Walls on our third floor

Have to make this a quick post, but we wanted to share the latest developments. We now have three walls up on the third story of our house. Our builder tells us the view from there is great, let alone the view we'll get from the roof. Can't wait to see it for ourselves.

Kitchen crazy

John and I spent a total of 10 hours working on our Ikea kitchen this weekend. We spent six of those hours in the store either in line or in discussion with Ikea staff, and four of them cursing at the Ikea software from the (dis)comfort of John's "office" (read: our storage area that has a desk in it).

This is how it went: yesterday, we had four wedding-related errands to run (photographer, dress, shoes, rings) and thought we'd cap it off by ordering our Ikea kitchen. Ikea is having a sale in which they give customers $100 Ikea dollars for every $1,000 you spend on your kitchen, so we wanted to take advantage of it. We had asked our designer to prepare us a mock-up of our kitchen plan to take with us to the store, which we toted along with us. He had tried to use Ikea's standard measurements for the cabinetry, but there were some problems with what we were trying to do and what Ikea will allow. When we got there, we found there was a long list of people waiting to do the same thing, so we waited until we were called, which was about an hour later. When we finally got paired with a kitchen staff member, we talked to her for about 15 minutes before learning that she couldn't help us if we didn't have our kitchen plan in the Ikea software. We were pretty frustrated at that point, despite the delicious meatballs we'd enjoyed earlier in the cafeteria, but we had no choice but to head home and try to convert our designer's drawings to something that would work in Ikea-land. After about three hours with the software, we were sort of able to get it to obey our commands. We ended up with a kitchen we were kind of happy with, although it still had some failings.

So, off we went today, fully prepared to spend hours among the Ikea hordes. Today was the last day of the sale. It was exactly as you might expect. People everywhere, bustling along the pre-determined Ikea shopping path, dodging running kids and shopping baskets. Everything that's awful about weekend shopping times a hundred. After about half an hour or so, we were called. We ended up being paired with the same staff member we'd had the night before, but now that we had our Ikea kitchen plan, we could speak the same language. She suggested some fairly significant changes that we think make the kitchen much more flexible and that eliminate the problems we'd had in our design (namely, a cooktop right up against the fridge). Once the kitchen was completely planned, we got another number to get in the ordering line-up (yep), and waited for what felt like two hours to place our order. Once we got our order form, off we went to get in line with it at the cash to pay. We're still not sure what we ended up paying for (I couldn't explain it right now if I tried), but we know the order is placed and that it will be ready for delivery in the middle of May.

It's been a busy weekend full of errands and decisions, but we're on our way to a very nice kitchen.

Third floor beginnings

Although it might not look like much from the street, we were very happy to see that the floor of our third floor is now just about complete. The third floor covers the rear two-thirds or so of the house. It's been a very slow building week, despite relatively good weather. For various reasons, the crew has only been on-site for just under two of the last six working days. We were happy to see the construction get back on track today and look forward to third-floor walls soon.

Tonight, our designer sent us some updated drawings of our kitchen. A few months ago, John had an attack of worry that our cooktop and sink were too far apart, compromising the effectiveness of the critical "working triangle" of a well-designed kitchen. So, to try and accommodate our request to have the cooktop closer to the sink, our designer sent along an alternative option. With only one full wall in the kitchen, though, it was definitely a challenge. John and I will give the new design more thought and order our kitchen over the weekend. We're going with Ikea Adel cabinets with glass doors on the upper cabinets and solid doors on the lower cabinets. Good price, low-VOC, non-formaldehyde glues, real wood. Should be nice.

96A Crichton Street!

96A! After receiving various documents for our lot naming it
94A Crichton, 96 Crichton, 96A Crichton, and my favourite,
0 Crichton, we finally received confirmation from the city that our property is and will be forevermore 96A Crichton. This only makes sense, since we are between 94 and 96B Crichton Street, and our property was once part of 96B Crichton. Hence, 96A. Once the bachelor apartment is ready, we'll need another address for that, which should be a fun adventure. Perhaps 96.528ABC Crichton? Maybe 0 Crichton will still be free then.

We selected a couple of colour options tonight for our concrete floors. Sure, we felt a bit ridiculous buying the Benjamin Moore collection of paint chips for $35 way back last summer, but they turned out to be very handy for the floors. (They will be for the wall colours, too.) The DaroTopp (lightweight concrete) supplier will provide us with a couple of samples to check out the colour match, and then we'll make our final choices. We're thinking of having two colours: a lightish brown for the first and second floors, and a slightly deeper brown for the basement and third floor. We'll see how the samples turn out.

Just practising

John made himself at home today, checking out what's in the fridge, eating in the dining room, and reading in the living room. When do we move in?!

Lorie vs. the ladder

Guess who won? I did. I finally made it to the second floor today. The sun dried up the rainwater in the house and on the ladder, so before John and I headed out to go cross-country skiing, we stopped by the house. And up I went.

It was great to see the space, especially the kitchen. It looks a lot smaller from the ladder; once you're in it, it's definitely a normal size. The size of the pantry was also a great surprise. It will house our stacked washer and dryer and laundry sink, as well as our pantry items. There will even be room for my paella pan.

The photo on the left shows the view from the living room to the rear of the house. Closest to the camera on the right will be the dining room. The kitchen is at the rear on the left, and the powder room and pantry are on the right. The door beside the kitchen window will lead out to a deck. When John's not looking, I'm planning on sneaking a barbeque on there (who ever heard of a person who didn't like to barbeque?).

The photo on the right shows the view from the kitchen to the front of the house. The living room will be the sunniest spot in the house. It faces southwest, and will have two skylights in the cathedral ceiling above it. We can't wait to see it all finished.

A wet Wednesday

Ottawa endured a nice mix of hail, flurries, rain and freezing rain over the last 12 hours, so the guys spent the day working indoors. The first-floor bathoom walls and door frame are now up, as are the walls around the first-floor bedroom. In the photo on the right, we're standing in the hall of our first floor facing the rear bedroom on the left and our office at the rear on the right. The little bathroom is at the front on the right, but you can't really see it in this picture.

The bathroom walls have a very nice curve to the them. The room is an interesting shape, which we find neat. Our only concern is the size of the space left for the tub, which is exactly five feet. If the tub is five feet long and the space is five feet long, we might have a problem getting it in. Time will tell.

The first-floor bedroom walls were supposed to be removable sometime in the future, so we're pretty sure they were prematurely installed and should have been put in place after the cement floor was poured. The bedroom wall that is closest to the stairs also seems high, since there will be a landing above it that needs to accommodate a few stairs up to the second floor. We'll figure this out with our builder tomorrow.

It was too slippery for me to brave the ladder up to the second floor today, but maybe this weekend will be a little drier. I'd really like to get to see the second floor from the second floor, and not the rungs of a ladder.

Inside the second floor, part 2

John took this photo of the second floor from the kitchen, which is at the rear of the house. (That's me halfway up the ladder!) That hole that I'm standing in will become our stairwell, which will also climb to a third story. On the left of the photo is the dining room, and the room at the back with the two big windows is our living room. We currently have a small half-wall planned to delineate the dining and living rooms, but we may choose not to include it. We'll decide a little later in the construction process, when I actually work up the courage to make it onto the second floor.

Inside the second floor, part 1

We climbed up the ladder separating our first and second floors today and got our first look at what will soon be our kitchen, dining room and living room. John bravely lept from the ladder with no fear of getting back down, but I only made it halfway up, so my perspective wasn't as good. Two main things struck me overall: 1) It looks a lot smaller than I thought it would, but I was semi-prepared for that.
2) The windows in our house are a lot bigger than I thought they were. Well, I thought to myself, if you're going to live in a little space, it's very important to have good-sized windows, and lots of them.

The photo on the left is of the kitchen, which was our biggest surprise in terms of size. The window, however, should make it feel very open (it's above where our sink will go). That plank on the bottom right-hand corner is just a piece of wood, not a wall-to-be, so at least it isn't closed off from the rest of the living space.

The photo on the right is of the pantry and powder room. These are the only enclosed spaces on this floor. The pantry will hold all of our (my) jars of mustard, along with our stacked washer and dryer, and a laundry sink. The wee powder room will be decked out South American style, with one of our great Peruvian souvenirs for the wall (a wall-hang) and a hammered copper sink. It'll be little, but stylish, we hope.

Yesterday's second floor pics

Here are a couple of pictures showing yesterday's progress on the second floor. The guys were able to finish the front wall, the right side wall, and the rear wall. More to come for today...

Second floor springs walls

After excitedly taking a series of photographs of our excellent second floor, three walls of which were completed today (!), I forgot my camera at my mother's place.

To celebrate St. Patrick's Day, we enjoyed our usual feast of corned beef sandwiches and boiled cabbage. I do not exaggerate when I say feast. I think the amount we eat on St. Patrick's Day could be considered a sin. In my post-gluttonous haze, I accidentally left my camera at my mom's. Sigh. Pictures to follow soon!

Weekend warrior

To make up for a little bit of lost time last week, our intrepid builder spent this sunny Sunday afternoon swinging a hammer chez Boucher-Thurston. He hopes to get the second and third floors up this week, which will be very dramatic progress to see. There's some rain in the forecast, but hopefully not enough to slow the crew down. Can't wait to see more walls tomorrow! We love walls.

En route to floor #2

The changes reflected in these photos might not look as dramatic as the ones in the last couple of posts, but we are on our way to a second floor. Some of the floor joists are in, and where there are floor joists, walls are sure to follow. Looks like we're still not connected to the water line, though. The hole remains.

First floor complete!

Stopped by the site after work and it looks like the first floor is complete. Amazing!

For those of you who haven't seen the plans, or don't remember the details of them, that big rectangular hole on the left is for our front door and sidelite. The front door opens into our front foyer (of course), which is an enclosed vestibule with a closet on the right-hand side. The second door, which leads into the hallway, creates a kind of airlock to keep the cold or heat out of the main part of the house, depending on the time of year. When you open the second door, you will see our stairs to the second floor on the left-hand side, a bathroom on the right, and a bedroom and office at the end of the short hall. That opening on the front right-hand side of the photo is for the garage. The office and bedroom both have rear-facing windows; the bedroom (at the rear on the left) has a second side-facing window, and our office (at the rear on the right) has a door leading out to our backyard.

The first floor is our smallest floor of living space, since it includes the garage. Still, we're packing a lot into that space to make the best use of it.

Looking forward to seeing floor #2!

First tour

John and I took our first tour of the interior tonight — a major milestone for us. We haven't actually been on the site since our toast to the backhoe on
Day 1. Tonight, we hopped up from the garage to what will be our first floor. We walked from the front door, down the hallway, past the soon-to-be bathroom on the right, and through to our office at the back. It was really amazing to be able to finally get a feel for the actual length and width of the house. It won't be huge, but it won't be tiny, either. It will fit us just perfectly.

Our fab first floor

As you can see from the photos, the framing is almost done on the first floor! Our guys still have to level, tie and fasten the walls, but they're definitely up. Walls, glorious walls!

Our builder is planning to finish framing the first floor tomorrow, complete the second floor on Thursday and Friday, and then move on to the third story next week. Things are happening quickly now, which is great news. Encouraging for us, and encouraging for the crew, too. Now if only the snow could hold off just for a few days...

Now, about that persistent hole in front of chez Boucher-Thurston. It turns out the water pipe actually runs underground more than halfway across the street, forcing our excavator to tear up all of New Edinburgh to find it and hook us up. No, not really. But they do have to go farther than usual, which takes more time, of course. It also turns out we'd jumped the gun in a previous update and forgotten that our electricity will be coming in from hydro wires above and not underground. That was a choice we made what feels like years ago, based on the additional cost. Ah, well. We are, however, now connected to the gas line, the sewer pipe, and the storm sewer, which is all very good news. Our builder estimates that we'll be connected to the water line by Thursday, and that big hole can finally be filled in.

The stair saga continues, but progress is being made. The original engineer we hired to validate the stair design insisted on welding the entire staircase, making the stairs nearly impossible to repair and a heavy, unwieldy piece to handle. Our builder recommended that we tweak the stairs in a way that ensures the railings can be removed if we need to replace a tread (that thing you step on). We're waiting for a quote from a second engineer to validate our builder's suggestion, and once the final specifications for the stairs are finalized, the stair fellow we're pretty sure we're going with can submit his quote and hopefully start the work.

Finally, part of our builder-assigned homework is to start thinking about paint colours. Painting seems like such a distant task, but we don't want to leave colour selection to the last second, either. Sounds like a good weekend job to me.

Snow and rock

I was walking around during the heavy snow on Saturday and managed to find my way to the lot. I had to trudge through the snow and get up beside the construction to see that under it all, framing had begun. The sill plates and joists were in and most of the construction was covered, but I couldn't tell whether it was to protect it from snow or they had actually been installing the floor. I couldn't see under to determine whether all the joists were in.

On Sunday, we met one of the instructors our builder had in college. He was at the site to see the progress and marvel at the work his protégé had to do before he actually got to build. It seems like the joists must have been in, because they built our first wall today. We have pictures to prove it! It's only a little wall, but our builder says he will finish all the first floor walls tomorrow. That he got one up today is a credit to him and his crew, since they spent the morning shovelling snow.

On the downside, the excavator has not been able to dig through to the city water main yet. The rock has not given way. The gas and electricity are hooked up, but they don't expect to finish connecting the services until Wednesday. Our builder had projected that they would be done on Friday. Between the soft crap above and the hard crap below, our guys just don't seem to be able to catch a break.

Snowed under

This post was supposed to go up yesterday, but was delayed due to technical difficulties. Here it is:

Well, the guys tried to get the services connected last week, but weren't able to finish the job before the snow storm. That's what the big, snow-filled hole was for in front of the site. Some framing work began last week, but it's now under 50 centimetres of the white stuff. There's a lot of snow to be removed, and very little place to put it. We wish the team the best of luck as they return to work tomorrow.

Return of the backhoe

No photo today, but just wanted to report a few more updates. Our excavator is back this week to break up the sidewalk and dig about eight feet down in front so that our services (water, sewer, etc.) can be connected to the house. Wouldn't you know it, it's still all rock under all that snow, so what would normally take about a day somewhere else will take us more like three days. The excavation resulted in a bit of damage to the Platon membrane (dimply plastic layer on top of the waterproofing material), but it will be fixed.

Our builder and designer met with a potential supplier for our interior stairs, and came away with a lot of confidence in him and his product. His price is very reasonable, and he seems like a very knowledgeable guy. We're looking forward to getting his detailed quote. We may get our great stairs!

Our windows and framing package have been ordered, and the doors are soon to follow. Our builder anticipates that the framing should be complete in about a month. We're all hoping to make up for some lost time, and he's ready to go at it full steam, weather permitting, of course.

On the weather front, they're calling for 10 centimetres of snow tonight, and 10 more tomorrow. Didn't that groundhog see his shadow, or not see it, or whichever it is that means SPRING is supposed to be coming?

More to come soon.

Baby got back(fill)

The exterior concrete stairs leading to the basement have been formed and poured, and the waterproofing is now complete around all of the finished portions of the foundation and around the stairs. The weeping tile around the exterior of the stair wall is also complete. As you can see from the photos, the guys have started to backfill (fill in the hole), which is great news. Once that's done, it will be a little easier for the crew to work on the site, and our neighbours' foundations will no longer be at any risk of frost or damage. We're also hoping that covering up the roots of the tree to the left of our house will make it forget that its feet were temporarily naked and exposed to the freezing cold.

In interior stair news, our guys have identified another stair supplier that might be able to build our stairs for a third of the cost of the quote we received from another company. We're keeping our fingers crossed that it works out; we would really like to not have to compromise those lovely stairs.

If you've read the entry on the height our building, you know that we've had to make some adjustments here and there to accommodate the rock that our house sits on. In the end, we basically had two options: add an extra stair to the front door outside the house, or add a step in the hallway of our front foyer going up to the first floor. We decided to preserve the original design of the inside of the house as much as possible and go for the extra step on the outside.

There's some lumber on the site now, stacked at the rear of the lot, just waiting to become our walls. We are very excited about the prospect of framing beginning next week. We can't wait to see walls!

On the NIMBY neighbour front, the saga continues. In fact, our troubles have intensified. We're not letting it ruin our excitement about our progress so far, but the exchanges are exhausting and demoralizing. We will soon be contributing an article on our construction to our community newspaper, so that should be a good opportunity to introduce ourselves and our project to the rest of the neighbourhood.

Until next time...