Progress is good...

Last week we took the kids over to the house. We now have a basement floor! It is a big basement. I guess because the main floor is smaller than our current house at 1800 sqft I wasn't imagining the basement as big as it is. The kids chased each other around while my hubby and I walked around and mapped out how the basement might be divided up once we are ready to finish the basement.

We went in the evening so other than the headlights from the truck there was no other light.

The kids chasing each other around the new basement!

The stairs going from the garage into the basement. (alternate entrance from garage)

I was really starting to worry that we wouldn't have any more work being done until after Christmas but my hubby proved me wrong. He was determined and he did it. We have had our builder on site since yesterday, although that almost went south. I started getting calls at work by my mother in law who was trying to get a hold of my hubby. Apparently the builder was on site ready to start working and there were supplies and materials missing. The builder was ready to leave but my hubby got a hold of Home Hardware and got his point across quick and easy - the materials should be there, they better be there in half hour or they could kiss the business good bye. And they did. Some of you might wonder why we went with Home Hardware instead of Turkstra or Home Depot. They gave us the best price on lumber. Home Hardware is trying to compete for the home builders business.

I stopped by the house last night after work and the floor joists are in. So we have progress!

The excavation, hole dug for the foundation

Forming for the foundation  - done

And finally we have a foundation!!!

Wow a lot has happened in the last 3 weeks. We are building a house people! We  have gone through the demolition, excavation, and now have a foundation. It hasn't been an easy process but it is getting done.
We've had a couple of incidents that should have held us back - my hubby was in an accident at work while driving a backhoe and smashed his head into the windshield. He suffered a concussion and has been dealing with headaches as a result. And the other day there was an issue with the sewage tank that he and a friend of ours installed. Because of the rain it lifted and with the floor being poured today he had to go there and get it back into its proper position. Well while he was there he ended losing his footing and fell into the foundation - 8ft. He now has a sprained ankle and headaches! He'll be broken before this house is built.
We've continued to have walk throughs at the house but no bites yet. I think it is just a bad time of year to be selling. People aren't thinking about buying a house right now so close to the holidays. I'm sure we'll get more action in the new year. But it makes us nervous knowing that we need to be able to sell this place so that we can continue work at the new place. I'm sure things will come together in time.
We have purchased our appliances - anyone looking for a great deal and amazing service should check out Goeman's on Hwy 8, Kitchener. We went to Sears, Bad Boy, TA appliances and a couple of other places and their best prices - even Black Friday prices didn't touch Goeman's. We went with stainless steel, GE Profile appliances. At least that is out of the way and is one less thing I have to think about.
We are very close to having our kitchen design done. I still haven't settled on colours for the cabinets. I want to be able to pick out my floors so that I can have a better idea of what colour cabinets I should go with.  I think we decided on a really nice Maple handscraped/distressed wood floor. It is not too dark but kind of in between. But I love that it is distressed. I don't have to worry about the dog or the kids or the furniture making dents or scratches in it. I will have to add a photo of it once I download it from my phone.
Hopefully the weather stays somewhat dry so that we can get the framing started next week. That is the part that worries me.
Anyway, thats a bit of an update. I'll post some pics later. Hopefully we'll have a productive, accident free day today!

It's finally happening!

Yesterday the machines were dropped off at the house and we are expected to start demo today or tomorrow.

It is finally starting to feel real. As long as this weather stays in our favour we might actually have a foundation in next week.

We've picked out windows and doors, speaking of which...here is the door that I have picked out for our front entrance. Its a beautiful Mahogany door, 2 in thick slab with 2 sidelights. I love this door!

I'll have more pics soon of the demo. 



Still waiting...

Well we are into "next week" now and still no permit. The inspector was off since I last Thursday and Friday and had Monday off for Remembrance day. Hubby called today and tried to put some pressure on. Again- fingers crossed permit will be in our hands by end of week. We have talked to our excavating and foundation guys who are ready to go. If we get our permit this week we are ready to do demo on Monday, dig on Tuesday, forming on Wednesday and pour foundation on Thursday.
I don't think this has felt real yet. It will take me seeing the work start to believe it.

In the meantime we have picked out some appliances. We have decided on GE Profile gas range with baking drawer, fridge with dbl doors and freezer in bottom, all in stainless steel.

All for now, hopefully I will actually have some exciting news soon.

Moving right along...

Okay so we are finally going to start seeing some progress soon. We handed in the drawings for the new septic system and we anticipate having our building permit in a week or so. But at least we can get the demolition of the existing house going. I now have a better understanding of why new homes are so expensive. It is not a cheap process that is for sure!  What is that expression? "House poor"? I get that!
Hopefully I will be able to get some pics posted soon when we start the demo and the excavation.

As far as our current house goes we had another showing today. No offers yet though.

It's been a while since my last post. Nothing really exciting to post yet. We are still in the process of waiting for final approval for the build. We had to get an engineer to do the drawings for the new septic tank and he should have the drawings ready in a couple of days. He tell us that in order to have the septic the proper distance from the well we need to move the house about 13ft to the left. Which is ok. We were actually worried he was going to tell us 30ft, which would have ruined some of our plans.

We have been continuing to get pricing for the foundation, lumbar, windows and doors. Its amazing how much there is to building a house. You don't really think about it when you go through a builder or buy an existing house. It all gets done for you. So much work, so many choices...

Slowly but Surely...

It's been a while since my last post.

There really hasn't been anything really exciting to report. We are waiting on the engineer who is doing our "heat loss" drawings so that we can submit those with our house plans to the county to get our permit to build. Hopefully we'll have those by Monday.

My hubby has been looking into different companies for doing the excavating and doing foundation for us. Turns out we'll have to knock the house down before we start construction so that will have to get done soon as well. We've been taking advantage of sales and have already purchased a few things like lighting for the hallways, taps, a couple of toilets, electrical wire, garage door openers...yes, we'll be broke before we even start digging!

My hubby and son have been up to the house a few times just clearing out more bushes, fence posts, and taking out anything from the house that we were planning on keeping. I was disappointed that there weren't any real antique-y elements in the house that would be worth salvaging.

Our current house is still on the market, we've had a lot of people come through but no offers yet. Our fridge went for a crap yesterday though! Thank goodness we had an almost new full size fridge downstairs. We brought that one up to the kitchen. I really didn't want to have to buy another fridge, especially since appliances are staying with the house.

Hopefully I'll have some more news soon!

We had a showing again last night so we went up to the house for a bit. I took the kids and the dog for a walk around the neighbourhood. I met the neighbours in behind us, she seems nice. And everyone that we walked past said hello, or smiled and waved.

We didn't hear back from anyone yesterday about the whether we can keep the old house up while we build. And we still don't have our finished drawings yet. Everything just takes so long. I'm starting to get worried that we won't get things rolling as soon as we'd like. I hate all of this waiting. I just want to see things happening. By the time you know it, we'll have an offer on our house and have to be out before Christmas! I hope not! I don't want to jinx anything with our current house, but I would at least like to know that work has started on the other place before I have to leave this house. I love my in laws but the idea of living with them for too long worries me. We went over for supper last night, and of course the kids were running around, and playing with the dog, making noise, being crazy. All I could think was that my father in law was already regretting extending the offer to let us stay there during construction. They are so used to their peace and quiet. This process could very well be the death of me LOL!

Anyway, nothing too exciting happening just yet.

We have the official word by the Mayor and Council Members of North Dumfries Township to remove the existing house on our lot from the "Heritage" list. Now we wait till Wednesday to find out if we can keep the existing house up on the lot while we start construction of our new home. Once we get our drawings, we need to get a "heat loss" assessment done based on the house plans - more money out the window. When all of that is done we can then submit our drawings in for permit to build. Hopefully this won't take too long. The ball is slowly rolling....

Not sure how many of you have ever attended a Council Meeting. We attended one in Cambridge a while back and today in North Dumfries. No comparison. The Mayor of North Dumfries and its Council members were so easy going, friendly and very welcoming. It was like sitting in someones living room drinking coffee and chatting about things coming up in the community. It was long though. Our "motion" was number 9 on the agenda and by 9:15pm we were on agenda item 6! When the Mayor noticed us still sitting in the back of the room he asked us if we were waiting to hear about anything in particular and when we told him, he said no problem, he'd bump it up to the next item after the break. One of the Council members came to chat with us too, welcoming us to North Dumfries. Very nice people.

Anyway, over one hurdle, a few more to jump before we break ground.

So much work done yesterday! All of the pine trees are down. My hubby worked his butt off yesterday and a big thanks to our friends who came out to do this big job. I was a little nervous about the wood chipper. The kids helped out by picking up smaller branches and every time they got close to the chipper it made my heart skip a beat! But the job is done and no fingers, toes or other limbs lost.


The neighbour across the street (the white house you see in background) started yelling at the guys while they were working. My hubby finally went over to see what she wanted. Keep in mind, most of the guys helping work with my hubby and they were all wearing their orange sweaters. The woman asked him if they were cutting all of the trees down, she said "I know you're just the contractors but have you been told to cut ALL of the trees down?" My hubby played along at first and said No we aren't cutting them all down. She proceeded to say "I hope not, that would just be ridiculous!". That is when he told her "well, not all of the trees are coming down, just the ones that are a nuisance, and by the way I am the homeowner". LOL, I wish I could have seen her face. She said they loved the Silver Maples at the end of the lot, which are the ones that we are keeping, I love those trees too. He told her they were not going to be coming down. Then I guess she tried to make small talk about some of the neighbours. I hope we don't end up with too many meddling neighbours.

Well tomorrow is the Council meeting and we find out if we get the ok to demolish and start construction! We are going to attend, and keep our fingers crossed.

Here is the final draft of our house plans. So we made a change to the main bathroom and ensuite, our walk in closet, and added the stairs in the garage that will lead to an entrance to the basement.

I've compromised a bit on my kitchen in order to have the open concept. I'm going to have to look into the cabinet and drawer inserts for organizing the space so that I get the most out of it.

I've been researching kitchen appliances online. We are going with a gas range and I'd like a fridge with a bottom drawer freezer. I'm thinking stainless steel now that they have the "finger print free" finishes.  There are too many choices out there! If anyone has any suggestions about any particular make or model I'd love to hear them.

Yesterday 2 of the big pine trees came down. You'd hardly recognize the lot now, it looks so wide open. Today the rest of pine trees and bushes will be taken out. We have a chipper onsite  - which is extremely loud. I really hope our neighbours don't get annoyed. I guess they'll have to get used to it. Once we start digging and pouring foundation and framing the noise and  traffic will be an issue for a while.

As far as our current house. We had 2 showings on Thursday and 1 last night. 2 of the couples have expressed interested, they really liked it. They've asked to be notified if we have any offers come in. I think that is a good sign. Another house went up on our street. It's not really comparable to ours though so I don't think it will be an issue for us. Its a bigger house and is listed at $459, 000. Its a bit dated, or looks like it anyway because of the decor I guess. Anyway, hopefully we continue to have interest in ours and get a decent offer.

 We had these sent over last night. So this is pretty much the final draft. we've made just a few minor changes but otherwise we are happy with it. Can't wait to get started!



New floor plan. We still made a few changes. We are adding a set of stairs in the garage that will go to the basement. And small change to the main bath. But otherwise this is it!





The outside will be all brick (hubby wants Red brick), the arch over front door will be stucco. Nice big front porch. And the front door will have 2 sidelights.

A little funny I forgot to mention in my last post...

So on Saturday, when my son went to the house with my hubby I told him he should take some gloves. I didn't want his hands getting scratched up. All I had were a pair of black knit gloves, you know the cheapy ones you get at the dollar store in desperation in the middle of the winter when you realize your kid has lost their mitts and there is nothing left anywhere else! Yes, well my son took them, reluctantly and stuffed them in his pocket. About 5min later he came back in, handed me the gloves, looked at me and said "Dad gave me some MAN gloves". And with that, turned around and strutted out the door. I couldn't help but burst out laughing. "Man Gloves"

This is the "room" of rocks down in the basement of the house.

Looks cuter on the outside :)

You can already see the work done Saturday by my hubby and son here

This is the other end of the property, there are 2 beautiful Maple trees at this end of the lot which we are keeping. Just about everything else has to go to make room for the house.

Pear trees, I think they'll have to come out too...

You can see the hillbilly fire pit there to the right of the picture :)

It's been a busy weekend. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Ours was a bit of an emotional weekend having had some sad news, mixed with the excitement of sharing our plans with our family. Overall though a good "bonding" weekend for our families.

Saturday was busy for me at our current house, getting everything ready for our Thanksgiving feast for Sunday. My hubby and son went over to the "new" house to clear out some of the over grown shrubs and bushes. We have a long road ahead.

Sunday we had both sides of the family over for Thanksgiving lupper (late lunch/early supper), 20 people in total. I made my first turkey in the oven and it turned out beautiful! I never had to make one in the past because we were always going to my in laws one day and my parents place the next. Finally my hubby and I decided we wanted to take a holiday at our house. This was our 3rd year doing Thanksgiving at our place. The last couple of years we've done a deep fried turkey which is surprisingly very moist, but I have to say that my turkey this year was a hit. We had a chance to take everyone over to the "new" house to have a bit of a tour. It was a bit drizzly out but my family really enjoyed the opportunity to see the property and hear our plans. Having both sides of the family over on one day lets us have the rest of the weekend to do what we want/need to do. Which in this case was work...

Monday my hubby and son headed over to the house again to cut down one of the dead trees and clear out more brush. My son is loving this. I thought he would come home complaining about what his father was making him do but he is loving the "man" work. They apparently got to meet the old lady across the street, who sits in her front window everyday, as well as the neighbour in behind us. Hubby says that the Granny is 90yrs old and a lovely woman. She is the watchdog of the neighbourhood and a town historian so I can;t wait to chat with her. I know that there is some history in that small village.

 I stayed home and tackled some packing. I had to go through all of the stuff we brought home from the trailer too. I managed to pack up all of our summer clothes in totes. I packed up all of my "good" dishes that we used Thanksgiving, and a few other kitchen items I can do without. I also started packing some linens away in a tote. I figure all I need is an extra set of sheets for each bed. I've already put extra blankets on so anything else can be packed away. While I was at it I got rid of stuff too. I love to purge!

Most people would think I'm nutty for starting to pack already. My house isn't even sold yet, LOL I haven't even had anyone walk through yet! But it makes me feel better knowing that when the SOLD sign goes up I'll be almost done my packing and I won't be as stressed.

Speaking of stress - back to work today! Ugh - why can't I win the lottery?!

I stand corrected- our house is listed. Now the waiting game begins...

Officially the owner of 2 homes/properties now - until our current home sells of course. It isn't listed yet. The photographer came by on Thursday afternoon to take photos of the house. It should be officially listed on mls by Tuesday, since Monday is a holiday.
We took my in-laws to the property yesterday to have a look. There is a lot of work to be done there that is for sure. The previous owner left some unwanted items and garbage behind, we took care of that today. He came back to clean the rest up.
Hubby and my 11-yr old went over today to start cleaning up some of the trees and brush. 2 truckloads to the dump already. Thank goodness for friends, because we'll need  lots of help in the next few months. We have a lot of big trees on the lot that will need to come down because they are in the way of where we are building the house. My hubby works with an arborist who came by today and had a look. He said that he can drop the trees in the yard, no problem. This is good news.

My hubby is set on having a word burning stove in the house. I don't care for them. I don't like the idea of fire in the house, don't like the smell of wood burning or smoke.
I actually did some research into Gasification Wood Burning Furnaces. They can go outside or in a shop or garage. The basically are wood fed, and can be used as stand alone units or in combination with your existing forced air system. They can heat your house, water, pool, hot tub...whatever. Pretty need actually. And it would give us a good start at reducing our carbon foot print. I'm sure it must cost a fortune but I'd be interested in checking it out. http://www.woodheating.ca/ There are all kinds of information online about it but this is one of the Canadian based companies.

Well hopefully by this time next year we'll be doing Thanksgiving dinner in our new house.

Ugh - part of this process included another big compromise. We would have to sell our trailer. I'm just looking at all of the stuff we brought home after closing it up and getting it ready for sale. Depressing. It’s amazing how much you accumulate over a period of time.

We have some amazing friends up there, good people that we are not saying good bye to. We'll just have to make more of an effort to see each other through the year now. I was a bit of a mess on Sunday when we left the park, but it was a compromise that we needed to make. The money from the sale of the trailer will help us to create our outdoor paradise with our pool. It was tough on the kids too; they love their friends up there. But I promised them we'd still get together.

So anyone interested in buying a nice 36' trailer in a fun family park should check it out. It will be going fast I think...it’s at Woodland RV Park, St. Williams, ON - which is in between Turkey Point and Long Point (Lake Erie).

Last night our friend and our new home designer came over to go over the plans he came up with for our new home. I had given him a great floor plan of how I wanted it be. It was within our budgeted square footage - 1750sqft. It was perfect, I thought. Now we did make a couple of adjustments the first time we met because I had to compromise to accommodate some of my hubby's wants, but all in all still a good plan.
PROBLEM - since I know nothing about actually building a house, when i drew my plan I didn't account for the width of interior and exterior walls. So by the time he did up our plans, the house was at almost 1950sqft. Yikes! My husband almost had a coronary. That was 200sqft over budget (about $30,000 over!)  So needless to say we had to rethink our plan. For the 3 hours last night we poured over different house plans online and finally found one that we can work with. It still needs a few tweeks here and there. I am still not sure about it. I am a visual person. I need to be able to make sense of what I'm looking at. I need to be able to picture where I am going to place my furniture, and make sure it works.

This is the original plan. 1928sqft in total. I like it, pocket book however, doesn't like it as much.



This is the plan we are working with right now. It is a 1732sqft plan but we are making adjustments and it will probably end up closer to 1800sqft. Still some rejigging that needs to happen but it gives our designer a good starting point.

The plan is to have a pool in the back corner of the property, which is why we have the covered porch where it is. Further to the left of the property, next to the garage - at some point we will be building a shed/workshop/pool house??? Something - that is the hubby's space. To the right of the property we should still have about 70-80ft of yard if not a bit more. There are some very nice maples at the very end of the property which I'd like to keep. I often tell my kids that when I was a kid we had giant maple trees that we used to climb  - ok I didn't - but my siblings did. When you live in these cookie-cutter subdivisions you don't get nice mature trees. I want my kids to have fun climbing the trees, maybe put a tree swing on one...

Well anyway, today is the day. We take possession of the property today. Hopefully the owners have cleaned up the yard and removed everything. Time to go and really explore the property.
Stay tuned!

I suppose I should have started by giving a bit of background...
We've been living in our current home for 6 years. My hubby has been itching to buy a place with some property, nothing huge but something where we could build a house and not be staring into the neighbours yard while we are on our deck. Don't get me wrong we have great neighbours, but I agreed that being able to have some privacy would be great. So he has been on the hunt for a while. When we came across this place we recognised the potential right away. The house is old, I suppose with a bit of help it would be livable for a while but I'd rather not. Does that make me superficial? High maintenance? If it does  - too bad!

One of my stipulations was that we find something that allowed the kids to remain at their current school - check, we'd have space for a pool - check, and I'd have my open concept  - according to plans so far - check.

We have a private custom home builder lined up who is amazing. He is a friend of the family and built my in laws home. He was actually ready to retire but agreed to do our place. My hubby, thankfully, is a handy guy. He will be doing a lot of work at the house with some help from my hubby #2 (don't ask, long story - that's another blog Lol), hopefully speeding up the process. My husband thinks we'll be in the house by the end of Spring. I say he's delusional but what do I know. We take possession tomorrow, and our house will officially be on the market next week. Once we sell our place the plan is to stay with my in laws until the house is ready to move in. Thankfully I get along with my in laws and other than having to share one shower amongst what will be 6 of us I think it will be fine.

The existing house on the property will eventually be demolished but we don't have to rush on that. We plan on putting the house further into the lot and the old house won't be in the way of us starting. We'll most likely use the existing house to store some of our things. Of course this is given our plans are approved by the county and we can move forward. We should find out after they meet on Oct 15th.

So...fingers crossed everything goes according to plan and we can get things going mid October!

Am I nervous? To say the least...what have we done? It's a question I'm sure I'll be asking myself a lot over the course of the next few months. We bought a property in a small village outside of town with a home built in 1880 that is completely run down. Needless to say it will be coming down. We are leaving a quiet, pristine neighbourhood, close to the kids' school, friends...Oh boy I think I'm going to be sick. Think positive, just imagine what a beautiful home we'll have when this is over - I have to keep telling myself that.
So I've decided that since I am sure this process is going to interesting, frustrating, emotional, stressful and somewhat entertaining, that I would share this experience.

Here we go!



This is the existing house on the property we purchased



This is a view of part of the property