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 week 50: the sistine chapel

The majority of our week was spent on the 7-step wood ceiling (see last weeks post). With our move-in date looming, and tasks remaining, I wanted to cut corners and time (patience is not one of my virtues). But thank goodness we didn’t (and thank Mark and Graham’s overruling expertise). It looks so damn good. It brings sense of nature and warmth to all the man-made, hard lines on the inside. It rewards you at the end of your winding staircase journey. And I get to wake up each morning looking at it. Much nicer than a boring ol’ white ceiling.

Track lighting has been installed where you see the larger black gaps. We’ll be hanging several pendants off the tracks over the void. Once we get the fixture order in.

Apart from the ceiling, I painted the girls rooms. They chose their colours, and I surprisingly love them! Purple and green. Our plumbing fixture install continued. And our tiling is 98% complete. The kids had their first bath in the house over the weekend. And we had our first dinner party with my mom. Take out pizza on the roof deck.

We did a major cleanup over the weekend in prep for the week ahead. Stairs and wood floors. Hoping third time’s a charm.

Green Energy Doors Open — Sept 10th and 11th

We are participating in this years Green Energy Doors Open, taking place over the weekend of September 10th and 11th. This is a great chance to get out and see some Passive House builds near Ottawa! Not just ours. There are 7 with their doors open. Including a multi-unit community housing project on the CCOC bike tour and the Chelsea Passive House that plotnonplot designed, both of which Mark acted as Passive House advisor. If you're interested in Passive House, and building science, it's a great opportunity to see the various approaches and talk to the people who built them. RMA Architects also has its office doors open, where you can see some cross-laminated timber (CLT) in use.

Our house will be open for touring Sat afternoon and all day Sunday. 

http://www.ottawagedo.org/

Construction week 49: 2 weeks until occupancy

In order for us to move in, we need to obtain an occupancy permit from the city. This does not mean our house will be complete, but means it has all the necessary mod cons for us to occupy it safely. We’re prioritizing tasks that will get us to occupancy. We will have toilets, for instance, but no Interior doors. 

Here's the roundup from week 49.

Deck
The deck platform and stairs are finished, with the exception of the final stairs to ground level. We need our final grading to be completed first, which should bring our number of stairs down to 2 instead of 4. We also need some railings. These will most likely be temporary railings, to get us to occupancy.

Looking down from the roof deck

Railings still to come

Tile
Benjamin was at the house and finished laying the tile in our bathroom. It was a lot of tile, extending all the way to the ceiling (which will get the special wood-treatment soon). It’s quite dramatic.

In progress

Countertops
Our island counter was installed. And quickly covered as to not incur damage. We chose Caesarstone because it's zero-maintenance.

Caesarstone in Concrete colour option

Electrical
We have lights! Now there’s no excuse for us not to work late. Most of our fixtures are in. Minus a few feature lights. Thank you Yves, and sorry for choosing pot lights that tore up your hands during the install :(

The best tip we received for lighting was to consider what you want to light. With stairs, for example, it's important that the stairs are lit, so you can see where to put your foot, and not the entire stair well. And with general room lighting, it's the walls that need defining, so direct your lights towards the walls and not the middle of the room.

Stairs are beautifully lit

Look Ma, no pendants!

Plumbing
We have a toilet in the house! This is majorly exciting for me. I don’t have to use the porta-pottie when I’m working on site anymore! And we can finally get that thing removed. The remaining fixtures will be installed this week.

This little throne I call my own, I aim to keep it neat. So darn your soul, pee down the hole, and not upon the seat. ~ classic outhouse quotes

Vanities
Mark assembled and mounted our bathroom vanities. We opted for Ikea vanities. We went through multiple explorations, trying to find an alternative, but just couldn’t stomach the associated costs. We almost pulled the trigger on a custom bent metal vanity that we designed, but in the end, it left us with too many unknowns (and no drawers). In our bathroom, we have an Ikea base that we’re pairing with a Caesarstone counter and Toto vessel sink. It will be partially custom, in this case. It will look great, but I really wish that Ikea made a 1 drawer depth vanity. I prefer the proportions, but am sure the extra drawer will be put to good use.

Ceiling
Mark and I had this crazy idea that our sloped ceiling would look fantastic if it were clad in wood. It seemed like a good idea at the time. And I’m sure it will become a good idea again, after all is said-and-done. But now? It’s a lot of effort. 

The order of things is a follows:

Step 1: lay plywood
Step 2: level and strap ceiling
Step 3: paint everything black
Step 4: install lighting tracks
Step 5: oil and stain ash planks
Step 6: mount ash on strapping
Step 7: admire hardwork 

Graham and Sebastian helped to progress the ceiling over the weekend. Finishing off the strapping in our bedroom and bathroom. They moved on to the main space, over the void, and set up what they nicknamed ‘the death trap’ – a precarious platform to help them reach across the 2-story open space (aka. void) that exists in the middle of the house. It isn’t actually as precarious as the name makes it sound. The hope is that they finish the strapping tomorrow, leaving the death trap setup for Mark or I to paint everything black. Yay. 

It really will look fantastic…

Inspiration photo — our ceiling should look something like it

I see a ceiling and I want it painted black

The so-called 'death trap' or 'widow-maker' spanning the void 20' up

Landscaping
We’re working on a landscape plan with Rebecca James, an architectural technologist with a horticulture degree. Landscape design doesn’t pay the bills, so she does it on the side of her regular 9-5. Because she loves it. My kind of girl. We’re happy with what’s she’s shown us so far. 100% we won’t have landscaping for occupancy, nor this year for that matter, but we want to set up the design now, so we know what we’re working towards in the future. I wish it could all happen RIGHT NOW!!!!

Project management
On the project management side of things, we’re hoping to finish electrical and plumbing this upcoming week so we can go for our next construction mortgage withdraw. In the meantime, we’re racking up lots of travel points on our credit cards. One of these days we’ll want to leave Ottawa and our new house, so those points will come in handy. One of these days...

Our heads are down and we're ticking tasks off our lists faster than new ones are getting added. It's looking promising *knock on wood* for us to make the occupancy call on Aug. 23rd. My mom is visiting from Vancouver this week and has taken our kids to a cottage. I got to spend the whole weekend working on site, And will have my evenings to contribute this upcoming week too. Miss the kids like crazy, but won’t have much time to do so. Lots of site tidy-up and painting on my plate. And getting ready to move. Hopefully for the last time.

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.

Project management 10x

Our latest project management software – Trello

When Mark and I decided to move forward with the build of our home, we decided to take on the heavy task of acting as general contractors, together. We knew it would be a sacrifice, with extra hours into our evenings and weekends, but fingers-crossed, it would be a short-lived one. Since we had two toddlers already, we weren’t giving up any kind of social life to speak of. And we were both self-employed, with a good deal of control over our schedules (minus the toddlers factor). Shortly before breaking ground, however, an exciting full-time job opportunity came my way, as they do when you least suspect them, and I took it. Leaving Mark to handle the build almost entirely solo, with me acting as the annoying backseat driver, into our evenings and weekends. 

Full disclaimer: who am I kidding? I had/have no business acting as a GC anyhow, but I was ready and willing to learn. In any case, I resigned to understanding that I was contributing to the house in other ways. Making a steady paycheque and putting food on the table. Still, not quite what we planned for.

Mark has done exceptionally well, all things considered. There have been ups and downs in our learnings, from budgets extended to pigeons roosting. With the delays incurred due to the floors, and standing on site, seeing the state of things, I was starting to see our move-in date slip further and further away. I wasn’t about to let that happen. It’s crunch time. Our older daughter is going to school in September. Come hell or highwater, we need to be in the house in August. So we sat down together one night and project managed the shit out of our house.

If you remember from our previous project management post, our binder is in a state of disarray and our Gant charts have fallen behind (ie. pretty much non-existant). So for starters, we downloaded all the information that was in Mark’s head to a free tool/app called Trello. We’ve both had some experience with project management methods like Agile and GSD (get shit done, as my office calls it), so we borrowed some of these methods on our house. The list is a mile long, but we are getting through it, one task at a time. It will be done. Oh yes, it will. Every night we check in with eachother to see how we’re doing, what tasks need to be shifted or altered, and we’re getting shit done. We’re pulling together, in our race to the finish line.

Construction update week 44: wood floor fiasco

They looked so good :(

I’m finally able to write about week 44. We had trouble with our hardwood floors. 

We bought white ash, 5” solid wood planks from the Wood Source. They were sitting in our house, acclimatizing for a couple weeks. The kitchen was all lined up for install the following week (week 45) and the floor was to be laid prior-to. Our lead carpenter, Graham, installed the floors with Mark’s help. They looked spectacular. But when walked on, they creaked. Not good. They were laid on top of waxed paper, and used staples every 12–16”. A bit more context on the situation: the subfloor is ¾” plywood glued and screwed on open web joists on 12” centres. The subfloor seemed good prior to installing the hardwood, with no squeaks or detectable movement, and moisture content within 5% of the hardwood. So what could the problem be?

That same day, they ripped them up, and re-installed. Second time around, they used waxed paper, 2” cleats every 4–6”, and glued the tongue and grooves together. Still, they creaked. At this stage, I was so ready to just screw the floors down to the subfloor and live with screws all over our new kitchen floor. But Mark, bless him, was not down with this. Again, they ripped up the floors. This time the glue destroyed the tongue and groove as they pulled it up, and this along with all the nails made the wood unsalvageable. Sniff.

We delayed the kitchen install while Graham and Mark consulted the Wood Source and multiple installers to try and troubleshoot the creaking. No one was able to provide any clear direction forward. With all the uncertainty, we decided to proceed with the kitchen install, which happened this past week (week 46), despite having no floors. 

We wanted the floors laid first, so the island could sit on top of them, at the right height. And because it makes for a much finickier install around the island. But it is what it is, we couldn’t delay our kitchen install any longer.

This was incredibly frustrating. It actually still is. We have some ideas on what to try next, but we’re not confident and therefore and continue to consult other installers and wood flooring companies. I want to be sure that when we install them for a third time, we won’t run into the same problem again. And if we do, we can confidently identify the culprit and get compensated for any loss. Fingers crossed. Any suggestions are welcomed.

Kitchen install is well underway