Tiger's Den

More pics of the cottage after occupancy inspection

2011-08-25T14:58:00.001-07:00

Grading, Tiling, Flooring

2011-06-09T20:53:00.001-07:00

Priming, Covered Porch Ceiling, Beam Staining, Paint Selection

2011-04-08T17:20:00.000-07:00

Septic In, Well drilled, Geothermal hooked up, Switches and Lights, Ceiling up

2011-03-11T13:36:00.000-08:00

A lot has happened in the past 2 weeks. I've been living in the house without running water. Not an easy thing to do. Anyways, we've made lots of progress:

Priming, Deck, Septic

2011-02-25T14:29:00.001-08:00

Mudding / Sanding - Cedar Shakes

2011-01-31T17:07:00.001-08:00

Insulation Complete, Sound Insulation 90%, Drywall in Progress, Trusses, Fireplace

2011-01-21T14:19:00.000-08:00

Accordion Continuum Tracks

2011-01-13T11:03:00.000-08:00

A couple of decades ago when everyone was young I was in an Accordion band. Before we disbanded to pursue the rest of our lives, we had ourselves professionally recorded. A few years ago my dad had the tape digitally remastered.

So here we are: Accordion Continuum - conducted by Glen Sawich: Some Bach, Handel, and some fun tunes along with them:

Geothermal Furnace arrives, Insulation 90%, Deck 70%, Drilling Begins... Again!

2011-01-05T14:43:00.000-08:00

My contribution: Staining decorative fir trusses:

Electricians / Heating / Plumbing guys all in at the same time

2010-12-16T19:03:00.001-08:00

The tarp was finally taken out and oops! One of the sliding doors is the wrong colour! and only one of the French doors opens! We'll have to wait to get a new ones in to replace them..... Appraiser came in and deemed 47% complete (bank required 35%). Time to get our first draw from the bank.

It was quite a zoo this week... Many trades in at the same time. Lots of banging, and noise. But the plumbing / electrical and heating guys all got along... phew

Windows almost done - Geothermal drilling problems

2010-12-10T15:52:00.000-08:00

Geothermal drillers came this week. They kept drilling and drilling, and drilling but didn't hit rock. Even though there is a big rock cliff not 50 feet away. Go figure. Anyway we have to look for an overburden (soil) driller now. Joe and the crew had to move their trailer because everything was freezing up on them. Now there's lots of land again!

Windows going in / Rough-in plumbing drains

2010-12-02T15:07:00.000-08:00

Shingles / Covered Porch / Entrance

2010-11-26T08:01:00.000-08:00

Roof Sheathing / Trusses / Backfill

2010-11-18T06:49:00.000-08:00

Foundation Waterproofing Passed - Roof Sheathing in Progress

2010-11-09T17:37:00.001-08:00

Front face up / Beams in / Rafters going in

2010-11-04T15:39:00.001-07:00

Framing underway....

2010-10-29T17:50:00.000-07:00

In just 4.5 days time we went from joists and subfloor to this! Wow. That was fast. I spent a bit of time taking apart our dock. Another couple of segments to go.

Subfloor on Floor 1 Complete - will the rain stop? Please?

2010-10-27T16:57:00.000-07:00

Joists and Subfloor going in

2010-10-21T16:21:00.000-07:00

Steel Beams Installation & Framing Begins!

2010-10-19T19:52:00.001-07:00

There was some trouble with the steel beams and posts. The steel guys dropped off the beams and posts last week, but they were all out of spec. Joe called them in and they proceeded to cut and re-weld them on site. It was hailing when I got up to the land today..... We all hid underneath Joe's trailer awning. Also took the boat to the marina - the water was getting too low.... didn't want a beached boat!

Concrete basement poured, forms removed

2010-10-15T21:03:00.000-07:00

Concrete forms are in!

2010-10-13T18:37:00.001-07:00

Foundation Wall Rebar, Drainage Complete

2010-10-06T20:53:00.001-07:00

Cement guy's truck broke down. Looks like the wall forms will be delayed another few days. In the meantime Joe put in an O-pipe to the lake with a backflow valve (so that if the place floods the water can drain to the lake). He also had the rebar put in and it passed inspection.

Footing Forms

2010-09-23T21:54:00.001-07:00

It rained really heavily over the past couple of days. Joe and crew has been busy building forms. When I got there the 1st Linwood package arrived!

Joe called and said that we passed inspection for footings and soil compaction. YAY!

Clearing, excavation and backfill and compaction - 3 days

2010-09-20T21:58:00.001-07:00

Our bay on Lake Muskoka is surrounded by two highly elevated peaks, but in he middle, where we are, the land is only 3-4 feet above the water table. During spring thaw the ground water comes up quite a bit. So we designed the cottage to sit on a "mound" of sorts. Our plan was to dig to the virgin soil, and backfill with engineered fill (sand), compact it, and pour the footings.

Here are some pics of the clearing, excavation and backfill:

"Virgin land" (minus the tree clearing):

All of a sudden, a CAT appeared:

Excavator using surveyor foundation stakes as guide:

Piles are building:

Down to native soil (beach sand):

Crew trailer arrives:

Site super's trailer:

Joe Belanger proudly stands by excavated castings:

Compacted Backfill:

Compacted backfill with the CAT:

Choose your General Contractor wisely

2010-09-20T21:24:00.000-07:00

We had gone with a general contractor that had really good credentials and references. We visited the owners of past projects and they had nothing but high praise so, we thought we were in good hands. He had repeatedly said that the budget was fine, and our quote would be ready by the Canada Day long weekend. After the long weekend, he needed 1 more week. So we waited the week. After the week went by, he needed another week, and another. Finally we got a quote..... which was $80,000 over budget - and we hadn't even broken ground yet. Ouch. He had also promised to do soil tests (for our building permit), and fill out the septic application for us (also required for building permit). Weeks went by, nothing was done. We had been talking to the guy since April. You'd think we would have gotten a little further. Now it was end of July - we had just submitted the Linwood drawings to the building inspector, and we crossed our fingers in hopes that we would get our permit.

Then the guy said that he wasn't really a general contractor and that he was more of a carpenter / worker. Great....... We decided to ditch him and find another contractor. This was a stressful time.....

My buddy and I decided to install an aluminum dock and tow the boat to the new lake (even though we didn't have a place to stay, yet.). Might as well get some fishing in while there was a couple of months left in the season: Turned out quite well I thought..... and I could destress on the lake:

The chief building official got back to us 2nd week of August and stated that we needed HVAC, plumbing, engineering letters (w.r.t. the flood plain elevation), and soil engineering tests. It took another 1.5 weeks or so of running back and forth, getting quotes for all of the requirements. They got done and everything was submitted. We had also chosen a septic guy to fill out our application.

In the meantime I had to assemble foundation, excavation, and framing trades and get quotes from all of them. I learned something valuable in this exercise:

a) if you want 3 quotes, then you need to talk to 10 people - many of them don't get back to you

b) prices vary by up to 200-300%

I was pretty tired to trekking 2 hours north every day to meet with trades, and the clock was ticking in terms of the financing (they require that you get to lock-up / rough-in within 90 days of land draw). So after much research, we went with the Belamann Group out in Peterborough. They agreed to stay on-site in their trailers and have the shell up by November. Sweet.

Linwood Homes

2010-09-20T21:06:00.000-07:00

When we were going for construction financing, we needed to have complete drawings and plans from the builder. We decided to go with Linwood Homes and selected a design which we liked. We elongated the design, added a couple of bedrooms and washrooms and got the drawings made for submission to the bank.

When banks give you money for construction, they give you the money in traunches. In our case the traunches were:

1) Land draw (50% of the value of your land, which must be owned free and clear)

2) Rough-in (foundation, framing, windows, sheathing, house wrap, electrical / plumbing rough-in)

3) Drywall (heating, exterior siding, drywall installed)

4) Complete (all flooring, doors, trims, paint, landscaping, occupancy permit obtained)

Banks only pay for the money you have already spent, so make sure you work out the entire cash flow schedule before you embark on your construction financing. They also hold back 10%, which is to be held back from contractors for a 45 day period after the end of the contract.

It took a lot of juggling, but we made the budget work.

Before the machines and workers came.....

2010-09-20T20:41:00.000-07:00

In spring of 2010, we found this little piece of land on Lake Muskoka. About 1 acre, with 110 ft of sandy beach waterfront. The lot is flat as a pancake. It seemed reasonably priced, but why was it still around? The home buying market was crazy in spring of 2010, with the HST looming, and rate hikes near, it seemed to compell people to go out an buy.

Turns out, the lot had a number of mortgages and court orders on it. Wow. What were we getting ourselves into? Good thing we had an awesome, awesome real estate lawyer. After seemingly endless visits to the town, a big scare about whether or not we would have owned the waterfront or not, and rights-of-ways, we finally closed on the lot in late May.

While we were doing our due diligence on the lot, we also had to secure construction financing. In order to get financing, we had to have:

a) complete drawings

b) an executed contract

We even wrote a business plan with value assessments for the neighboring properties, potential rental values etc.

It was only the beginning of our adventure:

View from the waterfront:

View looking out to the water:

Tree cutting, land clearing

2010-08-20T21:17:00.000-07:00

Whoops also forgot to post our land clearing pics. Sam came up in August and cut all the trees down that needed to be cleared on our property. Some of those trees were huge!

Soil Test pics

2010-08-08T20:52:00.000-07:00

Forgot to post our soil test pics back in August - turns out our land was all fill. All of this used to be beachfront. So they have to dig the foundation to virgin "sand" and then fill it back up with engineered fill (more sand). Compact it, then pour the foundation on top of that. The problem with pouring on dirt is organic material, which can decompose and form voids or air pockets. These can cause settlement of foundations. By digging to virgin soil, then building from there, it eliminates this problem.