Can I live in a blue house?

We've seen a couple of blue houses that we really like. I think blue makes an otherwise plain house more interesting. From my perspective, if we go with beige or grey the house won't be much more than a boring bungalow.

So Andrew spent hours last night mocking up one of the house drawings with colour. As you can see, he left the front door white because we have no idea what to do with it. We also aren't sure what to do around the front door. Andrew thinks we should put stone around the door, but after looking at his 2 pictures, I'm not sure that's the way to go.

The other issue is the roof colour. Since the blue we chose is a grey-blue, a grey roof looks funny, but the black is so dark. Not sure what to do here either.

Once again the windows have the potential of biting us in the #%@. In a previous post I pointed out the cost savings of going with vinyl windows. We can get the red colour in vinyl, but are basically committed to red forever as painting vinyl windows is a bit foolhardy from what I've read. So do with just go with white? So many choices.....

What do you think? Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated!! Either email me or post comments at the end of this post.

Bathroom, bathroom, bathroom

We spent 2.5 hours at the bathroom fixture place today. Who knew that there were so many choices! And such a wide price range. It's probably a good thing that our bathrooms are compact - it forced us to limit our search.

In the end we figured that we'd cut out the bathtub from the master ensuite in favor of a BIG shower. Probably not the best decision when it comes to resale value, but that is clearly not the point here. We're putting a nice deep soaker-type tub in the kids bathroom, so that makes up for it (we're going without all the fancy schmancy whirlpool jets, etc) .



Faucets was another eye-opening experience. This is where we could have easily bankrupted ourselves. Some of those faucets are works of art, and when you start looking at the finishes, you could lose your mind! Gone are the days of chrome, chrome and more chrome. Now we have stainless steel, brushed nickel, oiled bronze, venetian bronze, and chrome. We priced out the shower in our bathroom and for the same system we were looking at more than a $500 difference based just on the finish! In the end we cheaped out. It's hard to justify such a crazy expenditure when we're looking for a way to cut costs. For the kids tub and sinks we're going with this:



And for the ensuite shower and sink, this type of thing:



The coolest part is that we're getting a rain shower head that will come down from the ceiling as well as a typical shower head. Very cool!

I should clarify something here. These are the choices we made based on what we think we can afford and what we think we want. We haven't got the final pricing yet. Kathy (the woman at the store) told us that if the quote makes us nauseous we can always "reassess". Let's hope that we don't have pull the Gravol out at this early stage!

Building Permit Approved!

We got the news that we now have a building permit. That's a fairly significant step. At the very least it means that Canada Post should recognize the address (so that the mail from Ruth's school doesn't get returned to sender any longer!)

We're still on the hunt for cuts to the budget. The windows are the current target. It's hard to do, because I'd really like to INCREASE the budget and get even nicer windows, but that's definitely not in the cards. It would be nice to be able to have wood though (although window cost aside, our painting costs increase exponentially with wood windows!) We're looking at vinyl single hung windows. I really can't figure out where the value is in a double hung window, so it seems like a logical place to save. If you any different, please let us know!

Got $50K?

We're looking for $50,000.

Essentially that's what the estimate came in over by. We had a very defined idea (supported largely by the bank) of what this house should cost. Or more accurately, what we can afford. Unfortunately when Dave came by the other day with the final building estimate we are over by about $50K. And when the GST becomes HST next summer that number will get bigger.

Finding money is hard work. We can pick thinks out here and there (like going with 30 year instead of 40 year shingles on the roof), but haven't been able to get rid of enough. It's tough because we don't want to regret "cheaping out" 5 or 10 years down the road, but the bottom line is that we're talking about spending money we don't really have.

We're going to talk with the HVAC guy. This is one area of the estimate that we really just don't understand, and hopefully with better understanding we can make some cuts.

Our other option is to try and become a registered charity and collect donations.....we'll be sure to let you know if we are successful ;-)

Dilemma #1 - The Door

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2 feet. That's all that stands between what we have and what (I think) I want. I constantly find myself going back to the house plans and looking at the entry way. It's a small space, which makes sense given the "quality over quantity of space" approach we're taking. But I just can't seem to resolve myself to having a really simple entryway. More specifically, a really simple entry door.

This is what I would love to have.




























This is what I think we're going to have.


























OK, OK. I know the context of the images isn't fair, but the bottom line is that when I look for images of a door that will fit in our space all they show is a door. No sidelights, no transoms, nothing else. And that's because nothing else will fit. 2 feet doesn't sound like much, but it means a change in the roof, the trusses, the foundation, the flooring, etc.etc.etc. Bottom line is that it's a very expensive small amount of space. All for the sake of a door that won't actually improve the utility of the house.

Quality, not quantity...quality, not quantity...quality, not quantity...quality, not quantity...quality, not quantity...quality, not quantity

Eventually it's going to stick.

Let there be gravel!

Andrew took a run out to the lot the morning and low and behold we have a driveway! I didn't get a chance to see it, but am excited about this development. We now have a path through the woods, not just woods! Andrew took some photos and I'm a little worried about the number of trees that came down, but ultimately the septic tank can't go in the middle of a forest.

I suppose the philosophical impact is more significant than the actual gravel on the ground. Its a sign of our commitment to what we are doing and more importantly WHERE we are doing it!

Now that the snow is coming and the weather is colder, I expect that this will be the last change we'll see until the spring. We have the winter to finalize details like cabinets, flooring, bathroom fixtures and things like that. Then once the road bans are off in the spring the heavy equipment should move in to dig a hole!

Landscape Plan

WOW! Take another look at it (click on it) ....isn't that something else!

In an effort to avoid spending money on landscaping that we then have to undo down the road, we decided to come up with a landscape "master plan". The idea is to implement it over time as we can afford to.

This evening Bill came over. Bill's a retired landscape architect. He used to do large-scale projects, but given that he's Dave's neighbour he agreed to take a look at our residential project. I think you'll agree that the results are pretty impressive. We told him that we wanted a "natural" looking pool, and the rest was all Bill. We think it's really nice how he incorporated the grading into the landscape. It'll be so pretty!!





Now all we have to do is start buying lottery tickets to be able to afford it.

Drawings for building permit done

The drawings have been submitted...building permit pending.

It's hard to believe all the work that has gone in to just getting to the point where we can apply for a permit. Granted, the work was mostly done by Dave, our builder, but it was still a painful process. The final change made was to increase the size of the foundation so that we will be able to use a natural stone facing on the lower level exterior wall instead of stucco. We're not sure we can actually afford to go this route at this point, but if it turns out we can how frustrating would it be to not have the foundation be able to support it!

We went out to the lot on the weekend. The trees have been cleared along the path that will eventually be our driveway, which was exciting to see. We're also starting to see where our front lawn/septic field will be. There's now a bunch of 4 foot long logs that need to be cut and split for firewood - any volunteers?