Contract signed!

Well, tonight we signed the contract to build our new house!

And so we begin for real...

Permit application and action...

Lots of things happening, still in the preparatory phase...

• Charles applied for our building permit
• Charles has a crew lined up to work on our house, once we get our building permit.
• Sent contract to lawyer for review - got his comments back.
• Another meeting with the bank people. lots of fees! (have to keep their revenues up!)
• All window quotes came in a lot over budget - the closest one was 21% over budget. That quote was with all of our wish list. Now we're working to find lower cost options.
• Looking for flooring. Want to have real wood (need engineered flooring as we are on hydronic radiant heat). Don't want to get laminate if we can afford not to. May be hard to find and stay within flooring budget. Found some nice porcelain tiles for ensuite bath!
• Getting close to making a decision on cabinetry. Company O uses up the entire budget with laminate countertops only. We can come in slightly under budget with Company L including getting granite countertops :^) -- if we get the granite for a different supplier (L's granite supplier charges a lot).
• Heard that American Standard is having trouble supplying the Town Square products. Fortunately we can afford a long lead time...
• Found nice faucets for main bath (sink and tub/shower) as well as for laundry room sink at Canadian Tire for better than 50% off!! Excellent!
• Changed our mind about the vendor who we were going to have install structured wiring. The person we dealt with was full of lies and never got our name straight. He asked us to drop off a plan for him before we met for the first time. We did this almost 2 weeks before our first meeting. It was obvious at that time that he hadn't really looked at the plan for more than a few minutes. Then, after taking about 45 minutes, he tries to hit us up for a big "design" fee. Yeah, right.... We'll find someone else...
• We can start the site prep soon, while we're waiting for the permit to be approved.
• Still to do: visit trim suppliers, another plumbing fixture supplier.

That's all I can remember for now.

Herb Lagois

Herb Lagois, award-winning designer and owner of the company that designed our house.

Check him out at www.lagois.com.



The person who did the drawing and most of the technical part was David Jones. I don't have a photo of Dave (but have asked him for it and will post one if he sends it to me).

Charles Irvine, Admirable 2000 Homes Ltd

Charles Irvine, our builder.

Some pictures of the site

Click on photo to see a larger image.


Tawny enthusiastically jumping into the lake for a swim (Sep 25/04)



Fossils in Bob & Rae's future back yard (scale is in inches)



Effects of glaciation are hard to ignore...



Big pile of rocks (Oct 29, 2004)

Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House

I'm making this blog to record the process of building our new house...

Some of you may have seen Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House where Cary Grant spends a fortune building a dream house. I hope the fortune part won't be true.

We have 5.8 acres in a small subdivision, just across the road from a lake. The lake is great exercise for our yellow lab dog, who loves to swim. We have a huge hole in the rocky ground, although it is now filled in with snow. When spring comes, we will start construction.