Construction week 52: occupancy

The empty state prior to move-in

On September 2nd, exactly one year after the city granted us our building permit, they granted us occupancy. It was a roller coaster leading up to it, which has left us completely shattered, yet elated to finally be living in our home. Two and a half years after the land purchase, our long journey is winding down. Sure there are still outstanding tasks, like trim and doors, but I’m feeling very little motivation to take action on them just yet. I think we need some room to breathe and reflect on the fact that we’re in, and that we actually did it. Was there every any doubt? (Yes...lots of it...).

This post won’t have too many pics because of how crazy the week was. And how cluttered the house is with moving boxes and Ikea Pax boxes hijacking the spaces. We’ll do a proper photoshoot once we’re fully moved in and set up. For now, if you’re curious, come to the open house this weekend. We’re busy assembling these Pax closets to shove the aforementioned moving boxes inside of, to give the illusion of settled. Even with the outstanding finishes, the house shines through. Details for the event can be found here: http://greenenergydoorsopen.ca/events/wander-house-passivhaus-tour/

So what happened in the final week? It’s still a bit of a blur, but I’ll attempt to recount.

Floors
The floors were oiled with a one-coat product called Rubio monocoat, in a clear finish. It went on well but meant no one could walk on the floors for 24 hours. So we didn’t! It really brings out the character and grain of our white ash. And matches our brown ash cabinets remarkably well. We were keeping our fingers crossed they would. 

Clean up
We hired a post-construction clean up crew to get rid of the construction dust and make our windows sparkly clean. Even though our house remains somewhat of a construction site. 

Ground source heat loop
We had it charged by a heating contractor from R&B Heating. Meaning he filled our loop with a glycol solution, the loop we lay prior to foundation. We’re still calibrating and trying to get our entire heating and cooling system sorted. Mark will elaborate on this for us eventually.

Occupancy
On Monday, an inspector came out and did a walk-through. He failed us on a few points, including temporary railings, hand rails, bathroom doors and exposed ICF foam. We spent the following few days addressing the deficiencies. Reinforcing our lower deck railings and blocking access to our rooftop. Extending handrails. Installing a temporary bathroom door. And installing drywall in our future basement suite.

On Thursday, a different inspector came for the revisit. The new inspector mostly looked at the list of outstanding items provided by the previous inspector. He was also going to conduct the plumbing final. This new inspector required our plumber, Nathan, to run a bowl test. According to Nathan, bowl tests are an Ottawa anomaly. The test required Nathan to start punching holes in our drywall. He couldn’t find what he was looking for and eventually had to climb up on our roof to conduct the test. The inspector didn’t stick around the 10 minutes it took Nathan to do this, so we had to get both of them back the following day, Friday.

Prior to the revisit-revisit by inspector number 2, there was a brief moment where Nathan was worried that someone punctured one of his pipes because they weren’t maintaining pressure. At this point, I tuned out because I didn’t want to know. I was busy directing the movers on where to put things, while dealing with pangs of fear that my family would be looking for a hotel room for the weekend. That’s right — we moved in on Friday morning, without our occupancy permit in hand. While I was moving, Mark and Nathan were hurriedly running around the house. I’m not really sure what happened in the end (Mark and Nathan figured out there was not enough water in one of the traps, and once corrected everything was good), but when the inspector returned that afternoon, and we finally got our permit. 

Move in
Suffice to say, we are moved in. And a million pounds lighter. The pain and torture of working back-to-back-to-back-to-back 16-hour days is slowly fading. (Yes, Mark and Graham worked these kinds of hours, staying until 3:30 am installing the final set of stairs.) Of me feeling like a house widow/single parent for the past two and a half years. The financial and emotional toll of building a house is incalculable, but so is the joy and sense of accomplishment that it brings us to finally be in it. As is the experience and growth Mark has gained as a professional. And most of all, the benefit to our children as they grow up in a healthy home, designed for them. You can’t put a price tag on that, and you might just say it was worth it. This house certainly was. 

It feels so good to be home. 

For once, I can say that I’m looking forward to winter. To see if this Passive House thing really works...

Construction week 51: the final countdown

The one week (less than!) countdown begins. Our official move day is Friday, September 2nd. My daughter's 4th bday. Sure to be a memorable one.

Our ceilings aren’t the only destination for wood in our house. Wood on the outside, wood on the inside. I’m starting to think of our house as the ‘wood box’: where a simple, honest shape meets a simple, honest material. Anyways, this week was focused on floors and stairs. Both receiving the full white ash treatment. 

Stairs
Our super-awesome-carpenter-guy Graham was tackling stairs. The stairs are three inch thick slabs of white ash (from the Wood Source). They have been designed to be supported by the stair metal brackets Mark had made and installed. The wood requires a small channel carved into its ends, so it can slide onto the bracket, sandwiching it, and hiding it so that the wood ‘floats’.

And this is where I segue over to Graham praise. He goes above and beyond. We are incredibly lucky to have him on our project. He possesses the same passion and care for quality and craftsmanship as does Mark. For instance, in order to carve our stair channels, he needed a better tool for the job, a Festool. He couldn’t find one in Ottawa, so he drove to Kingston to purchase it (hour and a half drive), drove back, and took a lesson on how to properly use it that same night. He was on site the next day figuring our how to precisely carve these channels at varying subtle angles, in order to get them just right. And he did. He also makes a great DJ. No Chez 106 on our site.

The only stair hiccup was a small mistake made by Mark with measurements. One floor riser was ⅜” taller than others, which apparently isn’t ‘to code’. I’d bet none would be the wiser if we kept the ⅜” difference, but to the uncompromising Mark Rosen, this surely wouldn’t do. So we had all the stairs planed down ¼” so that each step is now at 100% equal height. Unfortunately, we had to bring them back to the Wood Source to get them done. So all the work on the stairs won’t pay off until early next week and the temporary stairs had to get reinstalled. Wah-wah.

Stairs go in

Stairs come out

Floors
Drumroll…

No squeaks! Rejoice rejoice! 

A full glue down was the trick for our 5” white ash, site finished hardwood. We used two different polyurethane flooring glue because the local supplier, Dragona, didn’t have enough in stock to do all in one brand. We used both Maipei ultrabond eco 995, and Roberts 1540. We also stapled, but only when necessary to keep the boards toight. 

Mark, Graham and Sebastian have been working on the floors, burning the midnight oil. Working until midnight the last three nights in a row. We rented some machines to sand the floors down ourselves too. We were going to hire out the finishing job, but we’d have to wait until Wednesday to do so. And with our September 1st move-in coming up, we just couldn’t. 

Everyone unanimously vows, repeatedly, that this would be their first and last glue-down hardwood floor + finishing install. The glue was the worst. Thankfully, they are also in unison upon the fact that they look bloody fantastic. 

Oiling the floors happens this week.

Appliances
With the exception of our laundry machines (because the wood floor has to come first), all our appliances have been installed! So what appliances did we choose for our Passive House build? I’ll write a separate post on this. For now, just know they are in. Mark was boiling water every 10 minutes, and timing it, on our new induction cooktop. He even took video to show me, on the first night in was installed, and now I’m posting it here for everyone to see. It's just about the least exciting 4 minutes of your life, but not for Mark. lol.

Our downdraft ductwork. Yowzers!

Temporary railings
We had to install some temporary railings to get occupancy. Must admit, we cried a little on the inside putting the hideous, weathered plywood up on our mostly finished house. But at least it’s safe and will get us to permit. It should only be a few weeks of us living with them in this state until the permanent railings are ordered and installed.

It hurts!

Yard cleanup
I wish I had thought of Kijiji earlier on in the build. I used it to get rid of all our extra building material. And it was so easy! People will take anything. Especially if you say it’s free. It would have saved us a whole dumpster of waste, at least. Lesson learned. Now that most of the extra building material is off the lawn, it’s starting to feel like a proper house (our landscaping is on hold, so it’s a massive weed garden, but it’s better than a building supply lot).

Plumbing
Toilets, faucets, showers, bathtubs, drains, heat exchanger connections, floor drains, condensation traps, backflow valves. We’re ready to pass our plumbing final inspection, which will take place on Monday. Our diswasher and espresso machine still need to be hooked up, but aren’t required for occupancy. I’d like to take a moment to admire Nathan’s skills. Our mechanical room is a work of art. Look at all the cool copper handiwork. It really adds to the engine room feeling of the house. Of all the beautiful spaces in our house, it might just be Mark’s fave :)

Check out our sweet stack

Occupancy
And finally, our occupancy. We called for the city to come on Tuesday. Usually they are required to come within 24 hours of a request. But for some reason, they were overbooked, and we couldn’t get anyone out this week. So someone should be coming on Monday. We were really hoping for someone to come on Friday, to give us an idea on what our weekend ‘occupancy to-do’ list would but unfortunately, no dice. 

Move
Meanwhile, while Mark’s working on site into the late hours, I’m at home packing boxes. I pulled the trigger and managed to find a moving company less than a week in advance of the move date. The thought of moving all the boxes and furniture ourselves, with all the work remaining at the house and all the work to date, was enough to shatter me into a million pieces. Phew! When my mom was visiting last week, she was with her Australian boyfriend, who trained with their military once-upon-a-time. He expressed concern that we were starting to show signs of severe exhaustion akin to his military training where they push you until you break, and then keep pushing. Maybe. But at least we have our new spa to unwind in at the end of the long day :)

Ahhhhhhh

Construction weeks 47 and 48: sprint to the finish

We’re in the midst of the push-for-occupancy phase, which I mentioned in my previous post. There are many moving parts that need to come together. Our biggest challenge has been staying on top of things and ensuring that the things that need doing, get done. Which is why I’ve been MIA on the blog. There’s a ton to catch up on.

But first, we had a rooftop picnic with the girls tonight (on our newly finished rooftop deck!). When we arrived back at our just-ok rental house a few blocks away, Josie started crying. She said “I no want this house”. Ha! I guess we’re all getting a wee bit anxious.

Stairs and screen wall

Stair brackets installed against screen

It glows

Climbing plants to be installed at a later date :)

Our stairs are designed to float between the wall and a 2 storey metal screen wall. So before the stairs themselves can go in we had to install the screen wall and metal bridge. Mark tackled this over a couple of weekends with some great help — huge thanks to Rob Villeneuve, Steve Dufresne, Mike Davis, Graham Dorey, Nick, and Gary Sharp (again! Gary, we owe you so much for all your help on our home). The metal screens support the bridge and the stair treads, and the bridge and stair treads stabilize the screen. Mark installed temporary treads so that the stairs are usable until the finished treads can be installed.

Kitchen install

Island – facing the living space

View of the pantry wall (with our fridge in the way)

We have a kitchen! And it’s gorgeous. Ordered our kitchen from Astro and had Kosta do the install. He was a pro. Took him 3 days. We have a combo of a white, glossy laminate for the functional kitchen drawers and a brown ash, sandblasted finish, on the doors facing the living space. For more on our kitchen design and layout, read this post.

Our counters will be installed next week. We decided on Caesarstone, in a dark cement finish. The counter is from Solid Decorum. And we have some beautiful ash butcher block from the Wood Source for the sill-come-counter under the window.

Tiles

Living room tiles (pre-grout)

Bathroom floor tile (pre-grout)

The majority of our floor tiles have been laid. With the remaining to be completed and grouted over the weekend. We have quite a bit of tile in our house. In our bottom floor entry, and our main floor living space, we went with a dark, larger-format tile, arranged in a staggered pattern Mark designed. We’re really happy with them. In our upstairs bathrooms, we opted for a 1” x 3” black tile on the floor, which conveniently hide our linear drain in the master bath. And a larger format white subway tile on the walls. We’ve got a lot of wall tile in our master bath because of our sloping ceilings. Really look forward to seeing it go up – next week.

We’ve also been very happy with our choice in tile contractors. Flowtopp. Highly, highly recommend them. Tiles was sourced from Ceragres. We used Gate on the main floors (in Licorice), Unit on the bathroom floors (black), and I forget for the bathroom walls…

By the way, we aren’t concerned in the slightest that we’ll have cold toes on ceramic tile. We won’t have any thermal bridging thanks to Passive House. We also have a lovely area rug we purchased on our Moroccan honeymoon (years ago now, wow) for the living room, to soften up all the hard surfaces.

Priming and painting

Looking down the void our bright white walls

The house has been primed and painted. Quelle difference. It’s starting to feel like a finished house. We went with Benjamin Moore, Chantilly Lace, in a flat finish (aka. white). We understand that an eggshell finish cleans more easily, but wanted to make sure that when light washes against our walls, they’ll look smooth and dreamy. Flat does a better job at hiding blemishes. We enlisted the services of Michael Fenton, who helped us paint our last house as well. This man knows his paint.

ERV and heater install

Mission control

The hair dryer heater 

Mark is nearly finished installing the Zehnder ERV and ground source heat exchanger. The units are hung in place and most of the ductwork is connected. Our 4kW Thermolec duct heater is also in place. This is the heater for the whole house! It’s small enough for our 3 year old daughter to hold on her lap while she eats ice cream. Nathan from Ackland Plumbing will be priming our ground loop and connecting it this coming week. 

Hot water tank install
Nathan from Ackland Plumbing also installed our Stiebel Eltron heat pump hot water tank. It’s an 80 gallon tank that uses an air source heat pump to heat the water (meaning super energy efficient). It looks cool too.

Siding
Our siding is finished and looks fantastic. Thanks to Graham Dorey. 

Final siding on the roof deck

That's a tall ladder

Roof deck

Our most-finished space

Our rooftop deck also looks amazing. Thanks to Graham Dorey. Who struggled with a strained knee, from a football accident and not the house, these past couple days. Going up and down a ridiculously high ladder with decking materials. 

We have yet to install a railing, which we’ll need for occupancy. The building inspector nay’ed our initial design, because it didn’t meet the building’s code definition of safe. He considered it climbable. He did say, however, that if we built a mock-up, he’d come look at it and assess the climbability in person. So that’s something we’ll be progressing next week. And/or we’ll look at redesigning it.

Front deck

Helical piles going in

Our front deck build is underway. Step one was to get some helical piles drilled into the ground to support the structure of the deck. Why helical piles? To minimize root damage to our big tree out front. A more typical deck pile requires digging of a hole much larger than the post itself. Whereas, a helical pile requires a hole only as large as the diameter of the pile itself, which you see in the picture is quite small.

Step two was to lay some landscape fabric and gravel for underneath the deck. Mark did all the gravel moving himself in the humid, sweltering heat that is Ottawa in July. Deck build is set to start this weekend and continue over the course of next week, with Graham on the job. 

That’s all folks. I’m sure I’ve missed things so I’ll be sure to write more frequently over the final weeks to come. If for some reason you don’t hear from me, it’s because we’re building a house, and are busy building it.

Construction update week 42

The final façade well underway.

It’s been awhile since my last construction update hasn’t it? In honest, there hasn’t been a whole lot to report. Not that work hasn’t been progressing, it’s just been the same old. Siding and drywall. And of course, many-a-things happening in the background: gathering quotes, scheduling, moving money around, ordering materials, pep-talks amongst the two of us — the list goes on, and seemingly never ends...

Siding

Graham’s crew has been working OT on the siding. Making up for some major squaring issues we discovered with the shell. We’re on the final facade – the front. They’ve finished the cedar and now just have the ‘eyebrow’ detail, as we’re calling it, over the doorway and canopy to finish up next week. They also need to add the hardie to our rooftop, and the west and south sides of the house. Hopefully the siding will be finished up next week. We can take the scaffolding down. Clean up the yard and start to have a finished-looking house in the works. Cannot begin to tell you how excited I am for this. 

Drywall

With the delay in starting, Mark’s bro Brian, who flew in to help with the drywall, couldn’t finish the job. But he left us in good shape to have a new crew take over. He also encountered the slow downs of having to remedy unsquare walls, but did a bang up job hanging drywall throughout the house in spite of this setback. He also managed to tape and mud all the rooms on the second floor. This upcoming week we have the new crew starting. We hope it goes quickly and will be finished up next week as well. They have to do the taping, mudding and corner beads for the remainder of the house. Minus the basement suite. Mark and I will finish that on our own time and our own dime after we’ve settled in. 

Mission control centre

Finishing decisions

Most of the big decisions have been made by now. We’re putting together ‘moodboards’ for all our finishes. Real life samples of our tiles, woods, cabinets, paint chips, etc. It helps us qualify our decision making. This is the fun part for me. All the wall and building stuff is incredible, important, and fascinating, but I’m totally under qualified to have any input there. The purely aesthetic, surface-level finishes is more my jam. Here’s a little update on the finishing decisions. (I’ll post a pic of our sample moodboard later this week.)

• We’re ordering all our tile from Ceragres. In the bathroom, we’re doing big white ones on the walls and small black ones on the floor. On the main floor and entries, a 24” x 24” and 12” x 24” jumbo porcelain tile combo in a darker ‘licorice’ colour. We’re decided on an installer as well. Mark was contemplating DIY’ing the tile with the help of Gary, but since he already has a million odd jobs to tackle, this was one we decided to leave to the pros.
• We’re getting wood for the rest of the floors from the Wood Source. White ash in 5” boards that will be site-finished by Graham and his Vessel wood crew. We haven’t decided on a finish for them yet. Stain or oil. No idea. 
• Going with Caesarstone for the island counter top. Not sure if we’re going light or dark yet, however. For the window sill come countertop in the kitchen, we’re going with a maple butcher block. Really looking forward to chopping things in that lovely window.
• I’ve got some paint samples I’ve been playing with on the walls. Looking to find the perfect white for our house. Mark’s business partner Rebecca swears by an untinted, straight from the can, titanium/gesso white. I’m not sure if I want the house to have gallery walls or if I want a slight bit of warmth or grey to them. All signs point to titanium.

Next up

At this stage, our MVP is aimed at occupancy permit. That’s what our focus is — the minimum required for move-in. Things like the basement, doors and trim, we will finish up on our own. Once the drywall is complete, with the first coat of primer – a Benjamin Moore vapour retardant primer – we’ll get a painter in (might go by the name of Meghan or Mark), and get the floors started. The big deadline pushing things forward at the moment is our kitchen install, which is scheduled for July 10th.. We still enjoy telling people we’ll move in at the end of July. But I’m definitely not holding my breath on this one.

Construction weeks 37 & 38: electrical rough-ins and drywall

Drywall is getting hung, son!

Mark is full-time at the house these days, including weekends, and it will likely continue this way until move in. I’m pulling double-duty with the rest of life, so all I can muster today is a point-form update. Words, sentences and all the things are feeling difficult. Please forgive me.

• Mark finished running the flex ducting throughout the house.
• Graham and Sebastian continue to install siding. And continue to do an outstanding job of it.
• Yves, started and finished all the electrical rough-ins. Since he has a stellar reputation with the ESA (Electrical Service Authority), we quickly passed the inspection over email.
• Prepared for drywalling, with the help of Brian Rosen, Gary and Alex Sharp.
  • Carried 40 sheets of 12’ long drywall boards up stairs and between rooms.
  • Moved and re-installed our construction stairs away from the wall so the drywall could run past.
  • Since the house is going to be so quiet (outside noises disappear with our thick walls), that means we’ll be extra sensitive to any inside noises. To counter this, we've taken a couple additional steps.
    • Installed resilient channels on ceilings. These are metal strips that the drywall gets screwed into. They reduce foot step noise from floors above by reducing the contact surface area between the drywall and wood structure.
    • Added extra Roxul to our ceilings to further buffer any sound between floors.
• Started hanging drywall! Ceilings throughout the house and the girl’ bedrooms are finished.
• Added structural blocking for our floating stairs — the top two staircases. Some extra structure was added between existing studs to anchor the metal brackets that will hold the treads.
• Ordered custom metal for the interior of the house. Including a metal screen, which will support the other end of the stair treads, and our bridge that spans the open space over the dining room. Both will be powder-coated white.
  • The metal screen will span the height of the main space and frame the stair cases. As you wander through the house, it offers glimpses of the void and of our tall vertical window flanking the opposite side. We’ll hang pants off the screen, and transform it into a bit of a greenwall to breathe more life into the main space.
• Nathan installed 1 of 2 bathtubs. The master bath is going to be a tricky one. The space is tight and looks like we may have been sent an incorrect part.
• Mark ran another air test to the same result of 0.4 air changes per hour. He was hoping to improve upon our last result having filled some known gaps. But with new gaps made for electrical and plumbing, even though there were properly sealed, they may have balanced each other out. Or it might be the OSB that’s ‘leaky’ — it is a construction grade material after all, so at this level of tightness, maybe it just doesn’t stand up 100%. We’re hopeful that after drywall, our result may improve. However, Mark’s not holding his breath. He warned me that even though, in a typical build, an air-test post-drywall can improve 20–30%, it’s unlikely our will because we’re already dealing with such small numbers, and there’s little room for such impressive movement. Still keeping our fingers crossed.

That’s the gist of it. We’re managing many moving parts at the moment, but it’s finally starting to feel like we’re getting close to the home-stretch. The building inspector won’t be returning until it’s final occupancy time. Mostly finishing from here on out.

One more thing before my head hits the pillow: don’t miss Mark’s virtual tour this upcoming Thursday. We’ll post the video on the blog afterwards, in case you miss it. Oh, and check out the photos below.

Drywall on the ceilings.

First board goes up.

Flex ducting complete.

Kids bathtub (concreted added beneath the tub since this photo was taken).

Marvelous Eastern white cedar.

Hardie board too.

Window sill details.

The roof!

Quick screen grab I got Mark to take of his Sketch-up model to show the stair screen and the bridge that floats in front. 

Construction week 32 — plumbing and ventilation runs

First family picnic on our rooftop patio. Shared it with some friendly pigeons who decided our new home was also their new home.

Hope you enjoyed last week’s videos. I sure did. Gave me a break from writing. Writer, I am not. Here goes again:

It’s been a couple weeks since my last construction update. We sent the Cornelis Grey crew away last week. We’ll be bringing them back in a few weeks, once we have more work for them. In the meantime, our plumber Nathan from Ackland plumbing, has begun his rough-in work. He's installing a manifold system? It's cool, or so I am told. And Mark, as you may have seen via Periscope, has begun our ventilation layout.

We walked through the house with our electrician, Yves from Portage Electric, to get a feel for our electrical plan in real life. Wow. When you’re lucky enough to be in a position to decide where to put a switch, and what turns on what, you realize what great ‘power’ you have. And what a massive effect the electrical details potentially have on the user experience and enjoyment of a space. It would really suck to be searching around for a switch that was un-intuitively placed. Or if an unsightly 6-switch was in the middle of a feature wall. What makes sense on paper does not always translate when you’re physically walking through a space.

It also forced us to consider what sort of ‘smart’ lighting/electrical systems we might want to consider. I love the idea of walking into a space and having the lights automagically turn themselves on. Imagine no wall switches? Or lights that learn our behaviour. Will these technologies date our house vs. a tried-and-true analog wall switch? As a happy, budget-friendly medium, we’re looking into Lutron’s Caséta system. 

And do we need “cat 5” cable for our internet? If we want to watch Netflix really really fast? I was under the assumption that regular ol’ wifi would suffice for our entire home, but now that the question has been raised, do I want it? Do I need “cat 6” to future-proof? Our neighbours building up the street included some empty PVC pipe behind their walls, for easy wiring access, should they require something they forgot or doesn’t exist yet. I’m going to lean towards less wires = good, whether or not that’s proves to be true. Time will tell.

There are a lot of moving parts that need to come together over the next few weeks, starting with the plumbing, which will carry on for much of this week. Then ventilation followed by electrical. Yves helped us to understand that his job becomes much simpler if he can reuse or follow some of the previous installs. The bigs rocks go in first, then it's easier to fill the gaps with the sand. Or something like that...Once those inside jobs are all finished, we get to cover up those walls with drywall. We’re flying Mark’s brother in from Nelson BC to help us out with the drywalling. He’s a pro, and a Rosen, so it’s bound to be good :) Only 3 weeks away!

We're still placing orders and making decisions on the back-end. We are so frustratingly close to ordering our kitchen. There have been quite a few back-and-forths to nail it down. All of our siding material has been ordered and work is set to begin next week. Really looking forward to that getting under way. 

Mark’s sporadically giving tours of the house to various groups. He loves doing them, even though it’s a time-suck. We’ll be setting up another public tour some time in the next couple weeks, likely on a weekend. You’ll be able to see what’s running through our walls before we cover them up. We will post the time and date later this week.

One last thing: it’s spring! With the warmer weather, it now feels relatively cooler when I walk inside the house. Neat-o. Same principles apply to cool our house as it does to heat it. We enjoyed our first picnic of the season out on our rooftop deck. Fealt great.

A tour of students from Algonquin College studying architectural technology. And a view of our messy post-winter construction front yard.

My wee ones staring out the sitting window #milwaukee

Construction week 28 — kitchen design

We’ve been finalizing our kitchen design. Check it out! Mark had originally designed the kitchen to fit Ikea components, in case we decided to go that route (for economic reasons). But after meeting with a couple kitchen designers and weighing the pros and cons, I think we’re going to go custom. And we were casually browsing appliance stores this weekend when we stumbled upon a built-in refrigerator at an ultra discount floor model price. It’s the same price as the other non-built-in option we were contemplating and has all the nice design features and benefits that we were looking for. So, yay!

We approached several kitchen designers with our initial design. They were able to bring some outside perspective to our layout. Kitchen design is something that architects do as well, but kitchen designers really know their products and details like under sink garbage options and drawer vs. door that really help. I wouldn't say they 'designed' out kitchen, Mark did, but they helped work through the details with us.

Deciding on our appliances also weighed in on our decision making. I’ll write a separate post about the appliances, because it requires one (Passive House limits our options in this area). We went back and forth on a few items. Wall ovens vs. island oven and pantry space. Pantry space was important to me. Even though I like the idea of a wall oven, pantry has a higher priority for me in terms of chest-height accessibility. We have ideas for finishes, but that will all be worked out once we design which company we’re going to go with. Both are great options, it will likely come down to cost and who we like working with.

As an aside, we aren’t basing all of our decisions on cost alone. It definitely weighs heavily, but we also want to work with people with whom we actually like. Mark wants to build long term relationships and find people he would feel comfortable referring his future clients to as well.

And on to week 28...

Our crew started on interior wall framing and have been going around the outside of the house on scaffolding sealing and taping the wood fibreboard spots they missed when they had to stand up the walls. Mark also did some more interior air barrier sealing with that Siga tape.

We’ve also been busy pulling quotes together and meeting various sub-contractors on site for things like siding and ceiling insulation. Starting to make some headway…
Our roof is getting insulation this week. Walls continue to go up. Hopefully Mark will be able to perform our first blower-door test and we’ll begin the service cavity walls as well.

Construction weeks 26 & 27: windows and air barrier

We have windows! The Hermann’s installed those that could be man-handled and lifted into place by hand on week one, and the remainder on week two with the help of a crane.

Getting the house sealed in and weather proofed is holding us back at this point so it feels good to have them in place. And damn they’re fine. Feels like a legit house now. It’s a thing of beauty.

The crew also finished off the wall cavity insulation and started installing the air barrier, which is a layer of OSB (oriented strand board -- comes in sheets like plywood) that gets taped at all the seams with a special Siga membrane tape.

And some photos:

Window delivery

Our glass

Mark and Andreas trying to give high 5s while holding up a 2000 lb window in place

The thickness of our triple-pane kitchen window. NO backyard baseball games.

Kitchen window install -- Justin and Andreas

Rear elevation avec les windows

Front elevation with temporary door

The loft window lift-and-slide

What else of news?

There have been some headaches around getting our second construction mortgage withdraw because our unconventional build is being treated as conventional. We hope things have been ironed out, but have yet to receive the monies in our bank. This is a longer blog post for another time. Argh.

Now our shell is 95% complete. There are still a few items outstanding:

• our attic and flat roof need insulating (blown-in cellulose)

• some wood fibreboard is missing on the outside (because of how the walls were lifted)

• some weather-proof taping to be done on the seams of the wood fibre board

We need to start making decisions ASAP on a lot of things. Our kitchen will need 10–12 weeks at the factory, which means we are already behind the 8-ball. Our lighting and plumbing fixtures need sorting too. We have yet to make these decisions and already decision fatigue has set in.

If I’ve made light of building a home, in any way, you have been misguided. It’s not for the weak of heart or will. One the one hand, I’m ecstatic to see our home coming together and to reach these huge milestones. One the other, there is still so much to do. It’s a massive source of stress. In some ways though, it feels like the homestretch (before the homestretch). And when I walk into our home, I am in complete awe. I love it so much, which definitely helps to ease the stress. Looking forward to ticking some key decisions off the list.