Second Floor

We had a bit of weather delay but slowly our house is beginning to take shape.  We got a temporary staircase to get access to the second floor.  The weather has been fluctuating back and forth like it couldn't decide if it was Winter or Fall.  We would have a mild day filled with rain then the next would be frigid and sunny.  The framers came to begin work only to find the second floor had transformed into a skating rink over night.  After a couple of falls, the guys called it a day.

Coming along...



Sitting room in the master bedroom.



Second floor balcony.

I was thinking about putting in a window seat for the nook in the boys' bedrooms. 
This would be such a great place to curl up with a book on a lazy summer's day...

When I mentioned that my walk-in closet looks small, Scott whipped out the measuring tape again!

First Floor

Scott and I were so excited to be able to set foot onto our house and have a walk around for the first time.  I guess it is the perception of space without the walls but some of the rooms seem to be a lot smaller in real life than on paper.



Foyer



Porch

Kitchen

Dinning Room

We thought our family room was bigger...

The Water Situation is Under Control

That’s because it's frozen!  Winter is definitely here along with the cold, dark mornings and the early sunset.  Our framers are trying to work quickly to make use of the short daylight.

I’m learning so much about the building process thanks to Scott who has been patient enough to answer all of my questions.  He even took pictures for me!

So after the foundation walls are set, the metal beams are put in place.  Then the I-beams rest on top of the metal beams.  I can’t remember why they are called I-beams.  Is it because you can see the I from this view?

These wooden poles will be replaced by metal ones.  Definitely wouldn't pass inspection!  :)



Whoa, this guy is balancing on a beam with a circular saw!



Our bad judgement of character.

The past month had been quite stressful for us. It all started when our landlord came to us 6 weeks ago with a letter for us to sign. He sold the house in August and would close mid December. The letter was a Release of Our Lease Contract. He said it was just protocol and was advised by his lawyer to have this letter signed by us. He had reassured us that nothing would change and that he would just transfer the lease over to the new owners. Well, two weeks later he gave us an eviction notice. We had to be out by November 30th because he had to deliver the house vacant to the new owners. That would give us only a month to pack up and move out. We were shocked by this. Mr. How had tricked us into signing the release form. We are not stupid people. We were just too trustworthy. And because we had sign it, there was nothing that we could legally do. Scott tried to ask him if we can revoke it since the new owners do want to take us on as tenants. We would pay him for the two weeks until our new lease kicks in. He stayed firm with his answer, "I have to deliver the house vacant. Just following my lawyer's orders.". Because he was driven by greed and not wanting to lose the deal, he had lost his compassion and kind-heartedness. Ever since that day, I had lost every ounce of respect that I had for this man.

When we first met Mr. How and his wife Pearl, we couldn't stop talking about them. They were one of the nicest people that we have ever met. Pearl was a retired school teacher so I immediately connected with her. Their only daughter lives in Ireland and doesn't visit very
often because travelling with three little kids is too difficult. I guess our kids reminded
them of their grandkids so they treated us really nicely. They knew about our building project and were flexible with our lease. "You can pay per month if you wish." he had said.

In return for their kindness, we were very patient with them when it came to issues around the house. For instance, the garage door opener wasn't working properly. It would always open for no reason and when we did want it to open, it wouldn't open. Scott asked Mr. How to replace it, to which he refused. He said that we weren't using the garage to park our car so it's not a priority. But we park our strollers there and we use our strollers everyday!! Other tenants would not have done this but Scott went out and bought a new automatic garage door opener. It was no big deal for us to pay for the door opener and we avoided a disagreement so we were content with what we did. After all, they had been so kind to us.

When the flood happened, we were so angry because not only did we lose monetary value for our things, but we had lost a lot of sentimental items that could never be replaced. Not once did Mr. How apologize for our damages and losses. The flood was an accident but it could've been prevented had he replaced the sum pump with a new one when he renovated the house.

Did money cause Mr. How to become this cold-hearted, uncompassionate person? Or was this his true character, finally revealed?

Either way, Scott and I are truly hurt by this whole situation. We are very disappointed in ourselves for misjudging this man's bad character. Every time something like this happens, we lose a little more faith in believing in people. I find this really sad...

Racing against the clock.

As Winter is fast approaching, we are racing against the clock to put the house up as quickly as possible.  We need to close it up so that work can be done inside the house over the Winter months.  That is our wish, but certain things just takes time.  The foundation walls are up!  We now have to wait 10 days before the framing starts because the concrete needs to settle and cure (harden).

Here is the process:



Frames for the foundation walls.



 

Here it it in action:

After the concrete is harden, they then remove the frames and put on the protective plastic around the perimeter of the basement to protect from leaks.



 The garage.



Front basement window.



On the left is the basement window looking out to the backyard and on the right is the walk up opening.



All dried up.  No more water problems!




 

Walk up opening.





Looks like the concrete people did a good job!



Speaking of a job well done, I have to comment that Scott did a good job with covering the pool.  This doesn't happen very often so this is a BIG deal!!



The pool is completely covered.





Except for the sides. 



How many mice do you think will go in here looking for shelter and then finding a big surprise?  I can't even think about that!  Ewww!!!

Why ISN'T this pump working????

When the excavation was done, a lot of water accumulated at the bottom of the hole.  Scott wanted to pump it out because he was afraid that the surveyor and the framer would not be able to do a proper job with all that water in it.  Since we didn't have a temporary electrical pole installed yet, Scott decided to rent a gas powered pump from Home Depot.  It was a really huge, heavy-duty machine.  So when he got there, he couldn't bring it down to the bottom by himself.  He had it on the top and then put the hose down to the water to pump.  Good idea huh?  Except that it didn't work!



Where did all this water come from?



After fiddling for 4 hours, Scott claimed that Home Depot gave him a broken machine.  The next day, he went back to Home Depot to get another pump.  And after working on it for another 3 hours, it still didn't work.  He claimed this time, that it was too high and there wasn't enough for power to pump the water out.  So the second pump went back.

On Saturday while I took Kaiden to his music class, Scott went and bought two pumps from Rona and got some parts from Home Depot.  He had to take his two helpers along...

Except that they were more trouble than helpful.

When I got home, I took care of the kids while Scott went back to the site to try out the new pumps.  After a couple of hours, he concluded that pump #3 didn't work.  He got it on sale so it must've been defective.  He went back to Rona to return that. 

Onto pump #4!  After playing with it for a while and trying different things, he decided to read the manual.  It turned out that he was supposed to add cooking oil to it first before using it.  He had been adding water so that was why it didn't work!  It took him 3 whole days to just remove some water.  And we are supposed to be finished in 10 months???  It's a good thing we are hiring professionals to do the other jobs!

Now that the water situation is under control, we are finally moving along...



The framers are working on the footing.



The frame for the footing is completed and ready for the concrete to be poured.

This is totally on the side but, would you use this:

After this happens?

Swimming anyone?

Since the pool is at the back of the house and we need an access way to bring the pool back there, we had to dig for the pool first before we dig for the house.



The Fiberglass pool in Australian Blue.




Digging the hole and then filling it with gravel.




Leveling it off.




One very excited little man!




Prepped and ready.




Lifting the pool in place.



Here it is in action:



Making sure it is in the exact spot.





The hard part is over!


 Filled it with 3 truck loads of water.  Scott is in the process of covering it with plywood.  We don't want any animal (or people) to fall in unexpectedly!








Another very excited little man!



Bye Bye House! We don't miss you!

Take it down!

Scott came by during his lunch hour while the guys were taking a break.  He came up to them and said, "Whoa, you guys took down the wrong house!!"  They were stunned for a moment until they realized that Scott was joking.  I wish I had their reaction on tape!  Hee Hee ;)

I thought they would just knock the house down into a big pile of rubble and then haul it all away.  But there is a systematic way to demolishing.  They separate the different building materials such as metal, wood, concrete, brick and so on into separate piles and then take them to different dump sites.

Demolition is completed.

Finally!!! We've got our permit!

Every single time there was a new issue with the permit process, Daniel (our architect) would reassure us; "Time for another patience hat." he would say. I think we've worn out 6 or 7 hats by now. At times it was so frustrating because the permit department had no system whatsoever. Each time you ask a question, you would get a different answer depending on the clerk and what time of day it was. We got a lot of eyes rolled in our faces. We are not stupid! Just not educated in this area. One positive thing that came out of all this waiting time is that we got a lot of time for researching and getting quotes. Actually Scott has been the one doing the researching and getting the quotes. I'm not really interested in the concrete foundation or how many 2 x 4's we will need.
Scott was itching to get the ball rolling so badly. He decided to do some work on the house during the summer. Perhaps this was a way to let out some of the frustration that he was feeling. Anyway, he rented a chain saw to remove all the smaller trees and bushes around the house. Scott may think that he is a handy guy but I haven't seen any work of his to prove his skills. He said it would take him a couple of hours to do the work so when he wasn't home or hasn't called after 4 hours, I began to worry. He was working alone with a chain saw. I had every reason to worry right?
Eight hours later, this is the result:

This is why we received a letter from the city a month later. A neighbour had complained about the condition of our yard. We had two options. 1. Cut our grass within 24 hours or 2. Fill in a form which states that we'd prefer to grow our grass the natural way. The neighbour would then have to take us to court to fight this. Seriously? Who has the time?
So why did we have to wait so long for the permit?  This is the culprit:

 

This spruce tree is in the neighbour's yard but its roots are in our lot.  We can't proceed with demolition and excavation because we would damage the tree.  But, the owners next door have put in an application to remove the tree.  So why can't we just start with our building process and yes, we are going to damage the roots but they are removing it anyway!!  In the end, we waited another two months because of this tree.
So finally the permit is here, the property is fenced in.  The city tree is protected and we are ready to roll!!

The Files Are In!

We finally got our zoning certificate (PAL Review) back on Tuesday.  Mr. B.S. (the examiner) was the most rudest and crankiest man we ever had to deal with and we are so glad that we are done with him (for now)!  It wasn't a surprise that we have seven variances and so as expected, we are applying for Committee of Adjustment.  It takes about three months to get a hearing date so more waiting!  :(

Most of the variances were very minor and no one should have any objections.  The only variance that Daniel thought someone might have a problem with is our second story balcony.  He had a client in Oakville who had to fight for this feature in his house.  A neighbour didn't want them to have the balcony because they didn't want someone sitting out in their balcony and looking (spying) into their yard.  Some people will have the craziest excuse to stop you from building.

A couple of months ago, a lady in our neighbourhood knocked on our door to ask us to sign a petition to stop someone from building next to her.  At first I thought she was a grumpy old lady who just didn't want any sort of construction in the neighbourhood.  It was one of the coldest night of the winter and we were in the middle of a storm and she goes knocking door-to-door.  As she was going through the list of variances with me, my mind was drifting elsewhere.  What if we get a neighbour like her when we go to Committee?  Will they budge?  What if they make us change our entire plan?  Should I sign it or not?  But I don't want to be a BAD neighbour and stop that someone from building their dream house when I don't want someone to do the same to me.  Oh, I have such mixed feelings!  When she asked me if I own the house, I said that we were renters.  She then said that we couldn't sign the petition on our landlord's behalf.  Phew!!  I got off the hook! 

Well, I found out from my neighbour that the lady was really angry because the builders wanted to maximize the lot size and wanted to build two houses onto the lot.  These greedy developers wanted to put two townhouse looking houses onto a nice 60 ft lot so that they can make more money.  One of the houses was very close to her house and would block the sunlight coming into her house.  OK, I would be angry too.  If I had own this house, I would've sign the petition too!

It's not what you know but WHO you know.

So Scott and I have been quite anxious about what's happening to our zoning application.  Did someone lose it?  Is it sitting on a cart collecting dust or it is at the bottom of a huge pile of other applications.  After several phone calls to 'The City' with no straight answer, Scott decided to call the friend from the forestry department (the one who helped us with the tree situation) hoping that perhaps she may know someone in the building permit department.  This was a long shot but who knows, it's worth a try.

We don't know if it was a coincidence that the friend was able to do some 'magic' or perhaps it was finally our turn to get our application reviewed.  Anyhow, we got a call some an examiner this morning regarding our plans.  It seems that some numbers didn't add up regarding the maximum square footage of our house and a few other numbers that didn't match the original survey.  While Scott was busy getting this problem rectified, he got an email from a friend of the friend from the forestry department.  She was the one who got someone to look at our application right away.  On top of that, she's going to follow up to see that the little problem that we have will be handled appropriately.  So it really helps to have connections!!

A little flood but a lot of damage.

We normally go out on Saturdays but we decided to stay in to relax a bit this weekend.  Plus, it was a rainy, yucky day out.  The boys were getting a little rowdy around dinner time so Scott asked them to go downstairs to play while we fixed their dinner.  When Scott went to get them for dinner, this is what I heard: "OMIGOSH!!!  YOU GUYS CAN'T PLAY DOWN HERE!!  GO UP NOW!!!"  I thought Scott had overreacted to the state of their playroom so I went to see what was the matter.  There they were, Cameron and Kaiden coming up the stairs soaked to their waist.  That's when Scott said that the basement was flooded.  My rascal boys!  They have been playing in 3 inches of water for the last 30 minutes and didn't bother to tell us that something is NOT right about this!!  Their answer to my inquiry about why they didn't inform us of the water was that they were trying to save their toys and 'fix' the problem.  Yes, indeed they were trying to save their wet puzzle pieces by sticking them to the wall.

So because we did not think to buy content insurance, all the damages to our 'stuff' could not be compensated for.  What really angers me is not the loss of monetary value but the sentimental value. 

This is a piece of art work that I did in grade 9 art class.  I had kept it because I remember spending hours and hours putting thousands of dots to produce this picture.  When I was finished, I really couldn't believe that I had done it and remember feeling so proud of myself for my accomplishment.  I'm really sad that this got destroyed :(

If you know me, you will know that I LOVE books.  I bought these books for my kids even before I had kids.  I remember lining up for an hour at a book warehouse and picking out the books that I think my kids will enjoy.

More beloved books...

We have yet to open these boxes to see the extend of the damages...