It's been a few days, since the last post we have secured True North for the underpinning and tentative set our start date for March 30th, perhaps earlier if some other projects move on their end. True North is going to be Roger and Susan's place at the same time so the whole place is going to be a big mess.
No further progress on foreman though we did get numbers from Joey's guy, met with Doug Rigaux and Jeremy who did the work across the street. We are waiting on numbers from them.
We met yesterday at Direct Buy with a kitchen designer, the meeting went well and I'm assuming we are going to work with her on the design for both the kitchen and the bathroom. In a very very small world episode it turns out that she knows Joey from Ryerson - they had lost touch but we've been able to reconnect them again!
I'm working hard and heavy on trades - framers, HVAC, plumbers, etc. - feeling the need to get these things settled very soon.
That's it for now.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
71 BD: More underpinning news
Update is short and sweet today.
We got news that Roger and Susan want to underpin their basement as well. This will result in some cost savings for us since the common wall cost is shared - though not as much as I had hoped, only a $4,000.
We're down to True North and Norseman for the work - with the former in the lead. Only downside is that they cannot start until mid April given their current schedule.
We told a couple builders that we are not going to work with them and are meeting with Jeremy, the guy who did the work across the street for Jen and Kyle AND we are meeting with Doug Rigaux, Marc's dad about the possibility of him doing the foreman work for us.
More to come.
We got news that Roger and Susan want to underpin their basement as well. This will result in some cost savings for us since the common wall cost is shared - though not as much as I had hoped, only a $4,000.
We're down to True North and Norseman for the work - with the former in the lead. Only downside is that they cannot start until mid April given their current schedule.
We told a couple builders that we are not going to work with them and are meeting with Jeremy, the guy who did the work across the street for Jen and Kyle AND we are meeting with Doug Rigaux, Marc's dad about the possibility of him doing the foreman work for us.
More to come.
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
77 BD - vetting builders
For budgetary reasons it is becoming clear (or perhaps it has been clear for a few weeks now) that we are not going to go with a Builder to Project Manage the project. We simply don't have the money to pay for their oversight. Between Joey and I were are going to try and manage it.
Which is too bad because we have met some very capable folks who would be great to work with and would most likely do a great job. Unfortunately we have some to this conclusion after asking a few groups to put time and effort into quoting for us, it is a necessary evil but it is still hard to have the conversations with them while knowing that we are not going to work together.
Having said that, the one possible way in which we might work with one of these groups is to hire A) just their underpinning/foundation guys or B) have them build to the drywall and then we take over from there. In the latter scenario if would be left to us to do flooring, painting, fixtures, trim and baseboards etc. But these are easier trades to manage and savings would surely be found.
We need to make a call on this soon, 2 weeks tops.
Stay tuned.
Which is too bad because we have met some very capable folks who would be great to work with and would most likely do a great job. Unfortunately we have some to this conclusion after asking a few groups to put time and effort into quoting for us, it is a necessary evil but it is still hard to have the conversations with them while knowing that we are not going to work together.
Having said that, the one possible way in which we might work with one of these groups is to hire A) just their underpinning/foundation guys or B) have them build to the drywall and then we take over from there. In the latter scenario if would be left to us to do flooring, painting, fixtures, trim and baseboards etc. But these are easier trades to manage and savings would surely be found.
We need to make a call on this soon, 2 weeks tops.
Stay tuned.
Sunday, January 11, 2015
80 BD - Oh my DirectBuy!
We made another trip up to DirectBuy yesterday, this time to speak with their custom kitchen person about the process and the options. It was a VERY GOOD conversation!
There is a range of companies that they work with, from mostly stock to fully custom, from basic quality to top end. I imagine we that we are smack in the middle on both continuums and therefore can easily get what we are looking for.
At the end of the meeting she showed us a sample kitchen that she had done - slightly larger and slightly fancier than what we are looking to do. Even though we have to pay a designed $1,000-$2,000 to help put it all together she indicated the price was $16,000. That is 2.5-3 times LESS than quotes we started to get from outside firms. Oh my.
Even if we end up at $25,000 then we have a very good chance of making our money back and then some on the membership with this transaction alone. We were both very pleased about that.
Next order of business is a foreman and an underpinner. More on those next time.
300-84 BD - Let's catch us up a little...
This is going to be only a brief summary of how we got to this point, there is too much to cover and it's too late at night to get into it all.
I'll skip the part about how we were going to move but couldn't get a place that we both liked, could afford, and weren't outbid for. After 6 months of trying and learning what the market had in store we returned to my (Mike) suggestion of doing an addition to our current place.
The scope of the project has grown from essentially day 1 which we'll say for simplicity was 300 days ago on June 1st. The initial vision was for a new kitchen and extended family room on the main floor and a master bed, en suite and office upstairs. The basement was going to be simply an expanded foundation to support the addition which would act as a larger storage area.
Well our very first meeting blew that up right away. We happen to be in need of a new furnace so we brought in one of Grochmal's guy to chat about that. As soon as we mentioned the addition things changed. He informed us that the existing ductwork in the house was not sufficient to support the added space and that, in addition to a new furnace, we should relocate the unit to the middle rather than the front of the house (so we could get air to the far reaches).
Suddenly that meant we were demolishing everything in the basement and starting over - new mechanical room, new bathroom, etc. Great start!
Weeks later Graeme Stewart connected us with his colleague Joey who he thought would be interested in a project of this nature. We met one evening and were comfortable with him right away. His work seemed good, he seemed knowledgeable and experienced and we liked him. Done deal.
Perhaps for another post I will ask Jodi to reflect on the Atrium design that had some traction for a while, that has been the only major point of discussion on the design, the rest has been just details. But instead of an atrium we got a light well, bringing light from above down into the second floor.
We had initially hoped we could move quickly and start the work in the late fall before the cold came and the ground could no longer be dug for a new foundation however once Joey put the plans in front of the city for a zoning review it became clear that we needed to go before the Committee of Adjustments. That was a 4-6 month setback since we needed to wait for better weather in 2015. But in hindsight, we were foolish to think we would be able to get everything together in a few months, we didn't know what we didn't know at that point.
The COA in October went very smoothly, other than what we thought might be a roadblock from our new neighbours Nicole and Brett, but that turned out to just be a caution sign and didn't imped us at all. Nor has it affected our relationship with them which is good because they are nice.
Next came the permit phase and more detailed drawings, and our next major change in plans, again related to the basement. Back tracking a little, we've been talking to a number of builders about potentially doing the work. One in particular told us immediately that we needed to dig out and underpin our basement. This was the perfect (and really only) opportunity and we would regret not doing it. We heemed and hawed for a couple weeks, really only dragging our feet long enough to make us think that we were really deliberated on it, I think we were going to do it right after that meeting. There are all upsides, the only downside, and it's a big one, is the price. Looks like it will be around $45-50,000.
That change in plans delayed on our permit application because Joey had to rework some drawings and the structural engineer had to do the same. Ultimately we ended submitting them in mid December and recently received conditional approval pending our ridiculous tree deposit of $13,000!!!
We are currently eyeing an April 1 start date, otherwise known as 1 AD. This will depend on the weather and the schedule of the company doing that work. Meanwhile we need to lock down a foreman because it looks like Joey and I are going to GC this project to save some money - cause the numbers just keep going up and we haven't even started with the overruns.
Oh and we are going to see our first apartment on the weekend. Because of the basement work April 1 will be the start of the project and the when we move out.
It is going to be a very very interesting 6-9 months. Much more to come.
I'll skip the part about how we were going to move but couldn't get a place that we both liked, could afford, and weren't outbid for. After 6 months of trying and learning what the market had in store we returned to my (Mike) suggestion of doing an addition to our current place.
The scope of the project has grown from essentially day 1 which we'll say for simplicity was 300 days ago on June 1st. The initial vision was for a new kitchen and extended family room on the main floor and a master bed, en suite and office upstairs. The basement was going to be simply an expanded foundation to support the addition which would act as a larger storage area.
Well our very first meeting blew that up right away. We happen to be in need of a new furnace so we brought in one of Grochmal's guy to chat about that. As soon as we mentioned the addition things changed. He informed us that the existing ductwork in the house was not sufficient to support the added space and that, in addition to a new furnace, we should relocate the unit to the middle rather than the front of the house (so we could get air to the far reaches).
Suddenly that meant we were demolishing everything in the basement and starting over - new mechanical room, new bathroom, etc. Great start!
Weeks later Graeme Stewart connected us with his colleague Joey who he thought would be interested in a project of this nature. We met one evening and were comfortable with him right away. His work seemed good, he seemed knowledgeable and experienced and we liked him. Done deal.
Perhaps for another post I will ask Jodi to reflect on the Atrium design that had some traction for a while, that has been the only major point of discussion on the design, the rest has been just details. But instead of an atrium we got a light well, bringing light from above down into the second floor.
We had initially hoped we could move quickly and start the work in the late fall before the cold came and the ground could no longer be dug for a new foundation however once Joey put the plans in front of the city for a zoning review it became clear that we needed to go before the Committee of Adjustments. That was a 4-6 month setback since we needed to wait for better weather in 2015. But in hindsight, we were foolish to think we would be able to get everything together in a few months, we didn't know what we didn't know at that point.
The COA in October went very smoothly, other than what we thought might be a roadblock from our new neighbours Nicole and Brett, but that turned out to just be a caution sign and didn't imped us at all. Nor has it affected our relationship with them which is good because they are nice.
Next came the permit phase and more detailed drawings, and our next major change in plans, again related to the basement. Back tracking a little, we've been talking to a number of builders about potentially doing the work. One in particular told us immediately that we needed to dig out and underpin our basement. This was the perfect (and really only) opportunity and we would regret not doing it. We heemed and hawed for a couple weeks, really only dragging our feet long enough to make us think that we were really deliberated on it, I think we were going to do it right after that meeting. There are all upsides, the only downside, and it's a big one, is the price. Looks like it will be around $45-50,000.
That change in plans delayed on our permit application because Joey had to rework some drawings and the structural engineer had to do the same. Ultimately we ended submitting them in mid December and recently received conditional approval pending our ridiculous tree deposit of $13,000!!!
We are currently eyeing an April 1 start date, otherwise known as 1 AD. This will depend on the weather and the schedule of the company doing that work. Meanwhile we need to lock down a foreman because it looks like Joey and I are going to GC this project to save some money - cause the numbers just keep going up and we haven't even started with the overruns.
Oh and we are going to see our first apartment on the weekend. Because of the basement work April 1 will be the start of the project and the when we move out.
It is going to be a very very interesting 6-9 months. Much more to come.
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