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.