A Year in Pictures - Part 1

I'm not sure where to start...

Spare time is scarce when building a house. I'm not sure where the heck the last year went. There were a lot of ups and downs: moments when you want to throw in the towel and buy a 1980's bungalow, move in and not even think about renovations. Others where a beam or some trim goes up and you smile and dance and are so proud of what you have accomplished.

We moved out of the trailer near Christmas day after discovering there was ice under our mattress. We moved into the house in the room that had the less saw dust. So we slept on the floor for months, moving from one room to the other as work was being done. I'm not complaning.  It was exciting to wake up in the house. We continued to borrow my parent's washer dryer and their shower until the bath was installed.

But much progress has been made since then. I will try to capture all of it although it will be impossible not to overlook some detail.

Before we get to the meat, here's an update on the paper/legal stuff:

Permits and taxes: We passed the occupancy permit inspection in October 2011. For those unfamiliar with the process in the City of Ottawa, it's bascially the OK to live in the house because it's considered safe. It's not the final occupancy permit (where you need to meet all sections of the building code ). I am guessing we won't get our final occupancy permit until Summer 2012. We need to finish the front porch, secure the back deck and drywall the basement amongst other things before we get there. Ah, and the occupancy permit gives the go ahead for the city to start taxing you. FUN. Not something we were looking forward to. Taxes are crazy in this city...especially considering we have no services.

Mortgage: The whole "give you money only when it's done" is starting to take its toll on our budget. We bought most of the material to finish the house but because we are doing everything ourselves, it's slow to be installed. We don't get money from the bank until it's completely finished, so we are paying interest on our credit line until we get a deposit. On top of that, you pay a fee everytime there's an inspection, so you really need to wait a while in between inspections to make it worth your while. Our parents have been really really really supportive financially to help us in the meantime. We also started our mortgage payments. After a year, the bank forces you to do so.  You pay as though you have borrowed the full amount but are only charged interest on what you have borrowed so far. So for example if your total estimated mortgage is 200 000 but you only borrowed 100 000 so far, your monthly payments will be based on 200 000 but the interest will be based on 100 000. This way you are paying more off the capital.

Budget: We are approximately 5-10% over budget but hoping the HST rebate we apply for helps to bring it back down to something manageable.  Money is always a cause for stress when building, even more so towards the end when you really need that 10% the bank is holding until you get your final occupancy. I have tons of budgeting spreadsheets and we have to be careful on day-to-day expenses. Sometimes I look at all the money we are throwing away because of interest and taxes and I realize renting was actually a pretty sweet deal. I don't regret it or anything, not yet anyways, but the money going in the bank's and city's  pockets is pretty depressing.

Now on to the good stuff....pictures of progress!
I decided to post them in order of when it happened so you get a feel of the progress as we did.

November 2010

Front view with the beautiful boarded door...

Francis putting up the Tyvek

Back of house...

Francis was high... :P

Start of mechanical room plumbing

Well pump controller

Errr..Francis should be describing these...haha

Basement walls were framed

Temporary stairs in mudroom - Thanks Dad!

Living room getting ready to be insulated

Fireplace was installed

Temporary stairs and dormers (still not insulated...)

Upstairs bathroom with neato angled wall

View coming up the stairs...little room to the right, bathroom to the left

I remember a lot of swearing when we hooked up this one...

"Secret" storage area that links the house with the music room

Francis' Dad admiring the view from the music room

Access to the music room on the extremely unsafe little bridge 

Our bedroom approx a month before we moved in

View of the kitchen and dining from the bedrom

Our last few weeks in the trailer.
Looks warm and cozy but it was actually quite cold in there

Our first fire in the fireplace.
We had to put some sheet metal down because of inspections

Two doors in the garage leading to the house

Fascia slowly starting to be instaled

Ah yes. I remember that day. Francis was quite excited.
The garage doors were delivered :P

Garage ceiling

Movember + plumbing in coat + tuque = awkward photo

Garage doors and mudroom door installed...and oh no...snow!
(We are still in the trailer at this point)

Fascia on the dormers done..

As well as the front door

Laundry room plumbing

Fireplace insulation and framing

Bedroom insulation. We used Roxul everywhere where it was not spray foamed

Mudroom insulation

Soffits started

And now the Enermax goes up.
We put that stuff everywhere on the exterior walls to add R-value and to make the home more air tight.

Chuck working away in our walk-in closet...

Ben helping with the master bath plumbing

Christmas time!!!

More and more and more enermax.

Then the insulation crew dropped by and sprayed insulation in all the nooks and crannies

They also did the ceilings, so basically everything that wasn't Roxul or Enermax

Disco house.
I think a day later was discovery-of-ice-under mattress day
with prompted  moving-in-totally-unready-house day.

Next Up: January - April 2011