An architect is hired.

The last couple of weeks Scott and I have been interviewing a few architects (five to be exact).  We learned a lot about the building process through long conversations with them.  Each one had their strengths in different areas. One was strong artistically while another was more technical.  In the end, we decided to go with Daniel who was more technical.  Daniel is a fun and energetic person who is easy to talk to.  Daniel will not only design our house but he will also need to be available for the entire duration of our build to answer questions and make changes to our plans should problems occur.  This is the reason why you need to have good communication with your architect. 

Early on in our building journey, Scott wanted to hire a drafts person.  He said,"We already know what we want so it shouldn't be so hard to put it on paper.  Architects are more useful for people who have no idea what they want".  I had disagreed with him.  Architects do more than just floor plans.  They are talented in their fields and would be able to add details to make a house look unique.  Scott now agrees with me (even though he doesn't want to admit it). =)

So what do we want?  We love the French Country, Tudor architectural styles.  Rustic, warm, charming and inviting.  We're hoping that our house could have some of the elements that makes this house unique.  (Yes, we've been snooping around our neighbourhood and taking pictures of houses without their permission).

We found a few different layouts and house styles online to show Daniel.  It made it easier for him to understand what we like and dislike.  Daniel gave us a 3 page questionnaire with questions like: Do you want a portico?  Do you entertain a lot?  Where would you like the laundry room?  This allowed him to zero in to our specific needs.  As I'm sitting there with Scott and Daniel around our dining room table, discussing what we want in our house, I still can't believe that we're actually building our dream house and we're going to get everything that we ever want in a house.  For us, it's more function than form.  We opted not to have a formal living room because we never really use it.  We are however, going to have a tub in our ensuite, even though we'll never use it, we need it there for resale value.

What do we need?  We need lots of bedrooms for our big family.  One of the challenges that we have in our design is that we need a main floor bedroom neatly tucked away.  Where are we going to tuck it and do we have enough room?  Daniel has his work cut out for him.  He's going to be working on our plans and will meet up with us after our vacation to show us what he comes up with.

Another surprise.

I passed by the house on the way back from the pediatrician with Cameron this morning and had yet another surprise.

It's gone, gone, gone!

They took it right down to the ground!

I still can't get over how quickly The City acted on this situation.  So my tax dollars did go somewhere!

A surprise.

We stopped by the house to pick up mail this afternoon and this is what we got in the mail box:

Scott and I were ecstatic when we saw this.  We had to read it twice.  Can't believe that the City is going to remove the tree at no cost to us!  Hopefully this will be done before we excavate so we can remove the stump during the excavation.

Another look at the tree.

Scott's friend asked her colleague to come out this morning to get his opinion on whether we have a case to get the city to remove the tree.  After careful inspection, he concludes that the tree is on it's way down.  We need to get it removed ASAP.

He advises Scott to call 311 to report that the tree is a hazard to our neighbourhood.  The limb could fall at anytime injuring a person on the street or damaging the neighbouring house.  We got a call from a city worker a few hours later.  He couldn't come out to see the condition of the tree but will send someone first thing in the morning.

Looks promising...

A little BIG tree problem.

We have a very big Silver Maple in our front yard.  We do love trees but when the tree is this close to the house, it leads to problems when it comes time to excavate.  OK, I'm going to straight out say it:  We want it gone! 

The Silver Maple

Scott has a friend who works as an Assistant Planner for the City of Toronto in the Tree Protection & Plan Review Dept.  We asked her to give us some guidance as to what to do with the tree.  She came out to look at our tree and reported that it's got some serious structural issues.  There are open cracks on either sides of the main trunk.  Potentially the tree could split in half.  If this happens, the main parts of the crown wouldn't land on our house but rather on the neighbour's and the road.  She wasn't sure if their Operations guy would consider it for a standard removal (ie, no cost to us).  We could try to apply for a removal permit (which will cost $300 application and possibly the standing value of the tree roughly $5000) and then we'll have to hire someone to remove it at our own cost which could go for around $1500-$3000.  YIKES!!!


We may just keep the tree and risk having it fall on the neighbour's and hopefully not on our new house.

Moving up.

We were invited back to our old house by the new owners Ciprian and Cristina.  Reminds me of that show called Moving Up where new owners show previous owners all the changes they've made since moving in.  It was a strange feeling to walk up to a very familiar doorway and ring the doorbell.  This used to be my home and I had good memories here.  Kinda sad.

My living room.

Their living room.

My dining room.

Their dining room.

The red accent wall is gone!

My family room.



Their family room.

(Cristina with Charley)

The basement kitchen (where Cynthia cooked and had us tested her lover boy Jamie Oliver's recipes) is gone.  Ciprian and Cristina's son loves having the extra space to practise his soccer skills.

Where do we begin?

So what's the first thing to building a house?  We thought that we had to find an architect first to get a drawing then submit it to the city to get a permit to build.  We were wrong.  Finding an architect was second.  First we had to get a survey of our lot.  No, that little survey that came with the house was not enough.  We had to hire a surveyor to get a very detail 'map' of our lot.  So those guys who stands behind a tripod attached with a camera like tool are surveyors!  I had no idea what they do when I see them on construction sites.

After calling up a few surveyors and getting quotes, Scott decides to go with Parooz.  Our real estate lawyer used him so he should be able to do the job.  We heard that you should never trust guys in construction, that they're out to rob you.  We wanted to be really thorough and get everything in writing.  We had never written a contract for a surveyor before so Scott got his hands on a contract from another surveyor, tweak it a little and then sent it to Parooz to have him look it over.  When Scott went to meet up with him a couple of days later to go over the contract, Parooz had a little smirk on his face and asked Scott where he copied this contract from.  BUSTED!!! 

It didn't help that Scott kept asking 'stupid' questions like what are we supposed to do next?  and then after that?  The guy's probably thinking: And you want to be your own General Contractor?  Do you know what you're doing?

Scott bought this book and has been reading up on it every chance he gets.

I borrowed this book from the library and had to return it because it was overdued.  We will have to buy this one as well because it is very useful with lots of checklists to follow.





So why does Scott want to be his own GC?  Money and bragging power.   Well, hopefully we'll have a house with all four walls intact or he won't have anything to brag about!