Is the debate over?

My mom had us go by this house in Kingston as it is her pick for a house colour. It captures our desire to have something unique in terms of colour (not the standard taupe/brown siding) but also not too extreme. The colour is green but more of a grey green. The siding colour also works well with the trim tone (a different warmer grey green) and the cedar shingles. What I really like is the colour of the wood shown in the carport. It would work well for any future fencing, staircase rails or landscaping. I don't know if the photos do it justice. We have more if it would help. I still love a blue house but this might be the answer...

P.S. We also love the winter grass....

Happy New Year

This is the blog wishing you a Happy New Year. We have had a week off from the house as we took some time to eat good food and celebrate Christmas with our families. Tomorrow is "house day" so that we can get back on track. More posts to come.

Sunday Report

Our new neighbourhood looks beautiful with all of the snow and with the view of the skating rink in the park! We just need to remember now to shovel our walk.

I have already written about there actually being people working at our house this week. As you can see from the earlier photos, the focus first is digging out the stumps in our small backyard while we wait for the building permit to be issued. Our own time is being spend doing whatever organizing needs to be done before the new year. We have lots of quotes to look over during the holidays.

One selection appointment that I haven't mentioned yet is our one to Boone to look at sinks, facets, showers and toilets. We have a base set picked out so that we can be ponder our selections over the holidays. Wow, there is no shortage of things to select from. As for 'green' selections, we are obviously looking at water efficiency for the plumbing fixtures. The toilets qualify for the "toilet replacement program" put on by the City of Ottawa. We are going to get a rebate on our water bill for going with dual flush fixtures. The only thing that you have to watch for is making sure the toilet you pick is on the approved make/model list and that you get "before and after" photos.

Other than that, the next short while is all about selections and getting the building permit issued. I will keep you posted.

It begins!

This morning it felt like Christmas. Rob and I went to the house to meet with the people from Amsted. I arrived and the street was full of Amsted trucks (sorry neighbours). Steve was walking around showing people the house and making introductions. We talked generally about the plans and about what is going to happen come January.

As for work, they started digging out the tree root mass in the backyard.

My aunt and uncle are here visiting from Prince George so a real blog post will have to wait until Sunday!

Fun, fun, fun.

Building Permit Filed!

As of this afternoon, the building permit application and drawings have been filed with the City. Thank you everyone for all of your hard work.

I am way too tired to write out more details. All I'll say for now is that the City has 10 working days to respond (issuance or with questions) which puts us to January 5th.... Perfect.

Solar Ready

One idea we thought of is making the house solar ready if in the end we do not install solar panels during the renovation process because of the sheer number of things that need to be addressed. The idea is that if the walls are open, this is the time to do something.

The size and material of the conduit is dependent on someone's intentions of installing PV or thermal panels in the future. If it is PV then 1" electrical conduit is fine. For thermal, it should be either 2 x 1.5" or a single 2.5" ABS pipe. For the thermal the run needs to be very close to straight to be able to feed in insulated flexible copper pipes.

Apparently, it is much easier to install the copper lines while the walls are open. With 50' coils of the flexible copper, it means that there are no soldered joints that could fail inside the walls, but they are much more difficult to feed through conduits.

We also were directed to the NRCan Solar Ready Specifications which include:
(1) 2-2" c-vac conduits from mechanical room to attic, to allow for future Thermal and Photo Voltaic installations.
(2) Pre installed plumbing connections to allow for less disruptive future solar hot water installation.
(3) Pre-wired electrical at the location of the future solar hot water tank .
(4) Roof and mechanical room layouts showing future solar panel and hot water tank locations provided to homeowner.
(5) Sticker labels on the mechanical room conduit and the hot water tank indicating the Solar Ready connections.

The Most Efficient Tile Appointment Ever

On Saturday, we went to meet with Vince at Ceratech (Don Reid Drive near Walkley). I have to say that it is nice when you have a company, and a specific salesperson, recommended to you when you consider all of the selections we have to make. When it came to windows, we wanted to shop around more considering the price but with tile, we were happy just to get good service to help make the decision as easy as possible.

It also helped that we walked in with images showing what we were looking for. We hadn't decided on everything beforehand but we definitely knew what we were looking for. I have never had to shop for tile for two entry ways, a kitchen, a fireplace and two bathrooms in one shot! We didn't walk out of the door having purchased all of the tile in one sitting but we do now have a selection list and tile samples for every room (not bad).

For those of you who want to know where we are heading in terms of the look, here goes: the two entry ways will have natural tone medium/large square tile to blend in with the beech floor (and maybe with a pattern); the fireplace will probably have 4x4 slate tile (more grey); the downstairs bathroom floor is most likely a red/brown large square tile (think Killarney red stone) with yellow/greenish 1x1 glass tile for the shower (yes, I got away from blue because of the reddish floor which goes with the red/brown beech floor in the octagon); the upstairs bathroom is large square slate-tone tile on the floor with the same tile but 4x4 for the shower floor and walls (but not the same grey slate tones as the fireplace - more colour variation). We are a little predictable (i.e., earthy, natural tones) but in the end, the house is going to look awesome.

Thank you Thank you

This morning we had what looks like our last in-person detailed design meeting with Chuck for the renovation project before the building permit is submitted. We got to look at the detailed design drawings as one package. Thank you Chuck for all of your hard work.

We of course will have to keep pushing through all of the details together (including the exterior colour debate) but at this point it looks like everything is falling in place. The biggest milestone will be the submission of the building permit to the City before the holidays!

For more information on Chuck Mills Residential Design and Development, visit: www.cmillsdesign.com Of course, the other way to look at his work will be our place when all of this is complete!

Rumour has it!

We received word today that there might be some work done on the house starting on Monday! Besides removing raccoons and trees, punching holes in the walls to find out what is inside and removing some stuff from the basement this will be the first real work on the house! Whew!

The Beech

On Friday, we had a flooring expert at the house. We needed someone to come by to tell us whether or not the old beech floors could be refinished. Their fate is promising and it sounds like we are going to sand them and varnish them but not put a stain so that the gorgeous red/brown colour will come through.

As for the octagon and kitchen with the vinyl with brick pattern flooring, it is still a possibility that there is beech flooring underneath. We are going to rip up the vinyl overlay to see what is underneath. Even if it is in the kitchen area, there could be water damage and then in both areas there will be lots of nail holes. The plan is to rip it up to see what we can find! If it is salvageable, we will refinish those sections too. If it is not, we are going to lay new hardwood in those areas. The problem will be that we won't be able to get new planks with the same thin width and colour. They are going to come up with a plan if in the end we have to tie new boards in.

The stairs are pine and are going to get new caps/treads with the risers painted to clean them up. The small bedroom upstairs has a pine subfloor (used as both the subfloor and floor at the time). At the moment, this room might just get a coat of paint on the floor which can get a new hardwood floor placed on top down the road. The master bedroom has a plywood floor right now but it too could have the thick pine subfloor planks underneath. We may go with painting it too in the end if it is under the plywood. It looks like some destruction has to happen before we can make any decisions on the floor.

Window Selection

One of the big items on our list is new windows. As you might remember, the house received a rating of 36 out of 100 in terms of energy efficiency when we did the audit. We need to replace all 17 or so windows as well as replace one with a door (back bedroom) and add a new one to the dining room (south side).

So far, we went to a showroom for Marvin windows. They are an American company with the most extensive green policy in place. I would call them the porche version. We also went to a Laflamme window retailer. These windows are made near Quebec City. On Monday, we are going to see the showroom for Golden Windows which are made in Kitchener.

Having a sense of the exterior elevations helps with this process but as usual there are a million decisions to make (besides just selecting a manufacturer) - thickness of frame, double hung versus casement, opening size, interior prime versus stain, outside trim colour? What we know is that we are leaning towards wood windows with aluminum clad exterior and most likely double hung because of the age and style of the house. We also know that you can't "go cheap" on windows but really that kind of rationalization can be applied to so many things in a house renovation project. Feel free to share any window advice.

Advice from a Friend: Get a Building Permit

Last night we heard a story about a building permit that is worthy of the blog.

A friend of mine bought a house. After a year or so, they started thinking of getting some renovations done. They called a contractor who came over to prepare a quote. I don't know all of the details but apparently the contractor pointed tons of things out that were done not to code -things done by the previous owner. One amazing example is that the Electrical Safety Authority were going to shut off their power if they didn't fix things in one weeks time because the existing electrical work was not grounded! They had gotten a home inspection when they bought the house but nothing was pointed out at the time. Home inspectors have so many disclaimers in their reports that there is nothing my friend can do about this situation from that angle.

Now they have an insurance claim in (thankfully they bought the right kind of insurance when they purchased the house). Normally, insurance companies don't go after the previous owner of the house but because the work required was around $30,000 they are. This is all because the previous owner did not get any building permits for the renovations they had done.

My friend and his family are ok now but more work has to be done. They want to sell the house but do not want to do what the previous owner did and sell the house with so many problems to an unsuspecting future owner.

Not only do building permits provide a road map to what is done in a house but this is an example of how not getting one can hurt you later on as a buyer or as a seller.

Make an Appointment

I will write more detailed posts this weekend about everything that is going on. Busy, busy, busy... this week we have been to two window selection appointments, have gone to the house to measure a mysterious sloped ceiling section in the kitchen for the kitchen layout to be prepared, have talked about cabinets and more cabinets, made appliance selections, etc, etc. If we are not talking about the house, we are dreaming about paint colours and plumbing fixture options. Today I am going to another kitchen design appointment and tomorrow morning we learn about the fate of our floors (stain anyone?). We should get to look at exterior siding colours soon, as well as learn more about the plan for geothermal. Next week, we already have appointments for one more window retailer as well as a tile guy! Fun!