The difference a few days make

The framing is moving along well, even in this horrible heat. The workers are starting earlier this week and working half days in the worst of it to escape the worst of the heat – 32deg + humidity on a dark asphalt roof is none too pleasant I’m sure.

July 16,  East side dormer started

July 16 - North and west sides - Dormer started.

July 19, North and East sides

July 19 West side - we have a dormer!

July 20 - Overhang added and roof cladding started

We will be losing our kitchen this weekend – we found a couple that need the cabinets – so that’s all looked after (I hate wasting – so it’s nice to see them get put to use). I’ve started packing and purging the kitchen contents, not sure how so much stuff was fit in this kitchen! We will be moving the fridge into the dining room and keep a few small appliances, rice cooker/steamer, microwave, blender, kettle, etc and using the BBQ a lot over the next little while.

Other changes since the last post: the siding is now going to be done by our main contractor, once the final total came in from the local siding guy our contractor figured he could beat the price… so sounds good to me! He can get the same materials and colors but he has a few more options, so we may go with a more blue siding - still dark though - pictures to come. 


We also got a few more things checked off the list, windows and doors have been ordered, we are going with triple glazed North Star windows - all double hung, steel doors and we ordered hardwood flooring for the existing 1^st floor (living room and dining room) and the new master bedroom has been ordered. We ordered a ¾” thick 2¼” wide solid hickory in a natural color. I can’t wait to see this down, I think it will be very nice, can you can’t beat the price – $3.07 /sqft!  I ordered it through Lumber Liquidators, and we will have to pick it up in Toronto, but you are hard pressed to find laminate that cheap – so it will be worth the drive!

We also had our meeting with the ‘kitchen guy’ Bill. He was very quick coming back with a drawing and had some great ideas. He is going to do some test swatches to see what he can create for the finish on the cabinets – the ones in the photo that we are working from are likely custom painted on site – and that will cost big bucks, and I don’t have the time or want to do it myself, so I’m hoping they can do something similar with a spray on and wipe off effect which will be much cheaper. The initial cost on the cabinets is higher than I want (it’s a ton of cabinetry, with lots of custom units, almost all lower units are drawers and double height upper cabinets that will look built into the ceiling) – so we found some changes to reduce the costs without changing the layout or overall look. Just need to put the deposit down now - eek! 

He did suggest going to Ikea for the sink and faucet, he said that the quality on them is great and you can’t beat the price. I’d have to agree, this same sink at Home Depot is twice the price. I think we will use this faucet, from Ikea.

Siding choices

First up, a progress report. Framing is going well, we are seeing window and door openings forming, and plywood is starting to be installed. Exciting to see things taking shape.

Framing July 8

Framing July 8

Framing July 13

Framing July 13

The next choice up is siding. I’ve been wanting to do this since we bought this place – I hate the standard 70s wide plank white aluminum siding we have now. It does not do the house any favours – and was even worse with the all black trim when we bought it.

Front of the house July 8 - before new siding.

The main contactor doing the addition will do the siding, but he asked me to get quotes, and if I can get it done cheaper than he can do it – he’s fine with that (did I mention I love this contractor!). It works out well for the job as a whole too as we can have the siding done while they are working on other things. Our contractor is a small local company without a ton of crews – the owner has been working on our place every day. So we called to get a few quotes from local places. One of the places we called was the company that did our replacement windows in the old section of the house 3 years ago (and we were happy with – obviously if we called them back) and one is a larger local siding business that’s been around since 1969. Well we now know how to tell if a contactor does not want your business… and the guy that did our windows obviously doesn’t… his price came in well over twice the cost of the other guy. Um over $40k for regular vinyl siding for a 1.5 story house not quite 2000 sqft is NOT reasonable! I seriously don’t know how he kept a straight face when he delivered the quote. So we are obviously not going with him LOL.

On to the other guy. Sometimes you just get a good feeling about someone, and this guy is one of them. We set up a time for the quote for 2:00pm, at 1:30pm he called me to say he was running behind and would be 15 minutes late, he pulled in the driveway at 2:14pm… if you’ve ever dealt with home repairs and contractors – that is impressive. He seems knowledgeable, is obviously organized, quoted on the spot, price is good, but not too good to be true. The company’s been around since 1969 and he comes with references. He steered us away from a product, which he can and will sell, because of past experience with bad fading and the manufacturer not standing behind the warrantee (which is also the product quoted by the other guy – he didn’t know that though). So far this guy seems great – lets hope it stays that way, just following up references now, getting a solid quote for the back of the house (Friday) and choosing colors. On that note – here are the colors. We are going with a deep dark blue on the main body of the siding and an oversized 5.5” corner and trim in a medium grey color – pictures of the swatches below:

Siding swatches against the house in the sun

Swatches in the shade

The blue will be the main siding color and the grey will be the trim and oversized corners. This will totally change the look of the house, but I think it will look amazing. So excited to see this take shape!


Next up kitchen layout  - the 'kitchen guy' come tomorrow.

Progress??? And plans

First up – Pictures. I’m uploading progress pictures on Flickr. I will add interesting ones to the blog – but, well foundations are boring, but if you are interested you can find them here J Foundation Pictures

The backfilling is mostly complete, they were just getting to the finishing/smoothing when the machine broke… Great – oh well. It will get fixed today and the backfill with be completed. The contractor dropped off the scaffolding yesterday and they will start on Wednesday with the framing.

We had to choose window sizes last night so they can be ordered and they can frame everything around those measurements. After some thinking we decided to go with all double hung windows. We have new double hungs in the old part of the house, which we had put in 3 years ago, and I really like the ability to lower the top – especially on the second floor. I feel it’s much safer for small children, as we can still have the window half open and not worry about DD around the windows. I also think it looks much better on a century home than casements – I find they just look too modern… looks fine on a newer home and yes they are more efficient, but well windows are just not efficient anyway, so may as well stick with what you like. On that note though, we did choose to go with triple glazed windows to increase the R value of the windows.

Having to choose the windows really hits home the fact that we need to get off our butts and get choosing everything else too!  So we stared with the kitchen, with this image for inspiration:

Image found here 

Now our kitchen will not have this layout, or be this grand, but I love the color and feel of this design, I want the house to feel new, nice and modern… to a point, but I really don’t want the new addition to feel like an after thought, I think it’s important to keep with the century feel and to not stray too far for the original design of the house. I like that the travertine floors look very old, while still being a modern and rather timeless design feature. I also like how the light, yet dirt colored, floor and counters allow the cabinets to be darker without making the room too dark.

While I like the look of granite for counters (like in the above picture) I just can’t get past the price. So we will be going with a standard laminate with no built in backsplash and a tiled blacksplash instead. So last week on a tip from a co-worker, I checked out a place in Ajax -  Countertop King, they have a great selection and I found a travertine print/color laminate that I think will look great, their prices are great too, they fab the counters on site and delivery is 2 weeks. I also checked out a tile place in Ajax to check prices and left there thinking we would go with porcelain tile that looks like travertine to save money. So when we went into Home Depot and I spied a Tuscan Travertine package in a cobblestone pattern for $3.99/sq foot we bought it! Score! The color is exactly the same as the inspiration kitchen and I think the pattern will make it suit the house that much more, and the counter top I liked matches the flooring perfectly. Now we just need to talk to ‘the kitchen guy’ about what finishes we can do on the counters that will look similar to the above picture.

Next up is choosing hardwood for the dining and living room and the master bedroom, and layout of the master bath, and fixtures… and …and, ok so there is still lots of choosing to do yet… but at least we have a start on it all.

And it begins...

Wow - This all began in October! Since then there has been much talking and planning... and many contractors not even bothering to call back! AUHHHH, seriously, what is up with that? If you are too busy, just tell me so. For all that though we ended up with a contactor we really like who was recommended though friends and everything is working out.

The early part of the year and through the spring and plans were drawn, engineers called in... plans changed (to cheaper options - imagine that!). We learned a lot about permits, and the fact that we needed one from the health department as we are on septic (at least that one is done now)... still waiting on the main building permit to hang in the window (we submitted - just waiting for the township)... but the inspector has been out and work is progressing so no worries :D

So as of today we have footings complete, extension of the foundation wall poured, water proofing and drainage complete and we are ready for back filling. Balloon framing starts next week.

Now the real fun begins. We should have our kitchen for at least another few weeks... then many BBQ dinners for us! The final plan has the previously mentioned foundation extension poured around the existing one - allowing for the new walls to be built outside the existing kitchen. Once the roof is on and the new walls are mostly closed in the existing kitchen will be torn out then interior building will begin. We will have a new kitchen, an actual entrance area from the garage with the powder room moved to that location. We will be widening the opening into the dining room so it will become more open to the kitchen and installing new flooring throughout the main level. The new space upstairs will become a master suite with full bath and walk in closet.

We are just now starting the choosing of... well everything. Siding is pretty much chosen (we are redoing the whole house), but we still need to finalize flooring, colours and kitchen layouts and cabinet finishes. I will do posts on those of the next little while to get feedback. Our focus will be on good quality, long lasting design and materials without going crazy with the budget.