I Swear We've Been Here Before...

sigh

Some days it feels like life won't cut you a break no matter how hard you try.

Last time we talked about the reno project and last summer's snag with the City's zoning officer and the illogical bylaws that one must abide by, or not.  Since then, I've finished the drawings, had my engineer look them over and give me his seal of approval - literally - (okay, so its a stamp - same idea) and I booked an appointment with the City to apply for a building permit.

And waited.

Waiting and building permits go together like peanut butter and jelly.  Trust me.

This is what I do for a living.  I wait. I wait for plans; I wait for details to be decided; I wait for prices; I wait for trades; I wait for more prices; I wait for the City... I wait.  And wait.  And wait.  And I'm getting rather good at it too, if I do say so myself.  But I don't like it.  That was never part of the deal, but it's the system we have, and it's the way that system works, so deal with it.

But wait! Theres more!

Waiting that is.

I took the waiting time this past week to relax and enjoy the final week of April what with Spring finally returning along with the Canada Geese and nothing seemed to fit the bill quite like doing my taxes.

The fun never ends around here, huh?

Yes Taxes!  Yes, I know they are due on the 30th.  I told you I'm rather good at waiting, remember?  Anyways, I got them done and filed Wednesday and thought I'd finally be able to relax and just be for awhile.  Apparently I've been under a bit of stress lately - or so says the doctor who figures the migraines must have a stress related component to them.  Gee, can't understand where the stress might be coming from, can you?

Let's see, house reno plans drawn and altered and redrawn and finally approved. Check.  Taxes organized and filed, and payments send in electronically. Check  Karen's car in to the shop for its 64000 km checkup and oil change. Check.

Wait.  Not so fast.  Nevermind that this is a biggie in the Passat's service schedule -  to the tune of about $500 - really, can you get out of the service area of the dealer for less than that these days?  No, cuz, K's car has had a shimmy for the last couple weeks - I noticed it as soon as I got in the car one day - she couldn't feel it. It was obvious that the car was not balanced properly - either that or it developed a case of Parkinson's while parked on the driveway - or something, but it most certainly was not normal.

So our service rep from VW dropped off his car on Wednesday morning to take the Passat in - its one of the service perks we like about VW - and we gave it the once over before he departed.  I mentioned the shimmy, and he thought about the milage on the car and we checked the tires - and sure enough the wear bar was evident on all 4!  He said he'd check into the cost of a set of new tires to replace the Conti's that came with the Passat, and have the service rep call me.

Yeah, okay.  That call would end up costing us another $900 what with new tires, alignment and taxes etc...  It's like buying a new roof for the house.  In the end you've spent a lot of money, and it doesn't feel like you got anything to show for it.  Not something fun like a new iPad or anything.  But it is the safety of the car's occupants we are talking about so okay, back to the list.

No, that's it.  No more items.  That's not so bad, right?

Insert ringing phone sound here...

Hi, It's so-and-so from the City Zoning Office calling... (why wouldn't it be?)  ...anyways, about your application, you know you're going to need to apply for a Zoning Variance because of that reduced front yard, right?...

(fade to black, with the Zoning Officer's voice mumbling in the background)

sigh...

Here we go again

I started this blog a little over a year ago to document the changes we were planning to undertake in transforming our house at that time.  After a few years of planning and procrastinating we were ready to take the plunge and finally get to redo-ing the kitchen.

Here's  A Look Back, for those of you who joined us late.

It seemed like things were about to take off.

And they did, only to crash back to earth a short while later.

We managed to get the electrical panel replaced with a larger, more spacious model; one with room to grow.  And we got the new lot survey done and updated, and I brought in my structural engineer to advise me on beam sizes and concrete foundation pile work, and we began to plan in earnest.

I ran my idea for expansion into the existing way too small single car garage past the City Planning official, who seemed to exhibit a bit of a God complex, or he was compensating for some other short-coming, whichever, or both, and I got the distinct impression he wasn't keen on my idea, and without coming out and saying it, hinted strongly at the likelihood of me not gating a variance to convert the garage into living space.

I could park on my driveway as long as it led to a parking space ie, pad or garage.  Except I wanted to convert my garage into the new kitchen space.  If we did that, then the current parking location on the existing driveway would cease to be a driveway (the magic that is city bylaws) and we'd be in violation of the by law because we were now parked in the front yard - even though the cars hadn't moved an inch from where they have always parked.

I didn't want to have to fight that hard to build the kitchen we wanted, and have to go for a variance and then possibly get turned down, or get approved but then be so late into the construction season that we couldn't finish.

So we postponed, and I devoured the by law and found what I needed to get past the hurdle.

If I covered the existing parking space /driveway by building a new garage and still had the minimum required distance from the front of said new garage to the front property line (ie, new driveway) Voila! No more bylaw issues.

Except that would mean building a new double garage in front of the existing single car garage.

Which would also mean covering the existing front entry with the new garage.

So? Build a new entry along with the garage. Simple, right?

Well, sure.  But take a look at the existing house again:

Now picture a new extension in line with the side of the existing garage, coming forward about 20 feet, wide enough to park 2 cars in.  For those of you spatially challenged, that would be about as wide as from the corner of the existing garage over to the siding by the existing entry, and then about 8 feet in front of the existing house.

Here, let me show you:

I also drew in the new entry over on the other side over there.  Yeah, I know it doesn't look like anything. Bite me.  This was a quick sketch to show you where we're headed.  Keep up.

Did I mention my headaches make me snarky?

Maybe just a little.

So, if you've followed along this far, you now see our dilemma.  This is ALOT more involved now than it was a year ago.  This means new foundation work. Which means about 6 or 7 - 20' deep 16" diameter piles and a bunch of conceret grade beams. And a whole lot of roof framing.  I can't just walk outside with my magic yellow line drawing thing and build this addition out there.  Nevermind the interior work - which, realistically? looks like Phase 2 of this project now.  More work, means more budget, and more time.  It also means a redo plan-wise to make sure what looks fairly simple can actually be done.

I have faith I can make it work. It's just construction.  Sure it will be a big upheaval of our lives, and eat up any free time I have, and eat into our Disney vacation plans.

But we can park where we want...

Everything old is new again

It’s raining, it’s melting, the river is at the top of its banks; it must be April.

That pretty much sums up life here this past week.  It’s no longer winter – we’ve somehow passed into the change of seasons and now everywhere you look there is something to discover.  Melting, disappearing snow will do that to you; it will reveal many things you had forgotten about or misplaced or dropped, and before you knew it, whatever it was, was gone. Buried under a white blanket of cold, lost for awhile, and then you learned you didn’t need whatever it was as much as you thought you did before. 

Like the pile of crap by the shed – I’m sure someone meant to do something grand with those black garbage bags filled with stuff – like maybe take them to the curb, perhaps? Or like that red mitten now poking its thumb out from under the ever decreasing bank of snow in the front yard.  It’s not mine nor one of either of the other two who live here, but it must have been someone’s, and surely with our winter they must have missed it when it got dropped there or shoveled there and buried? No? I guess not.

Or like the grass.  We spend a lot of our summer days thinking about grass – not that kind of grass – the kind you mow, and seed, and weed and tend to like it’s a prized possession, when in reality it’s a natural curse, a time thief that has become a status symbol to those who pay attention to such things, a mistress that demands your time and your money to look her best.  The grass may be greener on the other side of the fence in July or August, and that might be an issue for some (if say their grass is more bare in spots or thinning or weedy) but since November none of that has mattered, because at that point we had no grass anymore, it was hidden from sight under a blanket of white, and we learned that grass isn’t as important as we once believed.  No, for now it’s all brown, and sickly looking as it reemerges in the yard and those leaves you never got around to raking last October are staring at you, mocking you to return to the yard and finish them off for good, and you wonder what you ever saw in that mistress…

We’re bad that way.  We lose focus quickly and are tempted by other more sexy matters instead of the things we need to do and take care of, some bigger, better payout awaits or so we hope, and we imagine the possibilities, the what-ifs, and then before we know it, we’re seduced by the newer object of our affection, and the old gets cast aside to wait for our eventual return.  I’m sure that’s how those things got stuck out there under the snow, lost, forgotten, left behind and moved on from.  

I helped friends install a new garbage disposer on Sunday, the White Knight of home repair that I am, transforming a normal everyday stainless steel double bowl kitchen sink into a food eating, scrap sucking, waste tasting, high efficiency, home appliance, and in the process rekindled in my friends the fires of domestic renovation, the surest sign of Spring, this side of the Big Orange Store of possibilities…

Before I arrived theirs was a typical family home, imbued with the neutral tranquility of a family set in their ways and at peace with their surroundings.  Except for that gnawing temptation that has followed them since they built the house almost 10 years ago, when they declined the inclusion of the kitchen disposal with thoughts of safety for their then-toddling youngster foremost in their minds.  Over time though, that gnawing grew louder, and more persistent, until finally over Christmas drinks last December the question was posed, could I, would I, and did they have what it took to make it all work?

I assured them I could, I would, and indeed they did have what it took to make it all work – and after some minor electrical reconfiguration, and some plumbing adjustments, and a few hours of an early Sunday afternoon – I left my friends with a shiny new ‘toy’ in the kitchen, and a husband who used to wash most of the dishes as a matter of domestic chore balance, now eager to throw everything he can into his much anticipated, long awaited, 1 HP mini wood chipper strapped to the underside of that sink.  They won’t have nearly as much waste from the kitchen making its way to the curb on trash day, but the trade off might be the increased water bill as he continues to delight in finding things to shred and feed into the whirling hopper of vegetable death.

Of course, with that home improvement seduction behind them, and newly awed by the relative ease of the installation, their minds began to wander the house, inspired with the lust of new and exciting finishes and surfaces, dreams of bigger and brighter and better things, or upgrades and redos, and maybes, and what abouts… and then they asked about the backsplash.

Like that red mitten buried under the snow for so long in the front yard, it went unnoticed, forgotten, hidden in plain sight.  But now, with the newness of Spring, and the realization that anything is indeed possible, perhaps it is time to address it.  I’ll keep you posted on their progress.