Deep freeze

Progress on the house has, literally, been frozen for nearly 2 weeks! With no natural gas hook up and temperatures hovering near -40, there is no feasible way to make any headway on the house. We now have the house completely closed in, electrical roughed in, and our garage floor poured...all good things. We'll just have to wait now until the weather lets up to get going on the exterior, and then for natural gas to be able to heat the inside to rough in the plumbing and get it drywalled.

What's wrong with this picture?

After a weekend out of town, I headed out to the house to see how things looked since the windows had been installed. Hmmm, going out there and becoming frustrated at the appearance of things is becoming an all too common occurrence. As we approached, the words came swift and sharp, "Why can I see sunlight through the roof?!".


As we got closer, I realized that the windows were indeed installed, the majority of them anyway, but for some bizarre reason the roof wasn't totally sheeted! Call me crazy but isn't that supposed to happen *before* putting in windows and doors? Not to mention the fact that they had installed some fugly white steel front door that was certainly not what I had ordered.


Seeing the windows in made me truly regret accepting the windows the company had shipped...all of them for the front of the house with mullions instead of clear glass. It's just not my style, not my taste, and I should have insisted they go back, but I didn't and now I'm stuck with them.


I am grateful for the manufacturer's error on my patio doors, though. Originally they were to be sliding glass doors, but when they arrived they were two garden doors...which I looooooooooove! So glad for that mistake!


I'm meeting with the electrician tomorrow to set up our interior and exterior lighting plan, wish me luck!

Is that your final answer?

I kept telling everyone who cautioned me about the huge number of decisions I'd have to make not to worry, that I have a vision and I wouldn't have an problems. WRONG!

We have been through more siding, trim and paint samples than I care to think about. And each one left me more and more dewildered. Dallas isn't much help either, telling me that, "As long as it's not ugly", I can select what I think is best. So, after muh deliberation, we've decided on our exterior colours.

We have decided to use a fiber cement siding instead of vinyl for a few reasons. It's longer lasting, it looks better, and it's friendly to the environment. Here's our pick for siding:

Our trim:

Our garage doors:

I stood in my closet today

I nearly froze my tush off today but I managed to spend some time walking through the house and triple checking to make sure that things were coming together as we wanted them to. So far so good, no changes = a happy contractor!


Perspective is hard since the walls are only framed, but here is a tour:


The dining room (view from the living room)
Front foyerUpstairs hall (it will have an open iron railing and be open to the stairs and foyer below) Bonus room

Uh, hun, it' snowing in the house!

Well, no roof. I was *really* hoping that the house would have been closed in before it snowed. Now I have an inch of snow inside! The entire house has now been framed and the roof trusses are just about in. This week the plan is to finish the roof, and to get all the windows and doors installed.

To no one's shock, the dumb-ass developer - who has been months behind on everything, including keeping the contractor up to date on the status and availablilty of service, etc. - didn't let my builder know until last week that we won't have natural gas access for FIVE more weeks! There seems to be a loose plan in place to make use of propane heaters until they can heat the house with a temporary furnace but the heaters will only work if the weather holds out. Fingers crossed people...I want nothing to slow us down now.

I want something special!

We met with our contractor last night and, after several weeks of sloooowwwwww progress on the house, things are picking up.

From the beginning, Dallas and I knew that we wanted to have finishes and products in the house that were different than the average home. After the fiasco with the glass counter top, we decided to look closer to home to get what we wanted. And we think we've found something really special in our choice of flooring. It's a product called Arteca, a man-made product that recreates the look of just about anything and everything you can imagine...even glass! We decided to scrap our plans to install hardwood and slate and have, instead, chosen a couple of amazing finishes for the main floor, and laundry and bathrooms.

Here is a sample of the living room floor we chose.

I am told that we might have (gasp) a roof by the weekend...I'll be sure to post pics and an update then!

Bummer

I was so enthusiastic after the progress we saw last weekend that I drove out to the house this morning fully expecting to see a second floor on the house. Much to my dismay, the only thing done this week were the bases of the garage walls. I kept saying to myself that they couldn't go ahead with the second floor until this step was done, but I secretly hoped that they would somehow **magically** speed up the process and have something more tangible for me to see this weekend. On the UP side, having the base of the garage poured gives us a really great idea of the scale of the house and a great vision of what it'll look like from the front once all is done...and I think it's gonna look amazing!

Walls!

For the most part, I am a practical and pragmatic kinda girl. Though exciting, I have tended to approach this whole construction project with the attitude that it is an investment, a business endeavor of sorts. That all changed this weekend when I drove out to check on progress and got my first taste of emotional involvement. For the first time, I saw a glimpse of what this home would look like once completed and I was overwhelmed. There stood the first floor of my house, not fully complete, not closed in, no windows even…but it was my house. Then it dawned on me…HOLY CRAP I’M BUILDING A HOUSE! It was so much fun to walk around and visualize where things would be, what it would look like. The garage hasn’t yet been added, the footings are poured but no walls built yet. Even still, it looks great! Here are some pics of what’s standing!

I'm gettin' out the tap shoes, I've got a floor!

Slowly but surely the house is coming together. They ran into a few issues with some beams and had to re-order them, which caused delays. But I am assured that things are back on track and framing should take about 4 weeks.

Let's go fellas...

With the cold weather closing in, I am hoping that framing of the house goes as quickly as possible. I just can't imagone these guys having to do that kind of work in the snow. This is as far as we've gotten...

Extra! Extra! We have a hole!

After countless delays, we finally have a hole...and a valid building permit! Now work can really get under way. There are still no services, but that doesn't prevent the contractor from moving forward. It's so exciting!

Hurry up and wait

Our new builder quickly got us on track. The plan is now finished, and has been approved by the developer. The lot is not ready for construction yet...so now we anxiously wait for their “go ahead”. The general mood out in White City right now both at the developer's office and at the Town Hall is one of confusion. No one seems to know what's going on when, or who is in charge of anything. We're stuck in the middle.

Let's get this party started!

We had a lot, we had a floor plan, it was time to interview for a new contractor. I was still bitter from the bad experiences with our first builder so went into the process with a huge chip on my shoulder. Reluctantly, I agreed to speak with a good friend of Dallas’s who had partnered with a general contractor and their company was looking for new projects. Long story short, we hired them. They have been awesome to work with and they are as excited as we are about the project.

Ah...it's good to have land!

Dallas got a crash course in real estate speculation and set off to acquire a lot. Without a builder to represent us, we were on our own in every respect. We were sure that we wanted to build outside of Regina, for both financial and esthetic reasons, and White City fit the bill. Because of the stiff competition for lots, the process is much like a lottery, if you get picked, you get a choice –often not you first choice – but a choice of lot none the less. We were lucky, we had 2nd right of refusal on our first choice of lot, and 1st right of refusal on a second lot. When it came time for us to select, we actually decided on our second choice lot! And just like that, we owned a rather large piece of, well, dirt!

Baby Steps...

There were some minor changes we wanted made to the original plan so we took it to our builder to have it re-drawn and to get a price quote. After much frustration, we chose not to pursue a relationship with the initial builder...but we did end up with a preliminary drawing that contained our changes...progress? It's hard to say if we're any further ahead than we were a month ago.

And so it begins...

Welcome to our site! Almost from the day that Dallas and I moved in to our first 800 sq ft apartment, we talked endlessly about the day that we would build our dream house...what it would look like, where it would be. When we moved to our 1900 sq ft condo, the conversations continued. We had big dreams, and knew that one day we would make it happen! After much thought, we’ve decided that now is the time to fulfill our dream and build our house!

Keep checking in, I promise to keep the updates coming.