LOL, boy, this process is going slow. I thought I'd pop in some pics from the construction of the house since I've had a couple of requests for them.
You can see some of the crap I had out previously, though it was never all. That's been reduced to the following:
And nine rubbermaid tubs residing in the crawl space. Those are the 28 gallon size. There's also some stuff that didn't make it into those tubs and are in some smaller tubs (15 gallon) plus a couple of cabinets that aren't packed up. Not much left unpacked really and I should probably sell off whatever is left.
Anyway if you're married and you decide to build a house, you're about to find out just how much stress you can handle. I can't tell you anything about building elsewhere, but builders here are idiots. They are represented by real estate agents and (apologies if necessary) they are on about the same level as pond scum in my view. They try to get you to sign bull**** forms that up prices and make you pay for **** you already paid for. I'll spare you the gory details unless you ask.
From the post preceding this, I see we signed the papers on July 27. Our initial possession date was November first. Suffice to say we missed that
Construction actually began on November 29 with the digging of the hole in the ground. The foundation was poured on November 30th with snow already on the ground.
The foundation remained tarped and with heat blowing in to help the concrete set properly until December 07.
Not too much happened for about a week either but we reached this point on the 23rd of December. At this point they were telling us are possession date would be February 28th.
The above picture is the same date, December 23rd. Just going to use that shot, taken from the living room looking up the stairs from different dates to give you some idea of the progress that can be made. Take into consideration it's winter here, so progress is a wee tad slower than down south.
Four days later they had the walls up for the second floor, on December 27th, much to my surprise, but it really wasn't THAT much work.
By the 31st of December they had the roof on, though no shingles at that point.
I can tell you this much, before the drywall goes up, the house looks absolutely massive inside, largely because you can see "through walls" to other rooms. It's probably not a good idea to go in at this stage because once the drywall goes up, you wish your house was bigger. It's still plenty big (2400 sq ft not including basement) but it feels small.
Here's that stairway photo again.
By January 16 the windows and doors are on (not the garage door though, that concrete for the floor and driveway have yet to be poured). These pictures are taken in the dark because by the time I get back into the city from work at about 5:30 or so it's already dark at this time of year. Kind of sucks but we get it back in the summer when the sun stays up until about 10:00.
On the same date they'd started the drywall around the stairway and into the foyer which is two stories high.
By the 20th of January most of the house had been drywalled. The homeplan is linked above and the following photos are of the kitchen (you can see the pantry in the left corner) and then the family room which are adjoining. In the kitchen shot you can see the stairways to the basement, another 1200 sq ft of space.
For the rest of the main floor there's a den, bathroom, foyer, laundry area, living room and dining room which are beside each other. My wife really wanted some fancy shmancy design features in the dining room and we got them. The living room has a nice bay window as well, as does the bedroom immediately above it.
Dining room:
Living room:
Not too much has changed since then, largely because there was no hydroelectricity on the site and generators were limited for what they can do. The house isn't yet heated, but once the hydro is in it will be and they can progress with a bunch of work that requires the house to be heated (drywall taping, painting, pouring the concrete in the basement and insulating those walls, etc.). But that's only being put in now. Remember that February 28th possession date? Yeah, not happening. We received a letter indicating we are delayed until somewhere May 15th and June 30th.
Thanks for being so specific. I was on site today and the hydro is progressing pretty darn quick, so I think our possession date will move again, probably mid to late April. Sadly we can't specify that date, we're sort of at their mercy (if they had any and they don't). As soon as they're done, it's ours. So we have to try and estimate the possession date of our house as well as we can so we don't get left out on the street. Whee!
As of today a little happened. There's been some detail work to the outside, the furnace is in (not yet working) and there's a massive trench out front where the hydro lines are going in. Pretty cool actually. The only other work that has gone on is some construction and drywalling for the fireplace. Those pictures are below.
The guys working on the house from the plumbers to the electricians to the drywall dudes to the site supervisor have been great. Answering tons of questions and being super nice and super informative. Without those dudes this would have been straight from hell. The site supervisor is the guy whose answers I believe and he gave me a different possession date than the letter, more close to the April date I listed. I have a feeling he'll be right, but we'll see.
I'll bore you to tears more later. I can't begin to explain the frustration of buying toys only to box them up though
I leave them out for a couple of days after opening them to look at them, then into a ziplock baggie and away they go. The Kubricks were horrible. I popped the blue Kubrick out for about five minutes to look at him and now he's in a box. Somewhere
Fun stuff.
