Progress so far

I do mean to update the blog as things move along, and they are moving along these days.

But work and other things get in the way, so now there are too many changes for one post.

It should be chronological, of course, but I'm most excited about what happened today, and the day before.
So perhaps I'll go at it backwards.

May 18th

Found a great kitchen (cabinets, quartz counters, sink, taps) on Used Victoria the night before. So unusual! Dark blue beadboard with no visible hardware at all. Very traditional material with a very modern look. They were custom-made by Swiftsure, a top cabinetry company just a couple of years ago, but the new owners want something more traditional.

These will go in the new suite. Not all of them will fit, but I'm sure we'll find a use for the leftovers elsewhere in the house.

One of the things I like about this kitchen is how it doesn't look too kitchen-ey. The absence of upper cabinets and full backsplash makes it look more like living space, which will be nice in a smallish one-bedroom suite with an open kitchen-dining-living-room layout.

I had planned to get new cabinets at Ikea, but these are less than half the price, and far better quality than anything we could afford new. I'm trying not to brag about how much I saved, because I know it is kind of gauche.

I love the colour. It looks so Scandinavian. So far, family members are not too impressed by the pictures. We'll see what potential tenants think. There's always paint! With a couple of coats of white and some old-fashioned glass knobs it could look totally like a traditional farm house kitchen.

May 17th

The addition for the new suite is taking shape - at least the foundation wall.

It took a week to build the elaborate wooden forms for the concrete footings and foundation, then suddenly the concrete truck was there, and a day later the forms were gone.

The addition increases the floor space of the suite by a couple of hundred square feet; the difference  between a comfy one-bedroom apartment and a small bachelor/studio.

No more garage

It took longer than expected for things to get started, with delayed permits and another job that the contractor had to finish. Over the past couple of weeks, though, there are welcome signs of destruction.

We never parked a car in this garage. It was just used as storage. Some of what it stored was useful, much of it was junk. Its eaves hung over the neighbour's property and it was built too close to our house. The roof leaked and the bottoms of the wall planks were flush against the ground, so they were rotting. Unwelcome creatures - rats and raccoons - sheltered in the space underneath the floorboards.

Now it's still a bit messy but it's nice to see space and light between the houses.

Goodbye to all that

At some point, in fact right around my 50th birthday, I lost my appetite for collecting stuff.  Old furniture, vintage "collectibles", dishes, textiles, all piled up in the garage or basement, or sat on display, cluttering the upstairs rooms.

Many of these were project pieces, waiting for refinishing or repair. Some were house components, like brass faucets, a charming kitchen nook or a built-in display cabinet, intended for a role in the renovation that never seemed to begin. Things that would be cleverly repurposed, in ways I had seen in some magazine or other. There were also lots of documents, files and books of course, from my actual work. Every time I saw them I felt a little bit guilty and stressed for not getting the job done, or for the space they were taking up.

All at once it dawned on me that these jobs would never get done. There would never been enough space to deploy the things I collected, even if they were fixed. We were going to need less space and less stuff as time went on, not more.

So gradually the stash has been shrinking; at each annual garage sale another layer of stuff sold off, dragged to the curb and plastered with a "free" sign, or hauled off in the trunk of the car for donation at Value Village.

With the renovation getting started, over the last few weeks a few final things got the heave-ho. Things I'd been more reluctant to part with. An Art Deco-styled table that never really went with anything else.  Extra drum parts that Johnny doesn't need. A colonial-style hutch that was one of my mom's auction bargains in Winnipeg. My brother brought it out to the coast for me, in his broken down van, after the folks died. I finally realized I don't need the actual hutch to remember the parents' resourcefulness, or my brother's kindness.

It is such a relief.

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.

Let the spending begin

We have had a couple of meetings with the designer who's working on plans for our house reno/redevelopment. There are still lots of details to work out but it already seems to be most of the way there. Our designer is Wil Peereboom of Victoria Design Group, whose broad portfolio includes many conversions of heritage-type houses in Victoria like ours.

Our plan is to excavate the basement (a polite term for jacking up the house and blasting tonnes of granite). We (meaning not us but skilled workers) will then construct a fabulous three-bedroom ground floor suite, and rewire, re-roof, straighten, insulate and renovate the bathrooms in the upper two floors. The kitchen will move to a different part of the main floor. I want to demolish the existing, decrepit, single-car garage that is wedged between the house and the neighbor, and build a new garage behind the house, not for cars but for storing books. We need some new windows that actually close. Two chimneys will be demolished, and gas fireplaces will replace the old wood/coal burning ones. Closet space will be modestly improved.

This has all been like fantasyland up to now: Watching the designer sketch out what we want, without actually paying for any of it, yet.

The devil makes work for idle blogs

Did you ever wonder what happens to an unwatched blog?

My attention has been focused on my other one, The Merida Initiative, for the past couple of years while our project in that lovely place progressed. This one stayed alive but dormant.

Unnoticed until  now, during this period of inattention, spam comments sprouted like the weeds on our tropical patio. It was a bit of a surprise. I guess I'll have to adjust the settings a bit as we get underway with planning and execution of the reno I have been dreaming about for almost 15 years, of our rambling, run-down Victoria home, which I not-always-lovingly call Fallingdowne.

At least I think we're getting underway. With Mérida, I blogged about a dream, and it happened. Could blogging be the charm?

I am inspired by our friend Angela's blog on her family's big project to update and improve their very cool midcentury house. You can follow that one here.

Meanwhile, if you want to see Obama playing with an Xbox or learn how to make a fortune working in your spare time from home, you'll have to find some other neglected, spam-filled blog.

The Merida Initiative

Haven't written much here for awhile. Houses got expensive in Victoria, and we're stuck as ever on how to tackle the many challenges of Fallingdowne. So, not much happening in the way of amazing transformations on a low, low budget.

However the lure of Merida, Mexico is powerful. Many months of research, questions and daydreams have turned into a plane ticket to see if this could be an affordable way to satisfy the urge and create a nice little place to get out of the cold.

For the occasion (and because I like the title) I've created a new blog: http://themeridainitiative.blogspot.com/