This Blog Sucks!

Since I don't have any house progress photos, I'm
adding a few of the saddle I'm currently working on.

Admitedly, this blog probably has a high "suck" factor for it's inactivity over the past couple of weeks.  I'm probably to blame for that but in the time honored tradition of passing the buck, I'm going to blame the CIBC, the Fraser Valley Regional District, and also the neighbors dog.  If you really aren't enjoying the blog, ignore all the ramblings and scroll to the bottom where you can feed the resident fish with your mouse.... how's that for a great blog!



It's been a demoralizing few weeks waiting for the bank to sign off on the covenance the FVRD is requiring.  We were convinced we would have the necessary signatures about three weeks ago (that was after already waiting for six weeks)... we watched the days and then weeks slowly disappear along with our hopes off getting the foundation in before the usual heavy rains of October set in.  We heard rumors of our covenance popping up in different offices across Canada and our hopes began to rise when we heard it was back at the Mission CIBC.  Unfortunately for us it sat at the bank for another two weeks before I had a melt-down and called the branch manager.  I'm sure in the history of bank managers returning calls, none has ever been returned as quickly... It could have been the anger or perhaps the desperation in my voice but one of the two compelled this manager to call back with in minutes.  After listening to a three minute, heart felt apology, I somehow managed to remain calm as I was assured our situation would be dealt with personally by the following tuesday.  At long last I had someone I could hold accountable and let me tell you I was already mentally preparing my speech for tuesday.  Well, tuesday morning came with a phone call from the bank manager and I was informed that the covenance had the last bank signature needed and was in the hands of our notary public... to say the least I was in a state of disbelief and felt just a tinge of disappointment at not being able to deliver my castigating sermon. 

Handmade, Custom Tree

Excitement was in the air at the ole'homestead.  The following day the covenance was to be delivered to the FVRD office so they could add their signature before it was registered on title.  The registration process was the last obstacle between us and our building permit so we were on cloud nine thinking we were only days away from our permit... this feeling lasted for a total of about three minutes. Three minutes was the amount of time between when I was told the covenance was received at the FVRD and the time the woman at the planning department cynically told me she didn't know when it would be signed by their department.  I was astounded that they couldn't even give me a time frame...not a day or a week, just a stoic "I don't know when".   Once again we were in limbo where nobody wanted to take responsibility or be accountable for the inactivity.  We waited another week and a half without any word, all the time wondering if we'd worsen our situation by going down the the FVRD and reading them the riot act.  We even considered releasing the angry mothers on them... hell hath no fury like a pair of mothers whose children have been living in a mobile home for too long!  I finally decided that I would make my way down to the office and beg, plead, bribe, do whatever was necessary to get that signature.  While I was on my way to Chilliwack, I happened to call our builder who was happy to announce the covenance was signed and once again in the hands of our notary who had already innitiated the registration process.  I suddenly found myself the character from the movie of the week who in an overwhelming fit of joy, stops the car on the side of a quiet,country highway and starts dancing with his arms outstretched to the heavens above.  Hallelujah!  Ok, I didn't really do that, but that's how I felt.



Floral Carved Skirt

 As of today, the FVRD has informed us that our building permit is ready to pickup.  I can already feel the suck factor of this blog fading.  Next week will be full of excitement... monday morning we will start the foundation excavation with Neal arriving at 7:30am to start digging.  Dwayne, our builder, has arranged to have his crew move in on tuesday to start putting up the forms...   I think I'll go next door now and make up with the neighbors dog.

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Clearing The Building Site...

Trouble Checking Out The Building Site

It's been about five weeks since we applied for our building permit and while we are waiting we thought we'd start clearing a building site.  The house was designed with an elevated deck over a walkout basement on the right elevation so we could situate it on a small hillside and take advantage of the mountain views to the North and East.  One of our primary concerns with the site is being sure we won't have trees blowing down on the house... the appeal of leaving mature trees around the house quickly diminishes when you imagine a 4000lb hemlock landing on you in the middle of a wind storm, so we started by knocking over any trees that could potentially reach the house should they blow over.

Excavator Knocking Over Trees

It's amazing what you can do with an excavator...If  I had one of these things I'd be digging holes everywhere, all day long... that's probably why Margaret won't let me get one!  There is a small drainage creek about twenty yards through the trees to the left of the excavator and our plan is to clear everything up to this creek.  It should make it easier to look after the future lawn but with the trees on the other side of the creek, we will still have privacy from our neighbor.  In total we took out about twenty trees of varying sizes and a whole lot of salmon berries.  The bears in our area spend the summer feeding on salmon berries and as long as you don't leave garbage out, they keep to themselves.

Cleared To The Creek

A few hours later the bulk of the trees have been cleared.  Although hemlock trees have very little commercial value, we will be putting a load together to send to a local mill where they will be chipped for pulp.  The only other options are to burn them or bury them and at this time of year neither is a great option.  At this point there are still alot of roots and twigs in the soil and at sometime next spring we will be inviting all our good friends and family to a beer drinking/BBQ/beer drinking/stick picking/beer drinking party where we'll mostly drink beer, eat BBQ, and ignore the sticks on the ground.

After The Bull Dozer

After clearing the site, Neal (our clearing guy) went over the area with a bull dozer and started grading some of the depressions left from clearing the trees.



Mountain View to the East

This will be the view from the front of the house, looking east.  In the distance, just behind the excavator, you can see the guest house.  This is where we will house guests who've had a few too many or who don't pick enough sticks at the party. 

Today we started extending the driveway to the building site with gravel that came from the river bed at the end of our street.  So far we've dumped 15 truckloads for the driveway base and may need a few more once we know the final elevation of the foundation.  About eight loads of gravel have been stock-piled at the end of the driveway and will be spread when we start digging the foundation.

View to the North

Eventually we will remove some of the these trees to open up our view of the mountains to the North.  This will be the view from the elevated deck on the right side of the house.

At this point we've done about all we can do until we have our building permit.  The Fraser Valley Regional District has required us to create a covenance which will allow us to live in the mobile home while we build.  It's this covenance that is delaying our building permit as it needs to be signed by the bank holding our mortgage.  In typical corporate fashion, our bank does not have anyone capable of signing the covenance in any of it's hundreds of branches on the west coast so the covenance had to be sent to their offices in Ontario... we've been waiting four weeks now for a signature from the bank!  Our local branch claims it should be signed and ready on monday afternoon so we are staying optimistic and hoping we may have our permit by the end of this coming weekend... I'm sure anyone who has dealt with the FVRD is on the floor laughing right now!

The House Plan...



View From The Mobile



The 10acre property we plan to build on is located in a mountain valley just east of Mission, B.C. and is surrounded by mature hemlock and cedar trees.  A river at the end of our quiet street flows down from Cascade falls and makes for a great place to cool down on hot summer days...  It's a somewhat secluded setting and we wanted to build a house that would fit the surrounding landscape.  We originally had planned for a log house but the building cost didn't suit our budget and while it certainly would fit the landscape, I think we would have grown tired of not having flat walls. 





After spending what seemed like a ridiculous amount of time on the internet we came across a site http://www.antiquehomestyle.com/ that had scans of mailorder houses from the early 1900's.  Companies like Sears-Roebuck and Harris Bros. of Chicago designed and sold craftsman style homes to much of the U.S. and Canada in the early part of the last century and after studying some of the designs, we decided an old craftsman-style farmhouse would be a perfect match for our property and lifestyle... actually, after living in the mobile for 5+ years, just about anything would have fit the bill but we really did like the looks of what we saw.  We now had a basic idea of what we wanted and as chance would have it, on a weekend trip to visit the parents, we came across a house in Ladner that had great visual appeal to the exterior.  We snapped a photo and spent the next week drawing the interior layout on graph paper and then it was off to the plan design company. After we got the first draft back from our designer, two things were apparent: first, we weren't quite on the same page yet, and second, modern renditions of craftsman style houses have lost many of the small details that give them their distinct style.  What was suppose to have taken 3 weeks turned into 15 weeks as we revised the plans over and over, trying to finalize a floorplan that really made sense for us as well as include all the exterior features that would give the house the character we wanted.  We think the time and effort was worth it, but that said, are still a bit nervous of what we've designed...












Front Elevation

 



Elevated Deck & Walkout Basement on Right Elevation

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Our first post...

Outside Our Kitchen Window

Welcome to Margaret and Darcy's first blog!  We decided to start this blog to keep friends and family updated on how our little piece of paradise in the country is progressing.   Since building a house is a slow endeavour (extra slow in our case), we will update this blog as noticeable changes worth sharing occur;  Please feel free to send comments or suggestions.

  It's been over five years since we decided we needed a bit more space between us and the neighbors and it seems our building dreams are finally starting to materialize.  Before purchasing the piece of property we are building on we had patiently waited almost a year for our last house to be built, only to find that while we loved the house, we really didn't care for the neighborhood.  Six feet between houses and streets lined with cars just wasn't our thing.  After staying in the new house for about six months, a ten acre property in the McConnell Creek area of Hatzic Valley came available and we didn't think twice about jumping in with both feet.  The property had an old mobile home which we figured we could live in while we built and the presence of a new septic system, well, and power made the deal very attractive.  We quickly began to appreciate our mountain valley and the locals inhabitants which include black bears, coyotes, deer, beaver and a whole gamut of amphibians.  We also realized how much we hated our new mobile home... the mice were the only ones taking comfort in the mediocre insulation during the cold winters and even Trouble seemed to wonder why we were living in this tin can. Our one year plan slowly turned into a five year plan for a number of reasons including rising building costs and the fact we didn't want to build something we would tire of in a few years.  

  After toying with a number of housing ideas ranging from building a log house (doing the log work ourselves) to modular homes, we did a complete 180 and put our beloved homestead up for sale.  Our plan was to move in a little closer to family and friends and back into a residential neighborhood.  This idea was met with constant, unruly outbursts from myself (Darcy) and moments of sheer frustration from Margaret (mostly due to my bad mood).  I eventually resigned myself to the fact it was probably for the best and we began the search for a new home.   After looking at several potential neighborhoods, my misery took on epic new proportions... not sure anyone thought that to be possible... but the idea of trading my daily, scenic walks to the mailbox for an overcrowded  cul-de-saq wasn't sitting well.  After dealing with three good offers on our property over a six month period and having all three fall through due to financing we both decided enough was enough we were staying and building and that was that.

  Now that the decision was made, there was no turning back and no waiting... except the three and a half months for having plans drawn, the month to find a builder, the six weeks to get financing, and the eight weeks to get a building permit (which we are still waiting for as of today).  Other than those minor inconveniences things are moving along smoothly... the rainy season has started and winter is just around the corner... what could possibly go wrong?

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