More waiting...

So, February 13 has passed and I know you're all wondering if Ryan met the deadline...

On Monday, the 10th, he got some extra drawings into the city that are required for the discretionary process. These were simply more copies of what he submitted before, without our changes to make it more acceptable. I guess this got us into the queue while he worked on the changes.

On Wednesday, the 12th, I phoned the city to ask if we could put up notices asking for the neighbours' input. We are under the impression that the neighbours need at least a few months notice. According to the guy who answers the phone in the city planning department, we can't put up a notice until a file manager has been assigned to our application, and this has not happened yet. He also said that the notice only needs to be up for 7 days. If that's true (and we've been told untrue things by the city phone answerers before), then there's less panic. In the mean time, I confirmed that Ryan was still working on the revised drawings.

On Saturday, the 15th, we got the revised drawings from Ryan. Missed the 13th, but since we are waiting on the city anyway, we aren't too concerned. We had also asked for some minor changes to the windows, since they were designed to be very low to the floor, and too far from the ceiling. MrDinks and I went over the new drawings and had a few questions we sent back to Ryan. Things like we asked for window A to be taller, which he did. But then he made Window B shorter. And missing notes. Minor things. We are now waiting again to hear from Ryan and/or the city. 

Bathtub Update

I dragged MrDinks (almost literally) to some bathroom showrooms a few weeks ago and made him sit in tubs to see what fit him. He was unenthusiastic. As far as he's concerned, we're only adding a tub for resale. He would prefer a tub he fits in, on the off chance he decides to use it once. But the shape and features are completely up to me. The caveat is that if I go crazy on the price, I'll have to give up something else. Like the heated floors or stone counters.

I did learn that he fits in 60" tub as long as it's got a slim profile. Tubs are sized from the outside edges. So if a 60" tub has a 4" lip all around it, it's actually only 52" on the inside. A slim profile tub might only have a 1.5" lip on it, leaving 57" on the inside. So I'm looking for either a slimline 60" tub, or a regular 66" tub.

I went to the Mirolin showroom, which I mentioned in this post. MrDinks didn't come because they are only open when he's at work. I asked about the jets and air bubbles and heated back rests. They don't make heated back rests because they only do acrylic tubs, which don't transfer heat very well. Not only do they feel it wouldn't work very well, it's not necessary because the water doesn't get as cold as a cast iron tub does. Upon further research, Kohler and Maax make acrylic tubs with heated backs. But Kohler is out of my price range for a tub, and Maax is just a pain in the ass to buy. We purchased a Maax shower door for our current house. We could see on their website that they made what we wanted, but when we call stores that carry their product, they don't have exactly what we want. And the website only lists stores that carry their stuff. No help finding stores that carry specific products. I won't be buying Maax unless I happen to walk into a store that has something I want. I won't bother trying to track down something I saw on their website.

Anyway, it looks like the heated back rest is out. But the guy at Mirolin suggested a whirlpool tub with a heater. As I said, I didn't think whirlpool tubs even existed anymore because they get icky. But if you add a heater, you could theoretically bathe indefinitely and never get cold. The Chaise tub I was originally looking at can't have bubbles or jets added to it, so I started looking around at other tubs. I also got their catalogue with suggested retail prices in it. That's where I learned that the basic tubs are around $800-1000. The air bubbles or whirlpool with heater are an additional $1500.

Hmmm. Am I going to take enough jacuzzi baths to justify $1500? Will the jets affect resale? I asked around, and most people don't care about jets in resale. And I haven't used our current jacuzzi tub in years. So I guess that's money we don't need to spend.

A couple of weeks ago, I also investigated quartz surround for the tub.
Here's an inspiration pic for the tub/shower.

Contemporary Bathroom by Oakland Architects & Designers Cathy Schwabe Architecture

I like how the solid surface creates an edge for your bubble bath bottles and wine glass, and then continues on to become a bench in the shower.

A big concern for me though is the cost of the quartz. Do I need to pay for a full sheet and then discard the piece that gets cut out for the tub? That would increase the cost of the tub unless I can reuse the piece cut out somewhere else. I went into Granite Transformations. They do thin sheets of stone over cheap substrates, for the look of granite for a lower cost. Their main target market is kitchen updates. Get granite counters in a day for a fraction of the cost! But they will build new structures using MDF or plywood if you don't have an existing counter to cover. They actually had a tub set up in their showroom just like what I want (minus the shower). I asked them to quote that, and they gave me a price of $1300. Ouch. I knew it wouldn't be cheap, but that doesn't seem like "a fraction of the price". And that price doesn't require me to buy a whole slab. So that's just the tub, there's no extra piece I could consider using for the counter.

One of the biggest countertop companies has a showroom right next door. So I went in there to compare. They definitely require you to buy the whole slab, and quoted me $100-130/square foot. For a 6' tub deck, I'm looking at $2400-3120. So, Granite Transformations is cheaper, but not drastically. But I guess half is a fraction. Either way, I'm over $1000 for just the tub deck. Add in another $1000 for a simple tub, and that's over $2k for our tub. That doesn't include a faucet, installation or plumbing.

Since I'm just looking for a simple tub now, I decided to look at Kijiji. There weren't many listings for a nice, basic tub. Lots of small, apron front tubs, lots of used jetted tubs, and lots of clawfoot tubs. Clawfoot tubs. Interesting. The average price for the clawfoot tubs is about $300. One guy had a listing for resurfacing for $600. I asked around, and there's another place that does it for $800-1000. And that fits into the reclaimed, salvage theme I have for the house.** And kind of looks like the $22k Waterworks tub.

So, the new plan is an old, cast iron claw foot tub. $900-1300 vs $2100-$2300. It'll depend on what's available used once we actually start building. I have no interest in storing a cast iron tub for up to a year. Maybe when I actually go to buy it, there'll be an acrylic tub available that suits my needs. Maybe there will be nothing available at all and I'll have to order an acrylic tub. There's a few options that I'll decide on when the time comes.

**Apparently I haven't discussed that here yet. Since we're looking at a modern industrial style, while trying to be cost effective and environmentally friendly, I'd like to use salvaged materials where possible. I don't want to go overboard. I'll be ordering new, matching kitchen cabinets instead of random mismatched cabinets picked up from the Habitat for Humanity Restore. I'd love hardwood floors taken out of an old factory or grain elevator. But that's so trendy right now, they cost more than new floors. So I'll probably get something new that looks old. But I've been a regular visitor to the very few used building material places in town. I'll probably be picking up some used sinks for the bathrooms. Maybe some old light fixtures, etc. 

Development Permit Rejected

Ryan got the application for the development permit (DP) submitted on January 22. We were on our way home from a vacation that day, so I didn't get to go see the process. As a recap, we decided to go with the less cumbersome contextual DP process. As long as our design fits within certain rules, we get our permit and don't need to have the community association approve it.

Yesterday, the city responded to our application and declared that we don't qualify for the contextual process for a number of reasons. The biggest are:

1) The garage is too big. What? What about the 2 different people at the city who told Ryan we were fine? Apparently neither of them are the ones reviewing our application. It's kind of irrelevant though because...

2) The house is too tall. Again, what? My first reaction was anger at the city for having explicit rules for this simplified process, but then leaving it up to the whim of a city employee to change those rules.

But no, it was Ryan who screwed up. The actual allowed height of a building is dependent on the houses next to you. But, there's a range. So, if your neighbours are bungalows, your max height under contextual rules is 8.6m. If your neighbours are super tall towers, you're only allowed to 10m without going through the discretionary process to justify your design. I knew about the range, I just didn't remember the exact numbers. Ryan apparently didn't know there was a range. So when he said the max was 32'9", I accepted that. And that's what we designed the house for, 10m = 32'9". But, we have bungalows as neighbours and 1 2 story house. So our max height for contextual is 8.6m.

So Ryan's 2 suggestions were:
1) Reapply under the discretionary process, but that will take 3-6 more months to get a permit, requires him to submit more drawings, and no guarantee that it would be accepted.
2) Redesign the house to meet the restrictions.

From the email, I got the feeling Ryan was hoping we'd take option 2. That's completely out of the question for us. A larger garage is the whole reason we are building, and on this lot specifically. Also, making the house 4'7" shorter means removing the third floor, which means a huge redesign, setting us back to day one. Day 1 was more than 6 months ago, so that's really not the option that saves us any time.

I was thinking we had 2 other options:
3) Fire Ryan and get someone else to take over. Someone who gets things done when he says he'll get them done, and who will look up the city restrictions before claiming we meet them.
4) Sell the lot and buy a house in Belize.

MrDinks phoned Ryan and set a new deadline for reapplying under the discretionary process. They agreed to change the little things that they city didn't like (the size of the closets that stick out on the 2nd floor, moving the house back yet another foot on the lot, making the garage 10cm shorter) and redo the drawings by February 13. We'll get to roll the permit fee we already paid into the new permit application. And hopefully Ryan realizes that we're frustrated and takes this deadline seriously.