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That's pretty cool. I'm doing the same thing in Ottawa, but GC'ing the project myself. I was granted my permit in November and am only just doing the drywall inside and masonry outside at the momment, and even then, everyone I talk to says I'm doing one of the fastest owner-builds they've ever seen. It's quite amazing to see how quickly yours went up in comparison though. Few things I noticed that are very different between Ontario and Alberta (or Ottawa and Calgary). 1. Hydro-Ottawa would have probably killed me if I tried to install my hydro service that early. We were running generators on site until after the roof was shingled and all the doors and windows installed. They wouldn't even think about letting me do it a day sooner. 2. Nice choice on the cabinets. Mine are very simillar and the install date is only a few days away! I too chose to make a liquor cabinet, except I got a bit carried away and ran some beer lines down to the cold storage for beer on tap. Not that expensive really, you should think about it if its not too late! 3. Cabinets, here, go in after tile. The tract-builders do it the other way around, but all three kitchen designers I talked to before settling on one looked at me like I was crazy for thinking that they go in before. Must be a regional thing. 4. I really like your doorframe idea. I may steal it. 5. I like your doors. I wanted to go with the same ones but with the rounded out top on the patterns. I got vetoed and we went with the 6 panel ones. Please please please tell me you went solid core, those make a world of difference! 6. Holy poo poo, you didn't forget to wire a doorbell! My neighborhood is all custom built homes and I've gotten to know alot of the people there. I'd say a solid 75% of the houses forgot to put a drat doorbell on the front door! I've also got some questions for you, out of sheer curiousity really. 1. How much did you building permit set you back? I got hosed. My Ottawa permit cost me close to $35k with development fees, and I'm outside the urban boundry! Inside the city they are more, and in suburbia they are astronomical! 2. Fill. Did you have to truck in any of it? In my case, the water table is so high that they couldn't dig very deep. So as a result they just stripped the topsoil off, compacted some gravel, and built the foundation on top of that. Then I got to pay for 300 dump trucks of dirt at $150/piece. Good. loving. Times. 3. Don't know if your GC talked to you about this, but how much of a hard time did the various bureaucrats give you? I'm quite apt dealing with bureaucracy and such, being a Federal bureaucrat myself, but holy gently caress, the only people involved in this project that I would fire if I did it all over again would be the City, Hydro, and the Provincial Ministry of Labour. -The city was just asinine when they came to their inspections, I mean, I overbuilt everything... just about nothing only "meets code" and everything pretty much exceeds it. But the stuff this little twit found was ridiculous. Example, he failed me 3 times for "not having enough nails in Truss T25". Fourth time, I meet him there with my framer and engineer in tow... his response? "Oh gently caress, that's Truss T38", pop in two nails and bam, passed. -Provincial ministry of labour kept giving me grief about not having fire extinguishers on site (it was right by the front door) and not having a clean site (I honestly don't know what else I could have done). I swear that tool was probably just looking for a bribe. -Hydro, don't get me started on Hydro. From the day I called to the day I got service was about 40 days. I also had to redig my hydro trench twice and got into a shouting match with the inspector twice. All in all though, I'd do it again. I'm actually looking at doing it again for profit (build then sell) in the not-so-distant-future.
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Mar 5, 2010 05:19
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So did you go with a sprayed ceiling? I was talked out of it and wasn't sure if it would look "right", but now that its all done and painted it looks awesome. Also, when's move-in day? We're shooting for the end of April. I should really get to putting up a thread of my own, but I just don't have time to follow it all the way through. I think I'll wait till I'm done and post progress shots all the way from beginning to completion at once 
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Apr 3, 2010 02:34
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