Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Ready to reno, with a slight change of plans

Pepe and Mickey check out the new 'hood
After our original plans came in at more than double our budget, we took what we thought would be a short spell to rethink the renovation. That was eight months ago.

I thought we wouldn't have to live through another winter in our cold, drafty house. But we did, and it was a fairly mild one, and now it's starting to feel like spring, with birdsong at dawn and plum trees blooming on the boulevards. Our contractor, Tim, says they'll be ready to start next week. I'm counting on getting the building permit by then. I was told it was a three-week process when I submitted the permit application almost three months ago.

To escape the chaos that is to come, we've temporarily rented what we're calling a beach house. It's one block to a strip of sandy waterfront where the dogs can run and sniff and chase balls.

Our home renovation will now be much more modest than originally planned. Instead of jacking up the house, blasting out the basement and adding a strata-ready 3-bedroom suite, there will be no lifting or blasting, just a small basement addition at the rear of the house. We'll add a one-bedroom secondary suite, and the renovations upstairs will be more limited as well. We won't get everything we want, but we'll get what we need to make it safe, warm and, I hope, at least a bit straighter.

I thought I'd learned from my rookie mistakes in past renovations. I thought this one would go more smoothly. I guess there's always more to learn.

A lesson for next time: Get rough contractors' estimates on the scope of work you have in mind, before getting completed plans and applying for permits and variances. We spent thousands of dollars and wasted a lot of time on design and engineering work that had to be redone, an unnecessary hazardous materials assessment, some preparatory work and the first of two variance applications.

Of course, at the time, it didn't seem useful to get a bunch of contractors' estimates without a formal plan and a sense of what the city would permit.