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 ;-)