was missing the continuity tester that's supposed to ship with the kit, so there's one more thing to deal with. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Now for a few pics of the house with the walls - they're looking good.</span></div></div><br><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFWZ-XYe7LFWVNiLDDlxC_XCm1r1nUUyFELb5yvfaXftXQQ7_GFWoI6j2xSu46tCR2-1eafdewVW8JsZfVXJciHQfhY4FxngZFe4P2TIZ8t4y09Cv7_Snf69KU8HKaGbA_IlE-eqdYMLek/s640/blogger-image--1930435570.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFWZ-XYe7LFWVNiLDDlxC_XCm1r1nUUyFELb5yvfaXftXQQ7_GFWoI6j2xSu46tCR2-1eafdewVW8JsZfVXJciHQfhY4FxngZFe4P2TIZ8t4y09Cv7_Snf69KU8HKaGbA_IlE-eqdYMLek/s640/blogger-image--1930435570.jpg"></a></div><br><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzGkxZPT-pxkobv7Z-uMqcN9e41Ln7NxV9qxRhYGcbrWyMpCuo4mUvuqEJZaw21JfHzc-B8yifcedAdxOux8UkYNIB1u2hRx_HdPJBa4tm_UdR9QQmuwkDnWaTjz7zDB2chyzD4jYdT5g8/s640/blogger-image-259485865.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzGkxZPT-pxkobv7Z-uMqcN9e41Ln7NxV9qxRhYGcbrWyMpCuo4mUvuqEJZaw21JfHzc-B8yifcedAdxOux8UkYNIB1u2hRx_HdPJBa4tm_UdR9QQmuwkDnWaTjz7zDB2chyzD4jYdT5g8/s640/blogger-image-259485865.jpg"></a></div><br><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXzuHcTJFbWXdmzdiMhO9gELmZFFheg0Fyv-GOtuW0afrb0K0FDOEDp3evabfuAGdOnCOA_9FScaNMgdb8HP0JvgUUsb6glEETTgYcv5OQbO3VfMPIPGfHItwA9t7hywFPnkGbT1bGuJmj/s640/blogger-image--721277700.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXzuHcTJFbWXdmzdiMhO9gELmZFFheg0Fyv-GOtuW0afrb0K0FDOEDp3evabfuAGdOnCOA_9FScaNMgdb8HP0JvgUUsb6glEETTgYcv5OQbO3VfMPIPGfHItwA9t7hywFPnkGbT1bGuJmj/s640/blogger-image--721277700.jpg"></a></div><br><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG_910Gx2CsZKP5r8ud679R6xbKQE1KJ-AwgY44T7yzpgLkWlECAL_3FnzzBpsHcCyx03OO_wvqfFld-74cBvJNR_DTeK_Z1Aopd42SlwGfKheh9-9AnaT5CzEPiWDvUCIck8802PKcfyk/s640/blogger-image--329860000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG_910Gx2CsZKP5r8ud679R6xbKQE1KJ-AwgY44T7yzpgLkWlECAL_3FnzzBpsHcCyx03OO_wvqfFld-74cBvJNR_DTeK_Z1Aopd42SlwGfKheh9-9AnaT5CzEPiWDvUCIck8802PKcfyk/s640/blogger-image--329860000.jpg"></a></div><br><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1tqf1ZU7-vT9r9i_1Dc2AQoYSJRRwkExpg1aN55HfJnqKJuHMqFbT8GWQquspaSAi9s6A6FCSez43VQUaIEcexCfO3FHLh2tn9Zd9HqTGLk5ghVZVs8gAI-ZxdXN-cYUyQG6Yt0aQbJky/s640/blogger-image-13737600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1tqf1ZU7-vT9r9i_1Dc2AQoYSJRRwkExpg1aN55HfJnqKJuHMqFbT8GWQquspaSAi9s6A6FCSez43VQUaIEcexCfO3FHLh2tn9Zd9HqTGLk5ghVZVs8gAI-ZxdXN-cYUyQG6Yt0aQbJky/s640/blogger-image-13737600.jpg"></a></div>Darrenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00230771763285373052noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5161400958986350151.post-74114836395123214502016-04-09T06:28:00.001-07:002016-04-09T06:28:25.465-07:00April UpdateI missed a couple of weeks here, although to be fair there was not as much progress on the house as we were expecting and the drywall has only just been completed. The drywall was a two-week timeline on the schedule, and was actually supposed to take less so we could get the schedule back on track. Instead the drywall has stretched into 10 weeks.<div><br></div><div>The delays are frustrating. From what I understand the subcontractor was changed, then late to start, and then the house was too cold to start taping and mudding. Ottawa hydro was called in and did the hookup quickly, but evidently there were no outlets wired up from the electrical panel, so that caused another couple of days of delays. Some heaters were brought in, but they were small consumer grade ones and didn't produce much heat, and the drywall tapers wouldn't start without better heat. Without dry heat the mud doesn't dry and cure properly. Better industrial grade heaters were brought in and the taping began last week. It should be finished now and the painter is supposed to start next week.<div><br></div><div>Unfortunately the project manager at Bramel who was overseeing all the details of the build and schedules has left to join another company, so is no longer helping with our project. This came as a great disappointment and left us wondering how we were going to get through all of the organization and planning needed for the rest of the build.</div><div><br></div><div>To our relief the architect, Linebox Studios, has now stepped in and will be taking a more active role in overseeing the project through to completion. Linebox recommended our builder Bramel to us and they have worked together on other projects so they know what needs to be done. They've already provided painting specifics and will be focusing on one one aspect at a time for the remaining work to get it done by summer.</div><div><br></div><div>Here's some pictures of the interior drywall getting finished, and hopefully next week I'll post some with the walls painted!</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0tKi9Dj2hF5pCLdgsVAOyD-CqDF3fIzbJCg5zeRiDa-AbBy9qzqPHtyKNBQYfwHf-NxGPqL95LPaH-SMQx_h_YTyEMgKWyCEXLOcVDOsyUrd94lHVACKzhM7ahuzF2vXIwwY_OObaViCR/s640/blogger-image-1369755215.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0tKi9Dj2hF5pCLdgsVAOyD-CqDF3fIzbJCg5zeRiDa-AbBy9qzqPHtyKNBQYfwHf-NxGPqL95LPaH-SMQx_h_YTyEMgKWyCEXLOcVDOsyUrd94lHVACKzhM7ahuzF2vXIwwY_OObaViCR/s640/blogger-image-1369755215.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCyGtc0oOrwir5MJMcFr0ydD5go0aEAL8t8DHlkVYKp4s5tuU5EcEbQxpkqH6ROr1EkaCKcC1o0ZOKImVf3Po6_3sLoDdw3kRLkSU37NgOpH6bHmwW1CGbMwAuO3N9JrPcBdzPtAuPzTLS/s640/blogger-image-1427423101.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCyGtc0oOrwir5MJMcFr0ydD5go0aEAL8t8DHlkVYKp4s5tuU5EcEbQxpkqH6ROr1EkaCKcC1o0ZOKImVf3Po6_3sLoDdw3kRLkSU37NgOpH6bHmwW1CGbMwAuO3N9JrPcBdzPtAuPzTLS/s640/blogger-image-1427423101.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTLTuPVkgBuFv07hKR9aSt0UQ1JINCvcddNyTLxLXruqImGrFBWCS1DnBsw_Bm9Ta9rXJEXfm8w_KAn-H0mNhT40vulTIEbWkoeDqqAEvGiBE_r5sBcLAPTedmITVlBkGkEw3VQ4DuasOW/s640/blogger-image--238200960.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTLTuPVkgBuFv07hKR9aSt0UQ1JINCvcddNyTLxLXruqImGrFBWCS1DnBsw_Bm9Ta9rXJEXfm8w_KAn-H0mNhT40vulTIEbWkoeDqqAEvGiBE_r5sBcLAPTedmITVlBkGkEw3VQ4DuasOW/s640/blogger-image--238200960.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikfHtppjSzLR8X5V-UeAoqknVQfYkGCI5FRzitIvzjvwVZxjEH8Jo_23bIJUMUy5idrzes66kRQOqHIceyow2gtNPzLpMqYqTYutkIlroJOMc_V88gPm42qiBzz3bZZN6cqSzinqF9F_m5/s640/blogger-image-1092040537.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikfHtppjSzLR8X5V-UeAoqknVQfYkGCI5FRzitIvzjvwVZxjEH8Jo_23bIJUMUy5idrzes66kRQOqHIceyow2gtNPzLpMqYqTYutkIlroJOMc_V88gPm42qiBzz3bZZN6cqSzinqF9F_m5/s640/blogger-image-1092040537.jpg"></a></div><br></div><br></div><br></div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><br><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9CE7FMyDYT8CDwNyfg0C7OGljoMPQv3wIrOJ0bUp8Muwuj260EgHXKLRXfCaMqb47cC0le6fVixahbaZrlVfSAe8420ajJ8gTgmsRc2lAa1zY4G3jZgRImC4LbG0wbnQwbtvtNALU7s5h/s640/blogger-image--150036031.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9CE7FMyDYT8CDwNyfg0C7OGljoMPQv3wIrOJ0bUp8Muwuj260EgHXKLRXfCaMqb47cC0le6fVixahbaZrlVfSAe8420ajJ8gTgmsRc2lAa1zY4G3jZgRImC4LbG0wbnQwbtvtNALU7s5h/s640/blogger-image--150036031.jpg"></a></div>Darrenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00230771763285373052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5161400958986350151.post-91137875499112347782016-03-23T20:49:00.001-07:002016-03-23T20:49:12.263-07:00Mud seasonIt's been a couple weeks since the last update. Last time we were waiting for drywall to start. At that time the drywall was already coming in five weeks behind schedule. The good news is the sheetrock is hung. The bad news is it still isn't mudded and the slab isn't poured. All this is contingent on getting some dry heat in the house. Fortunately the electrical mains are now connected. However when I last saw the panel it did not look connected inside. The mains are hanging pretty close to where our back porch will be, too, so I'm pretty sure it'll have to be moved up.<div><br></div><div>Anyway. A couple weekends ago I went by the house to find snow melting off the roof and running down into the unfinished walk out basement area. I spent a few cold and damp hours trying to get plastic sheeting clamped up to direct some of the water away from the house. I was sick as a dog afterwards.</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-PaGYZM2ksc3U_OESU7tYWleWrlAcO7ccs-N01KNUqQa97W9nkwxVdlEckNg1GIS4oJqA57lUy1uy6cHsByOJAAdVvSDldAvef0v-_uaGX5bgNBhjLuL3PO_prVfWqaUSaAojONCP0OGl/s640/blogger-image-1703834522.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-PaGYZM2ksc3U_OESU7tYWleWrlAcO7ccs-N01KNUqQa97W9nkwxVdlEckNg1GIS4oJqA57lUy1uy6cHsByOJAAdVvSDldAvef0v-_uaGX5bgNBhjLuL3PO_prVfWqaUSaAojONCP0OGl/s640/blogger-image-1703834522.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div><div>Most of the water puddled beside the house. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHACIUqaWkG7AL3U0aYIITp5x2-I8mWN8ZL-cPxoIX-r6hNQC7qjVz5CwCAjSmM9UfSCqbtozNDqh-0wjN4wTfKjH2Fg9r1EmslVVyfE9ufPksYKXlADmJsQFIbfF0-GCMN3Z4aPe5omjD/s640/blogger-image--1293096056.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHACIUqaWkG7AL3U0aYIITp5x2-I8mWN8ZL-cPxoIX-r6hNQC7qjVz5CwCAjSmM9UfSCqbtozNDqh-0wjN4wTfKjH2Fg9r1EmslVVyfE9ufPksYKXlADmJsQFIbfF0-GCMN3Z4aPe5omjD/s640/blogger-image--1293096056.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>Then it ran down into the walk out area. The plastic sheeting was to catch the roof runoff and direct it away from the house.</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl0pUZ08l2OX0kl7fz-QgCpqTV9UMk0czSdu9y4GrXDRs_AdRXrW7p_wpu-sP82QVfUv9gYk7px3oKlQo0cuNaivHn5S0bxIZd1NZiA1vEwtoTZ4JQNKuIQWbOqb8xjsA1rP2G42zb8jaC/s640/blogger-image--1367730779.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl0pUZ08l2OX0kl7fz-QgCpqTV9UMk0czSdu9y4GrXDRs_AdRXrW7p_wpu-sP82QVfUv9gYk7px3oKlQo0cuNaivHn5S0bxIZd1NZiA1vEwtoTZ4JQNKuIQWbOqb8xjsA1rP2G42zb8jaC/s640/blogger-image--1367730779.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>I hope nobody was planning to use these OSB boards for anything important.</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb1Da1sVKlp_jdxCLwLmgakKlFNd2fTiWD9c3KY4fcYQe9CeL8J1DOYFuNjMz7JCviHY5A0C1EtqPyrQ90eGQeGenQu2Ev6z6PFUMrT6HkW72BqxCevDYn2cbuxybGmNhr2d9qZZpGu-ac/s640/blogger-image-686785139.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb1Da1sVKlp_jdxCLwLmgakKlFNd2fTiWD9c3KY4fcYQe9CeL8J1DOYFuNjMz7JCviHY5A0C1EtqPyrQ90eGQeGenQu2Ev6z6PFUMrT6HkW72BqxCevDYn2cbuxybGmNhr2d9qZZpGu-ac/s640/blogger-image-686785139.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>I happened to have a submersible pump so I used that to get rid of some of the water that had pooled up by the door. Once the sump pump is connected there should be much better drainage.</div></div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6iu-5kNHH5rf68DqDcCe2h-H8UXUnepzJVbDytgemzlFfWcrxmZ4pCLJ_NmK3MCr8XK1yGLHx3-5i0D9LuH9iNzgZg-Q0zM65dswlqiUeQo5vpnug9qtH25uYTOIXeBElqdohesOWvQG_/s640/blogger-image--409794363.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6iu-5kNHH5rf68DqDcCe2h-H8UXUnepzJVbDytgemzlFfWcrxmZ4pCLJ_NmK3MCr8XK1yGLHx3-5i0D9LuH9iNzgZg-Q0zM65dswlqiUeQo5vpnug9qtH25uYTOIXeBElqdohesOWvQG_/s640/blogger-image--409794363.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>Inside is looking better. The builder added a transom to house the top of the shoji screen sliding doors that will be in front of the tatami room. It doesn't house any mechanical systems or structural stuff, but it will hold up a track for the shoji screens to slide along.</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfhVZL240ltPbLnhUjDZaPBbiem2MltOqTAMtzrWbaHNtzAVNGKJFeSPQbMbpV8-X0fh3PWqUiQNRIYFj4tVLLnjpg03uwyRa-ACj9Fotrba1Pu5IUV88Ji1X9ryEdaewkKAApIz1o0F_E/s640/blogger-image--337400798.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfhVZL240ltPbLnhUjDZaPBbiem2MltOqTAMtzrWbaHNtzAVNGKJFeSPQbMbpV8-X0fh3PWqUiQNRIYFj4tVLLnjpg03uwyRa-ACj9Fotrba1Pu5IUV88Ji1X9ryEdaewkKAApIz1o0F_E/s640/blogger-image--337400798.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjwixmPicGOfnDs-QlVqpPoBvtXnOEG_kDJfvc8we0zDYzQnH9B_blcmA7G6J931-nfk6gQyhqd5BX9PdGms5Vb4U8dFPbjg82V0UN85vScNPhx7nvrV1CqNDEFxt85s0tWqc311jwFA0Z/s640/blogger-image-1410090928.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjwixmPicGOfnDs-QlVqpPoBvtXnOEG_kDJfvc8we0zDYzQnH9B_blcmA7G6J931-nfk6gQyhqd5BX9PdGms5Vb4U8dFPbjg82V0UN85vScNPhx7nvrV1CqNDEFxt85s0tWqc311jwFA0Z/s640/blogger-image-1410090928.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>It's a small house but the front office / spare room area is actually pretty spacious. The tall narrow windows are a nice touch by the architect, Linebox Studios. They have been moving toward commercial work and high end residential stuff, so our house is probably one of their smallest projects in Ottawa and one of the more conservative styles, but when you look at the house I think you can tell there is something special in the design. As the house begins to take shape we can begin to appreciate some of the architectural details. </div><div><br></div><div>Seeing things finally beginning to take shape has given us a little more confidence that this will be a really special home when it's all said and done. As March slips by we sincerely hope the inside will be completed by the end of April as promised.</div>Darrenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00230771763285373052noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5161400958986350151.post-11116984076657207042016-03-08T18:33:00.001-08:002016-03-16T18:11:56.638-07:00An overdue updateBeen a while since the last update, so I'll post some photos. The was some good progress at the house in February, the main event being window installation. After that we had some electrical and hvac work going on which is not as noticeable but very important. Insulation was delayed by a couple of bad winter storms that hit us in February. The drywall which was supposed to start in early February ended up getting delayed to the point where it's now starting about 5 weeks behind schedule. That's a real concern so we hope things go a little more smoothly as the weather starts to improve here. We're getting very anxious to finally complete this renovation and be back in our home.<br />
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Picking out flooring and tiling have kind of consumed our weekends for a while. We've visited about every flooring store in the city I think. We finally went on the recommendation of our builder Bramel Developments, to see Glen Carastan at Carastan Carpet and Flooring. Not only did Glen remember our names the following week but he remembered our daughters name as well and which hardwood we were the most interested in. We ended up going with a natural wire brushed oak because it had a fairly clean simple look. I've never been a huge fan of strong "cathedral" grain patterns - I the like long linear grain of rift and quarter sawn boards a lot better. But it somehow grew on me and Chiyo likes it too. </div>
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That's Chiyo holding up a flooring sample next to some tiles.</div>
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Tiles are a whole other story. I had a pretty good idea what I wanted - dark gray slate in the entry, an anthracite middle gray in the kitchen... White tile for the bath surround. I was surprised to find out that "gray tile" comes in about a bazillion flavors. Well not surprised that there are options, but surprised just how much time and effort it takes to find one you like. Then there's the fact that it has to match the rest of the materials.</div>
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I ended up finding some natural black slate on sale at Lowes and decided to get it while they had it. It'll be for the entrance, which is the "genkan" Japanese style sunken entrance. This is where you take off your shoes and in really old Japanese houses the floor in this part was stone or compacted earth. So these somewhat rough slates are, I think a kinda appropriate choice. Not too neat and tidy, a bit wild and natural looking. Definitely earthy. These boxes were heavy!</div>
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Last weekend we finalized some tile choices, then focused on making selections for doors. I think we made some good progress on both fronts.</div>
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Darrenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00230771763285373052noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5161400958986350151.post-43981766023980416712016-02-05T18:26:00.001-08:002016-02-05T18:26:48.168-08:00Windows!Today was a big day at the house. The windows got delivered and installation is happening! <div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJEpnN9su26AqRmIXs10Wm5viAioFMWEpH5BwvYYoVFmVnIf24xnNryU8NpwQCmZH_pcDVbNuCUMBy0aNupcJ5UdGJ4ChEHfpyNf6vZDLMbNuTAJlgzIVulh54Z0Gig0oZgpz5qAjvZAzU/s640/blogger-image--1760702648.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJEpnN9su26AqRmIXs10Wm5viAioFMWEpH5BwvYYoVFmVnIf24xnNryU8NpwQCmZH_pcDVbNuCUMBy0aNupcJ5UdGJ4ChEHfpyNf6vZDLMbNuTAJlgzIVulh54Z0Gig0oZgpz5qAjvZAzU/s640/blogger-image--1760702648.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbGpYT2F9smySIwz7YSfpumqbkIGpp6w3DqRfeffVxYNBCUL4YocsbLRGqd8ZNrjn9UrVWAtojIT5wxOlm4_V_3YEe097doyCQu17buPIauqydGTqUww2vHaNDqZ3pM4JXd0-ra59e4MkR/s640/blogger-image--911250075.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbGpYT2F9smySIwz7YSfpumqbkIGpp6w3DqRfeffVxYNBCUL4YocsbLRGqd8ZNrjn9UrVWAtojIT5wxOlm4_V_3YEe097doyCQu17buPIauqydGTqUww2vHaNDqZ3pM4JXd0-ra59e4MkR/s640/blogger-image--911250075.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">What a difference it makes to have light coming in where it used to be all boarded up!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">The crew has been busy on the site the last couple of weeks, and it's really nice to see things are in full swing now. The windows were kind of holding everything up, and the plumbing fixtures, but apparently the fixtures are all in the warehouse now, too, and should be getting plumbed in soon. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">That last photo from Tausha the project manager gives you an idea of the beaustiful light we get in the yard. Not entirely sure why... maybe the orientation of the house, but the afternoon light here has always been nice. A good finish to the week.</div><br></div><br></div>Darrenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00230771763285373052noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5161400958986350151.post-66584466813952458372016-02-04T07:46:00.001-08:002016-02-16T17:22:05.368-08:00Measure twice cut onceThe design of our house includes a mix of Japanese and Western influences that required special consideration. When it comes to implementing the design, however, there are a lot of details to figure out. <div><br></div><div>One of the Japanese features is <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">"shoji" sliding doors in the tatami room area. The tatami room is raised one step above the main floor, and is meant to accomodate sliding shoji screens between the rooms. Shoji screens can be a beautiful alternative to walls or heavy doors.</span><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjOowM4VX-Ahr4SXmcs-zCkNnnSWsZfe6i1-S94H53tq63W43VsKHxm6_NFR7zWfIyDvBAvivc-ycTHfEtSLPrJ4pCuch9KSthn_7Xqy5VZdaED0J_WtsRuSZ2CZog0i7S_g7IQZ-LD4NR/s640/blogger-image--1208155209.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjOowM4VX-Ahr4SXmcs-zCkNnnSWsZfe6i1-S94H53tq63W43VsKHxm6_NFR7zWfIyDvBAvivc-ycTHfEtSLPrJ4pCuch9KSthn_7Xqy5VZdaED0J_WtsRuSZ2CZog0i7S_g7IQZ-LD4NR/s640/blogger-image--1208155209.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Now we're trying to work out the positioning of the shoji doors. I made a few sketch up drawings to show some of the options I talked about with the builder. </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">This one isn't great because of the gap between to floor and the doors: </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi4-SZpdpDcWebE7PvdsgUar5lJJx_sgm4Zgl0ahpZrvTLgKsWmjYv9FF5pN7-r1ZG9PofNDE_VDqSeEUKb2JHYknwyywTZU_m40A871szp_DGXm0LH5eEPn9tS8BmYO6MPxPsF9AyEAOT/s640/blogger-image--1716922554.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi4-SZpdpDcWebE7PvdsgUar5lJJx_sgm4Zgl0ahpZrvTLgKsWmjYv9FF5pN7-r1ZG9PofNDE_VDqSeEUKb2JHYknwyywTZU_m40A871szp_DGXm0LH5eEPn9tS8BmYO6MPxPsF9AyEAOT/s640/blogger-image--1716922554.jpg"></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">This one would require more space:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTHIjk9w6r5TirCpQe4NRzAjRNRzp-_N_EQ6SUyPa-4C0eMgAN2dbewzWDudHva4lDUMF1Ov0c0I-_lJgYMMsIjJ8Uk8DW3HZfSMspK7oZwEW9zp14wj4Zn8B1Gg-ZtnzyQAyQOfyhyphenhyphenOjm/s640/blogger-image--92161650.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTHIjk9w6r5TirCpQe4NRzAjRNRzp-_N_EQ6SUyPa-4C0eMgAN2dbewzWDudHva4lDUMF1Ov0c0I-_lJgYMMsIjJ8Uk8DW3HZfSMspK7oZwEW9zp14wj4Zn8B1Gg-ZtnzyQAyQOfyhyphenhyphenOjm/s640/blogger-image--92161650.jpg"></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">This one is more traditional: </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoSceyd9QfoE2dr0_17ogsm5V_9uhOP2jq9Ke4bdyPhhH4Guc_E70MURGZszgTvgYMFERJq8PxF4SRFJisZZe-QvatX1gxwmO9DN1egWQdss86ofVemSxKxOT4TUeX6ylUMLFRqJ6hrm3V/s640/blogger-image-1686121663.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoSceyd9QfoE2dr0_17ogsm5V_9uhOP2jq9Ke4bdyPhhH4Guc_E70MURGZszgTvgYMFERJq8PxF4SRFJisZZe-QvatX1gxwmO9DN1egWQdss86ofVemSxKxOT4TUeX6ylUMLFRqJ6hrm3V/s640/blogger-image-1686121663.jpg"></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">And lastly, the solid wall could be removed to permit an arrangement of three or four shoji screens.</div><br></div></div>Darrenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00230771763285373052noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5161400958986350151.post-39977029048985133852016-02-03T22:03:00.001-08:002016-02-03T22:03:56.941-08:00Inside jobsThis update is a little overdue but last week there was a lot of activity going on inside the house.<div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCEmKSn3NhVEsFlZfBac7fz3JNIhlg27hh7TWEBbmVZGbe1jmcql3UYy2i6fTpqZZtEQP8829CwqBcXLzwy0AJonXANyZGA1ocxAKdBJVaBkFdZG6kXzi0Ev7g9-LAOEkoYBLqyRstZNTy/s640/blogger-image--1217882522.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCEmKSn3NhVEsFlZfBac7fz3JNIhlg27hh7TWEBbmVZGbe1jmcql3UYy2i6fTpqZZtEQP8829CwqBcXLzwy0AJonXANyZGA1ocxAKdBJVaBkFdZG6kXzi0Ev7g9-LAOEkoYBLqyRstZNTy/s640/blogger-image--1217882522.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>Stairs! Not the final ones of course, but much better for going up and down compared to the ladder we have been climbing. And notice that the alcove next to the stairs has been framed in now too.</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSLWLm45z86r6sllyWVPG3l8tBiRJYTuRW8_AjLWBpcGb0zmv0MR-Ko_lvfYwqxuWIUmJuCYUs-YY06Fv5CXqd934VOnvEIhS5QuZ5jpvFlWEvzP4irKDIbV0VDxEirxEzoSgjf_hx_KfO/s640/blogger-image-1874654499.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSLWLm45z86r6sllyWVPG3l8tBiRJYTuRW8_AjLWBpcGb0zmv0MR-Ko_lvfYwqxuWIUmJuCYUs-YY06Fv5CXqd934VOnvEIhS5QuZ5jpvFlWEvzP4irKDIbV0VDxEirxEzoSgjf_hx_KfO/s640/blogger-image-1874654499.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>In the tatami room area the drop ceiling has been framed in. It covers the ducts for the medium velocity forced air system.</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOnYtwFjA2aqhUuaGRsvSEYA4lieNrcVSHY3m-96UGpiAxDpV5gSq0G4jHDBgYNxdQ9aFlNCwy3Xxrxxxebn66QtUZpFKUL3hgSNfrnPYhMfaaFgq9ZupWLJgCEGjspgg2SaGTO2Pmlk8C/s640/blogger-image-906974580.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOnYtwFjA2aqhUuaGRsvSEYA4lieNrcVSHY3m-96UGpiAxDpV5gSq0G4jHDBgYNxdQ9aFlNCwy3Xxrxxxebn66QtUZpFKUL3hgSNfrnPYhMfaaFgq9ZupWLJgCEGjspgg2SaGTO2Pmlk8C/s640/blogger-image-906974580.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>And here's looking towards the bath area. It is worth saying that our project manager and builder have done a phenomenal job of dealing with a whole pile of design related issues, from figuring out where to place light switches, to adjusting door widths so that they will actually fit. There are so many little details involved in building houses that I never knew about. We feel quite lucky to have someone so knowledgeable and professional looking after these things.</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv-oTzpZxeUd-L5wXPEJS93wFzkuaRv-8wUyOSh24I0UcaRXiwS48wn8TCXFLrYQl0dVgi6yklbzLFhYpCHdITjyoELlsq-X6dCnFWQnzV_GgnNPAeJcoSVxzX6avLUBRd9bhcP0NThMq_/s640/blogger-image--115543093.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv-oTzpZxeUd-L5wXPEJS93wFzkuaRv-8wUyOSh24I0UcaRXiwS48wn8TCXFLrYQl0dVgi6yklbzLFhYpCHdITjyoELlsq-X6dCnFWQnzV_GgnNPAeJcoSVxzX6avLUBRd9bhcP0NThMq_/s640/blogger-image--115543093.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>Right now it all looks like a bunch of framing and sheathing but you can still get an idea of how it is shaping up. We're expecting windows from Dalmen to be delivered this week and that will be a major piece of the puzzle.</div>Darrenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00230771763285373052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5161400958986350151.post-35650231510323888162016-01-30T11:55:00.001-08:002016-01-30T12:06:09.759-08:00Ofuro and SlabSo there is a Japanese bath in our plan. Basically this means a wet room configuration where a shower and bath are placed next to each other in a tiled area so you can shower before you get in the tub to soak. Japanese bathrooms are super nice. We have nothing like it in North America; the Japanese companies are light years ahead in terms of bathroom products. Here's an example from a Japanese Toto catalogue.<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTnzgGDX0w6RPEwrZ9GCJZVOZjlKUsDwU7w3c-R5F3J3b74En8yQ-EgUaMOsFID1Idf3svOmGm1t7RT8KqA5JjqY3wk_En2Nz-X4K0FvwoccLJBli7P8ujNZegcwdWM_xxbrAnMUKRQnXr/s640/blogger-image--938378102.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTnzgGDX0w6RPEwrZ9GCJZVOZjlKUsDwU7w3c-R5F3J3b74En8yQ-EgUaMOsFID1Idf3svOmGm1t7RT8KqA5JjqY3wk_En2Nz-X4K0FvwoccLJBli7P8ujNZegcwdWM_xxbrAnMUKRQnXr/s640/blogger-image--938378102.jpg"></a></div><br></div>When we went shopping for fixtures, Terry at Boone Plumbing put us onto this system called Maax Modulr. It's a similar idea, basically a shower floor and tub that lock together. Here's a picture of the Modulr wet room layout.</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn-62eJSLBkTBuyTB8VDLbhzJjlEo7V08oxI-kGn95L0FudVlbL7rV9l6gfD5zTZEwkmhozaBApg3PZDw924h_nDuntehC3P5s-3rld5JV_oWS1qLgtTCMn2oiA3uzIkJ33A3HL4AnPR8Y/s640/blogger-image--2099536050.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn-62eJSLBkTBuyTB8VDLbhzJjlEo7V08oxI-kGn95L0FudVlbL7rV9l6gfD5zTZEwkmhozaBApg3PZDw924h_nDuntehC3P5s-3rld5JV_oWS1qLgtTCMn2oiA3uzIkJ33A3HL4AnPR8Y/s640/blogger-image--2099536050.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">So with this setup you can make something very similar to the Japanese system baths and its pretty affordable. I would have liked a tiled floor with a linear drain but this option just had several advantages. Easy to install, affordable, all in one system with glass doors to match. I may try to make a thin wooden slat "floor" to lay over the shower pan, giving it a more earthy and custom look.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Outside of the bath is a sink area and separate water closet (toilet room).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Again this is a typical Japanese thing. We wanted this area to have a modern yet earthy vibe so one idea we had was to use a live edge wood slab for the countertop in this area. One day while we were browsing a home renovation store in Gatineau my wife pointed out these huge live edge Acacia slabs. Like, a single piece of wood literally the size of a dining room table, completely finished, boxed up, shrink wrapped and ready to take home and mount on legs (which they also had for sale). The whole affair would set you back less than a grand. Considering that tables of this sort go for a couple grand easily, and are almost always laminated from several boards, to get a table size slab from a single solid piece of wood for less than a grand is pretty crazy. We went back once or twice more and kept eyeing these slabs. It turns out they stocked some 24" deep slabs also, with a live edge on one side, perfect for a desk or countertop. I started thinking we had better jump on this soon so we went back today. The big table slabs were all gone but there were a couple of the counter slabs left. We looked at them both and liked the color on this piece so we scooped it up, loaded it in the back of the SUV and drove home with poor Chiyo scrunched in the front passenger seat, which was pushed as far forward as it could go. Not comfortable. But we have our slab! Check out this beauty.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCW6gh8jmh2C8WXFGqkCxZB1wT_ZrLxKz6HcpuxDG1JMdN8IEpIouYEgMwBH3X_KJlynRAWaeb2_mk9FLOUuyp3SfKUnMDKGtLTsvrW-gRLPlOng1HNoDqMO5ujk69-lKKE-N-CI6k-QHH/s640/blogger-image-2071289992.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCW6gh8jmh2C8WXFGqkCxZB1wT_ZrLxKz6HcpuxDG1JMdN8IEpIouYEgMwBH3X_KJlynRAWaeb2_mk9FLOUuyp3SfKUnMDKGtLTsvrW-gRLPlOng1HNoDqMO5ujk69-lKKE-N-CI6k-QHH/s640/blogger-image-2071289992.jpg"></a></div><br></div><br></div>Darrenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00230771763285373052noreply@blogger.com1