Slow progress

I just realized I never posted about the bucket truck. I mentioned it a few times, but never explained or showed the pictures. Back in the first week or 2 after we agreed to buy the dirt, we were contemplating a 3rd floor deck on the house to take advantage of downtown views that the neighbours across the street have. We decided that it was definitely worth it. But then Ryan looked into the restrictions further, and declared that our floor height would only be 19' in order to stay "contextual" (the easier development permit process). So we hired the bucket truck again to see if that was okay, or if we should push it to 23'.

The view to the left,...

The view to the right,...

And the view from the ground!

At 19', all we see are the tops of the neighbours' houses. At 23', we can actually see the buildings downtown. So there's no point in adding a third floor if you're only going to be at 19'.

Due to the size of the garage being larger than the city's standard approved size, and the height of our 3rd floor (although the final height of the building is within limits), we need to go through a discretionary permit application process. We need approval from our community association, and to leave a sign up for several months to allow neighbours an opportunity to complain.

We also need more survey drawings. Argh. That survey company is going to block my number. The CAD files we got from the realtors is still just for a real property report. It doesn't include the facades of our neighbours houses. And the house plans the city already approved were done under the contextual process, so less info was required. We did get a quote for a partial development permit survey, since they've already done some of the work, but I am waiting on confirmation that it will have on it exactly what Ryan needs. Hopefully the survey stuff can be put to rest.

A couple of weeks ago, we got the floorplan decided on for the house. The next step is to add windows, and Ryan was going to do some sun simulations to see where the best places to add windows would be. He suggested that since we were so close to having drawings for our development permit, we should schedule a design review meeting with the community association.

I contacted the planning committee for the neighbourhood, and their next meeting is on the Friday night of Thanksgiving weekend. We had plans to go out of town. We were going to cancel our trip in order to not delay the build another month. But Ryan is also out of town, and so is our builder (MrDink's brother). So we'll wait.

Meanwhile, there has been no further progress from Ryan. So we don't have drawings to take to the planning committee anyway.

MrDinks and I went to an open house at the neighbourhood community association. We met one of the members of the planning committee, who told us that it's the committee's policy not to support relaxations. But they don't fight city approvals, either. So they'll likely look at our plans, tell us what they think, but it's still entirely up to the city. It supposedly lets them avoid political drama as they treat all projects the same. But it makes me wonder what the point of showing them the plans is. However, she also mentioned that the new director of the planning committee recently built his house in the neighbourhood, and joined the committee to improve the process. So there's hope. This director has also offered to look at our plans in advance since we can't make the October meeting. If only we had plans to show him.

I've also started looking at bathroom fixtures. I want to ensure that the ensuite bathroom that Ryan has laid out is feasible. Has he left enough space for a proper tub? Or are we going to be stuck with a scale model of a bath tub like we have now, which MrDinks can't use? If we give more room to the tub, is the shower going to feel cramped? I also ordered a copy of the National Kitchen and Bath Association guidelines, but I wanted to sit in some of the products to see if the minimum is big enough.

In the first store, I found Waterworks products. I had seen some inspiration pictures online, and heard the name. But I assumed it was only in the US. When I used Google maps to find local bathroom showrooms, and found "Waterworks", I got excited. It turns out to be a local store that carries Waterworks products, as well as products from other companies. I asked the woman if I was in the store marked as "Waterworks" on the map, and she pointed out some items, including this tub:

When I started lovingly stroking commented on this tub, she told me it was $22,000. Yes, Twenty-Two THOUSAND. To start. That didn't include the cost of installing it, or the faucet, etc. Gulp. It's a good thing I wasn't really looking for this style anyway, because I would have been crushed. 

It made the $8000 tub at the next store, made of enameled cast iron, with air jets and heated back rests (on both sides, for when 2 people are bathing together, wink wink) seem like an absolute bargain! By the way, I didn't even know a heated back rest was an option until this outing, and now I must have it. So that tub above will not be going in our new house. I *might* be able to justify a few fancy tiles as accents. 

Besides learning about heated back rests, I discovered that water jetted tubs are still made, and are significantly cheaper than air bubbles. Water jets have resting water stored in them, which breed bacteria, and get icky. That's a technical industry term, "icky". Air is the newer type, which don't need to be disinfected regularly. But it's about $3000 more, at least if you're buying Kohler. I guess I'll learn more when I actually go to buy something. 

There is also an option to connect your bath tub to an ipod, and make your tub vibrate to the beat of your music. I don't think I need to add that to our budget, but it's an interesting idea. 

And I learned that there's a company, Mirolin, that makes really nice, but budget friendly acrylic tubs just outside of town. Local is good. And they make a tub with a rounded chaise shape at the one end. This makes it comfortable for a short person like me to use it, while allowing it to be long enough for a tall person. I read something recently about a women who couldn't rest her feet on the end of the tub, so she'd slide down until her head was under water, and it made snoozing in the tub rather dangerous. Don't want that! I'll have to drag MrDinks to their factory showroom to see if there's something he's comfortable in. 

While out shopping, I needed to pee, and there's no business more likely to have a bathroom for public use than a bathroom store. But in that fancy first store, I was afraid to use it. I held it until I got to the dumpy place with plumbers rather than designers as their target market. Their toilet wasn't as pretty, but I didn't feel like a fraud. Since I could actually afford to shop there, I wasn't just using their store for nothing more than my immediate bathroom needs. 

At the lot, our trees are still there. The furniture guy showed up to haul them away and then complained that the stumps of the branches were too long. Yesterday, MrDinks and I went over with a borrowed chain saw and hacked them off. Now I need to call the guy back and hope he takes them this time. 

Cleaning up the dirt

So after a week delay, we finally closed and the dirt is now ours. And the bank's.

The dirt is a little more than dirt. When they built the house next door, a few bricks and pieces of wood were tossed over the fence. There are also chunks of concrete left over from the house that used to be here. There are also weeds taller than me. And due to the neglected look of the property, we're starting to collect other random garbage.

So MrDinks has decided to clean it up. We headed over on Sunday morning with the truck, some tools, garbage bags and work gloves. The first goal was to clear up the inorganic stuff. We found a 5 gallon bucket of motor oil, an old pallet, bagged grass clippings, approximately 400 feet of unused rebar, a few planter boxes, some antique gardening tools, a giant wool rug, a wooden bench, and a couch. Yes, a couch. At some point in the 2-3 weeks since we last visited the dirt, someone has dumped their couch. It wasn't there when we went to measure for the garage to determine if we needed to cut down the back tree. But as of Sunday, it was under the tree we were measuring. It was probably in good shape before it spent a week or 2 under our tree. Someone would have responded to a kijij ad. But instead, we get to load it up and haul it away.

A few of our new neighbours adopted some of the stuff, the rest we hauled the dump. One guy stopped by and asked if the lot was going up for sale. We told him we just bought it. We should have asked him what he was interested in paying.

On Monday, while I was in the dentist chair, I got a call from the tree removal company we hired. By the time I phoned him back, the back tree was gone and the logs loaded up in their truck. Fortunately I reminded him that we wanted the other tree cut into 12' lengths in order for someone to pick them up to turn into furniture. We wanted both left in long lengths, but it was too late for the first tree. I also got over to take a couple pictures while the front tree was coming down. They were both nice, large trees. But the back one was too close to the garage, and the front one would block our front door.

Our meeting with Ryan last week wasn't as productive as we'd hoped. He had misunderstood how wide we wanted the house. But once he understood, it required re-configuring most of the layout. We got new drawings on Monday, which are much closer to final. We had to do more re-configuring because we had a 23'x13' kitchen, which is too big even for me, and a 14'x14' living room, which is a bit too cozy. I sketched up the drawings and sent them back. Hopefully by the time we meet tomorrow, we'll be planning out the window locations.We need to get the plans in for permits in the next week or so to have any hope of breaking ground before Christmas.

Tonight, we're going up in the bucket truck again, now that we know exactly where our floor is going to be, to take more pictures of the view. 

Possession Day - or not...

Today is the day we take possession of the dirt. According to the contract.

At 8am this morning, the seller, a realtor and real estate investor, called our lawyer's office and told them he doesn't have a lawyer. He asked them to draw up his side of the paperwork. The assistant called me (Mr Dinks was in meetings all day) and basically asked for permission. We could agree to allow the same firm to represent both of us, and then have to look for a new lawyer if there are any issues. Or, we could say no and we have to wait until next week to close.

Since I'm suspicious of anyone who sells as many properties as this guy has* and doesn't have a lawyer, and we're happy to hold onto our money for an extra month if that's what it takes, I told her to say no. It turns out he DOES have a lawyer, but he didn't think to contact them until our lawyer called him (the day before closing) to ask why his lawyer hadn't contacted them. Apparently he thought his brokerage (the real estate office he works for) was supposed to send the paperwork to his lawyer. By yesterday, when he realized it hadn't been done, his lawyer was busy and didn't have time for the deal.

So we put our money back on the line of credit, and we'll pull it out again when he gets his act together.

*He owned the house that used to be here, tore it down and severed the land, then built the house next door and sold it. Plus, he's a REALTOR!!!!

MrDinks decided last weekend that he would put a camera on the end of a 20' pipe in order to take more pictures of the view from our third floor. He figured this would be cheaper than hiring the bucket truck again. Unfortunately, pipe doesn't go that high without bending. We tried it out in our current front yard before going to the lot. Our neighbours must think we're nuts. He was able to borrow a pole meant for washing high windows from a friend. And then by standing on the back of his truck, he got more pictures from the required height. And we're confirmed that a floor at 20' is sufficient for the view.

We also met with Ryan this week, and came to an agreement on the general form of the house. We'll see him again in a week and a half with more detailed drawings. He mentioned that when we apply for development permits, we need to tell them what colour the house is going to be. I had thought we had more time before we needed to define that. It doesn't have to be exact, we can just say "grey", and choose any shade of grey when we order the siding, or hire the stucco guys. But we can't say "grey" and then paint the house orange. We also need to show what colour each section or piece of trim will be. Yikes. So I've asked Ryan to send me the sketch we came up with so I can play with colours. I'll post it here when I get it. 

House plans, round 1

We met with Ryan last week, just before heading out to Whistler for a week.

This is what he came up with.

I wasn't happy. We can't do a 3rd floor AND do the roofline that MrDinks wants. It will make the peak of the roof too high. We could appeal to the city, but that means a lot of work for Ryan, and a long delay.

So he has suggested a peaked asymmetrical roof which points out like the prow shape of a Lindal mountain home. There's also a large over hang on the right side of the house, and a fence that is incorporated into the house. Ok. Different, which is what Rob wanted. But really too modern for my tastes.

First thing we asked for was to cut back the point on the roof so it doesn't look like a boat. Then we asked for some windows. But we're still not loving it. Apparently we're supposed to have an emotional reaction to the house, and neither of us have had a good one.

Now we're in Whistler and looking around at the houses here for some more inspiration. And we're also contemplating getting the bucket truck guy back again to see if the height we can get is worth doing the third floor. I may have forgotten to mention the bucket truck. We hired a guy with a bucket truck to take us up to 20 and 30 feet to see if it was worth doing a 3rd story. But we went up to 30', where of course there was a fantastic view. But in order to keep the height within "contextual" rules (meaning less time to get our permits), we can't have our feet higher than about 20'.

Here's a front facade idea I drew up, using the interior plans that Ryan drew, and keeping the peak style he suggested.

Real Property Report vs Development Permit Survey

Earlier this week, Ryan emailed us and asked for the CAD files of the survey of our site. No problem! I called the survey company and asked for it. Big problem!

At first, they said they NEVER give them out. Apparently an RPR is a legal document, and giving the files would allow someone to change them, which can't be done for a legal document.

Hmm. Upon closer inspection, the document clearly says it's only legal if it's stamped and signed. Surely I can get a file that doesn't have that? So I call back and get someone else. She's a little more friendly and actually looks up my file number. But then she says "Oh, this is a real property report. We don't give out the CAD files for that."

So I asked what people do who are going to be building? Doesn't the architect need a file to start from that shows where the building is going to be on the lot, which they then send to the city when they apply for a development permit? Oh, they get a development permit survey done. We got a real property report. What's the difference? About $1600. $2000 for us, since the RPR we demanded (and almost lost the property over) is useless, so we need to request a new survey.

She promises to ask if we can get a deal since the surveyor was JUST out at the site a couple of weeks ago. She takes my name and number and says she'll call me back.

As an alternative, I contact our realtor. Because the semantics of what to ask for seems like their job to know, right? I don't know the difference between a real property report and a development permit survey, that's what the guy getting 3% of the purchase price is supposed to be telling us. Especially one who has supposedly built several houses.

Aside: We also just finalized the details of the financing last week. So it took over 5 weeks. Significantly longer than the one week our agent said it takes. Only one bank will mortgage bare land. And they won't mortgage all of it, nor will they mortgage it at a decent rate. So we had to use our existing house as collateral for part of it. And then both our house and our dirt needed to be appraised. Again, I don't think the guy who's done this before should be surprised. But he was.

So in response to the issue of potentially needing $2000 for a survey we thought we'd already had done, he tells us that a DPS is never something the vendor provides. The buyer is supposed to do that. The vendor only has to provide an RPR. Well then why did we write it into the contract if he had to provide it anyway?

By the way, the realtor who owns this lot now has a development permit on it (for a too big house). He had to have gotten a DPS when he applied for that. So I'm pretty sure HE knew what we wanted, but only got the RPR because it's a quarter the cost.

So our agent contacted the seller, and 2 days later, a CAD file appeared in my inbox, from our agent. Sweet!

It's been forwarded to Ryan. Hopefully when he looks at it, it's what he needs and there's nothing wonky about it.

Lesson to my adoring fans. If what you need is a Development Permit Survey, don't ask for a Real Property Report. Because they aren't the same.

Architect selected

We've chosen the guy to do our drawings, signed a contract and paid the first installment. His name is Ryan. He designed and built a house last year that we were considering buying. It was a steel frame, with exposed beams. Unfortunately, the lot was small so the garage was also small.
This is the house.
This is Ryan's website.

Getting excited to see Ryan's first sketches.

Fireworks (the good kind)

We have been speaking to a few architects/designers/draftsmen to get someone to draw up plans for our new house. We've eliminated 2 who didn't seem to understand that we don't want the same thing that has been done 1000s of times before. If that's what we wanted, we could have just bought it.

Now we need to decide if we want a post and beam house, or a steel frame house, or a more traditional house. And then we can decide who to draw it.

Stampede is on here in Calgary, which includes a fireworks display at the end of each day. Across the street from our dirt has a great view of the grounds, so MrDinks and I went down at 11 PM last night to watch the fireworks.

In case you haven't been reading the news, or are reading this sometime in the future and don't realize what year I am writing this in, Calgary has recently suffered severe flooding. The Saddledome, which is the building with the red lights in these photos, was filled with water up to the 8th or 10th row, depending on the source. Their electrical systems are damaged, which may be why the red lights are not currently on around the whole roof.

Floorplans

This is our lot. We're hoping to build as close to the avenue at the front, to keep as much back yard as possible. The house previously approved for this lot was to be put about 15' from the road, and was 35'4" wide.

Before finding this lot, this was my favourite floor plan. I would have removed the garage, and put a bigger one in the back. I'd also swap the kitchen and "dining room" so that there's a better view of the living room from the food prep area. I think it's more important to have a view of the TV while making dinner than when eating it.

I think this main floor layout is better for this lot. It's the inside of this house. We'd reverse it (as the exterior picture is), but I've left it backwards to make it easier to read. I'd like to put the mudroom closer to the neighbour's house, and have it open to the back and side yard. MrDinks is adamant that we don't want the main floor office. We'll have 2 offices upstairs, after all. However, I like the idea of having a main floor room that can be closed off. I'm thinking about the potential for one of us to temporarily not be able to use the stairs. We could put a bed in that room. It's also a plus for resale. But it's been a big pet peeve of mine to have rooms that are never used, and we probably wouldn't get much use of it on a regular basis. Feel free to add your comments.


This is the second floor of this plan. I think the 2nd and 3rd bedrooms could be smaller. I'm also not sure I like the open view of the "great room". I've always considered that a waste of space. But another sitting area would also be a waste. And the closet space in the master is minimal.

The other question is what to do about a bathtub. We take baths about once or twice a year. Plus, for resale, we'd want to have at least one bathtub. But we don't need two. The typical thing to do is what's shown here, put a tub in the "kids" bathroom and a shower head above that. However, this guarantees that we would never use that bathroom. In our current house (which has both a kids bathroom like this, and a tub in the ensuite), I was thinking of pulling out the tub and having a freestanding shower. I would then use that bathroom myself, or MrDinks would use it. I don't like it as is, because climbing over the tub side makes me feel like I'm going to slip. Neither of us like shower curtains, and I don't like sliding shower doors on a bathtub.

So what would you do? Add a tub in the ensuite and make the hall bathroom just a shower? Or would you add a separate tub and shower to the hall bathroom? Or just leave it as shown and have a bathroom that never gets used?

Exterior Inspiration

We're meeting an architect today, so I am collecting some ideas of what we want.

If it were entirely up to me, this is the house we would build.

Traditional Exterior by Naperville Architects & Designers JB Architecture Group, Inc.

If it were entirely up to MrDinks, we'd build this.

Contemporary Exterior by Vancouver Architects & Designers Architrix Design Studio Inc.

Hmm, this is going to be tough.

This is our neighbour across the street. Other houses in the immediate vicinity are equally modern. So I think MrDinks has an advantage here. My dream house above is going to look out of place next to this.

This is a house here in Calgary that we both like the exterior of. We probably should have bought it, but it was the top of our price range, and didn't have a garage. I also didn't like the location, and most of the interior was not to my taste. And we wouldn't have the fun(?) of building our own.

Other

This house is a plan the MrDinks found. I think it might work. I like the exterior look, and the floorplan is very close to what I want. I would want the second floor window more centered, and Douglas fir posts instead of stone pillars. MrDinks would want the posts angled, but I think that would be too many angles.

Crisis Averted

After a full day of silence, the seller has agreed to honour the terms of the original contract. We should get the survey on Monday. Phew.

We're still furious with the seller for trying to extort a new closing date, but we'll play nice until the closing.

Breach of Contract?

Today was our day to remove the conditions. The bank has not yet completed assessments on the value of our existing house and the new lot. But the mortgage broker has assured us that between the two, we're okay to get the money to buy the lot. So we removed our condition of financing.

Now, the seller needs to give us the survey of the property, which our architect (whoever that will be) will need to lay out the new house in order to apply for a development permit. But he doesn't have it. So he's requested an extra few days to get that to us. We're fine with that. 

But since we're changing the terms of the deal anyway, he wants to change the possession date, too. He wants us to move it up a month. Um, no, we're not okay with that. Now, this is through our agent, but it seems that he's refusing to give us the survey unless we agree to the earlier closing date. We have responded that by not providing the report, he's in breach of contract. We're allowing him a couple more days, but that doesn't mean he gets to change the other terms of the deal.

Meanwhile, I'm in Toronto, having dinner with a friend, while MrDinks and the realtor are trying to get ahold of me, figure out how to handle it, and needing me to sign the amendment. I got it done with the power of technology, but we're still in limbo. Our agent contacted his broker, who was going to contact the seller's broker to hopefully get this resolved.  

The deadline has passed and he hasn't responded. 

Lot number 2

This lot is smaller at first glance, narrower frontage and not as deep as lot #1. But it's pie shaped, so it's bigger at the back. Much bigger. So the overall area,which was not included in the listing, is actually bigger. There is enough room along the back lane for a 4 car garage. It currently has a development permit in place for a 3000 square foot house and a 3 car garage. The old bungalow has already been torn down, so it's just the land.

It's also owned by the listing realtor. He countered our first offer just a little lower than his list price. We weren't going to go that high, but he made it clear to our agent that he wasn't willing to go any lower and would prefer to hold it. So after a couple of days of humming and hawing, 2 of which MrDinks was out of town on business, we decided to go for it and bought some dirt, conditional on financing. And once we had the financing in place, he would give us the real property report we needed to apply for new development permits.

It turns out that buying bare land is more complicated than buying a house. Most mortgage brokers can't help. The woman at the bank seemed confused and not particularly interested. But we eventually found a mortgage broker who specializes in bare land mortgages. It still requires a property assessment, and a portion of the purchase price will have to be financed against our existing house. The property assessment scares me. What if the bank declares our dirt is worth much less than we've agreed to pay? We can come up with the money, but why? Why pay more than the assessed value? We've got about a week to figure it out. 

Lot number 1

Our first attempt at buying a property was an old house across the street from an indoor public pool and arena. This was attractive to me as I use the city pools regularly. Having it across the street would be convenient.

Several people expressed concern about the traffic, but we decided that it could probably be purchased at a low enough price to make it worthwhile.

It had been listed last year for $60,000 lower than the current asking price. It didn't sell, and the owners took it off the market in October. Sure, the market is hotter now than it was then, but if nobody wanted it then for the lower price, it's not likely to go for that much more now. So we offered a little more than they had been hoping for last year.

They rejected it. No counter, a flat out rejection. Our agent suggested increasing the price and offering again. I told him I wasn't comfortable going too much higher as a bigger property had sold the day before for less money. That means more money per square meter. The agent said that people don't care about square meters, they care about lot dimensions. Apparently math isn't a big subject in real estate school.

But we went up a little, to our maximum, which was an extremely odd number due to compensation for the fact that the seller was using a discount realtor. After we submitted, we got a call that another offer was coming in and would we go higher. We said no. They rejected our offer and increased their list price. Yes, increased their asking price. Supposedly they have 2 offers, and rather than accept either, they just ask for more? Whatever. They can keep their little lot on a busy street.