HOME SWEET HOME - Like It's Always Been Here
We had a vision of what we wanted to create well before we started this process. We wanted a new home that looked like it had always been here. We used those exact words. So when people started saying those exact words to us when they commented on our new home, it really meant something special.
It’s hard to believe now, but this process began almost 2 years ago.
Late summer 2011: our house in the east end had just sold and we needed a place to live. We knew we wanted to move closer to the center of the city, and preferably towards the west end, as we both worked in Kanata. We were tired of that commute through the split!
Our real estate agent told us of an estate sale in Wellington Village. We loved the area so we immediately took a look. What they say about location, location, location is true. And this location really appealed to us. The house was a little bit of a question mark though. It was old (build in 1923), really, really small (less than 1200 SF…and we were moving from 3700!), tilted, had a 6’ rubble foundation…OK, it needed work. Penny Kaszas at Paul Rushforth Realty provided some market analysis for us. We really wanted to buy a home that we could renovate, but if worse came to worst, it was doable.
After we were in, we brought in a variety of engineers and foundation experts. And in the end, they were sure that the home shouldn’t be renovated. So…we took a deep breath and started planning.
During the next several months, we learned all about living in cramped spaces….and began dreaming of our dream home. We had a long list of “requirements” both for the new house and the building process. Finding the right fit was going to be a challenge.
We loved the look and feel of the neighborhood and we wanted to be a part of that, even in our brand new home. And, we had heard a lot of bad press about homes that didn’t fit in with the neighborhood character. OK…new home, “old” feel…add it to the list.
We are both environmentally conscious, and Steve works in clean-tech, so we were very keen to have as much of the old house recycled as possible when they demolished it. We definitely didn’t want to be adding unnecessarily to landfills in the area. How much complexity would this add to the process?
Building a new house is expensive. We are pretty handy people (Steve was a contractor, I have my own set of tools and we’ve been through a few renovations together) and could do a lot of the finish work ourselves. But could we find a builder who was flexible enough to give us the truly customized build we were looking for? We’d find out…
Oh yes, and we wanted to be into the new place before spring 2013. We really weren’t asking all that much, were we?
To see complete details of our journey please check out our Process Blog !
We had a vision of what we wanted to create well before we started this process. We wanted a new home that looked like it had always been here. We used those exact words. So when people started saying those exact words to us when they commented on our new home, it really meant something special.
It’s hard to believe now, but this process began almost 2 years ago.
Late summer 2011: our house in the east end had just sold and we needed a place to live. We knew we wanted to move closer to the center of the city, and preferably towards the west end, as we both worked in Kanata. We were tired of that commute through the split!
Our real estate agent told us of an estate sale in Wellington Village. We loved the area so we immediately took a look. What they say about location, location, location is true. And this location really appealed to us. The house was a little bit of a question mark though. It was old (build in 1923), really, really small (less than 1200 SF…and we were moving from 3700!), tilted, had a 6’ rubble foundation…OK, it needed work. Penny Kaszas at Paul Rushforth Realty provided some market analysis for us. We really wanted to buy a home that we could renovate, but if worse came to worst, it was doable.
After we were in, we brought in a variety of engineers and foundation experts. And in the end, they were sure that the home shouldn’t be renovated. So…we took a deep breath and started planning.
During the next several months, we learned all about living in cramped spaces….and began dreaming of our dream home. We had a long list of “requirements” both for the new house and the building process. Finding the right fit was going to be a challenge.
We loved the look and feel of the neighborhood and we wanted to be a part of that, even in our brand new home. And, we had heard a lot of bad press about homes that didn’t fit in with the neighborhood character. OK…new home, “old” feel…add it to the list.
We are both environmentally conscious, and Steve works in clean-tech, so we were very keen to have as much of the old house recycled as possible when they demolished it. We definitely didn’t want to be adding unnecessarily to landfills in the area. How much complexity would this add to the process?
Building a new house is expensive. We are pretty handy people (Steve was a contractor, I have my own set of tools and we’ve been through a few renovations together) and could do a lot of the finish work ourselves. But could we find a builder who was flexible enough to give us the truly customized build we were looking for? We’d find out…
Oh yes, and we wanted to be into the new place before spring 2013. We really weren’t asking all that much, were we?
To see complete details of our journey please check out our Process Blog !
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