Supernatural and supercontaminated

Popped over to the place this week to get a bunch of things kicked off ranging from having the architects create an initial floor plan, to getting the asbestos-removal estimates set up. Yes, the house is likely filled with asbestos - awesome, eh? I honestly think the house is actually worth negative money, but the problem is, is that even if you want to bulldoze it, you still need to get rid of the hazardous stuff.

In classic form, I had called a few companies that do asbestos removal to give me a quote, and sure enough when the second one arrived (the first one never showed), he said "where's the hazardous material test report?" To which I was like "ughhh...what report? I need a report?". And so, the testing goes on. Now I have to have the flooring, walls, ceiling, attic, etc. tested before I can get quotes on removal. Yes, logical, but not intuitive...plus it would have helped if ONE of the three companies I called asked me if I had the testing done BEFORE they came on site for a quote.

Hazardous material testing: $700
Hazardous material removal: $5000+
Having a non-hazardous house in the end: Not exactly priceless, but certainly desirable.

In other news, apparently the new hood is also the set for Supernatural (which was new to me, but it's hard to keep up with the constant emergence of new shows especially when you haven't owned a TV in years). So, you might even see my supernaturally hazardous house in this season's episodes.

Off to DC next week, so will be managing things from afar in terms of getting the scheduling set up between us, the architects and Brett (our general contractor). For everyone's amusement (or amazement), I'll put down the timeline right here and now to see how we do in the end:
- Conceptual design, surveys, assessments: September - October
- Detailed construction design, hazardous material removal, some demolition: November - January
- City Hall permits: January - February
- Lift: February
- Exterior: March
- Interior: May - September

12 months is our guess right now...but we'll see how it all plays out! With that, time to get to work on a Saturday morning.

Order of operations and costs

First of my blog postings related to costs. WARNING: This might be boring to lots of you, but conversely, enlightening to others. Consider yourself warned.

I want to track and post all of this stuff for the benefit of others - not so much because I want you to share our pain. There are a lot of lessons learned in this sort of an endeavour, and why not let others benefit from our mishaps, right?

So - lessons so far:

1) Housing purchase: Location matters (most), as do systems (plumbing/electrical/etc.), roofing, and foundations (and soils). Those are the big-ticket items, so if you're considering buying, make sure they're in order. We went through a bunch of needless (in retrospect) home inspections because I was turning a semi-blind eye to those things. They translate into tens of thousands of dollars each to fix. NOTE: Order of operations goes: A) troll realtor.ca and fantasize; B) discussion with partner/parents/self about the insanity of it all; C) find/interview/sign up for a real estate agent, D) have said real estate agent set you up with some sort of autolisting service that gives you additional (gory) details on the properties; E) Perv on listings and play the coulda/shoulda game with yourself; F) Get your financing sorted and approved (note: C, D, E, F can all happen simultaneously) - negotiate/use a broker and go for variable if interest rates are low/economy sucks and looks to suck indefinitely / go for fixed if interest rates/inflation is rising/economy is heating up; G) Find a property you like, tour it, and get an offer in - conditional on a home inspection (if in Vancouver, most other places, you're probably fine...it's just we live in the land of crackshacks and mansions - seriously, check out the website); H) Get the bank to sort out an appraisal (bitch and shrug your shoulders when they decline it for some stupid, unknown reason...not that this happened to us...); H) Negotiate the price as low as you can. Key consideration is your alternative if they don't agree to your price - the walkaway. Consider: how long the place is on the market, what the general market situation is like, how close you are to offering price, anything you've noticed about the place, how likely another person is to offer/multiple offers, and a few other things. If they're in your favour, break them. If they're not, grudgingly accept a fair price; I) With an accepted offer, get it off to the financing entity to finalize (and sort the appraisal...stupid appraisers...) and line up your lawyer - I'd suggest the cheapest one available; J) Sign and finalize; K) Celebrate/cry.

2) Closing costs: I think a decent general estimate is to budget 2.5% of purchase to closing costs (or at least that's what it was for us). I know land transfer costs vary by province, but then there are the following: home inspection ($650), lawyer's fees ($800), bank appraisal ($275), other city fees (don't ask - but about $300), and then other things if you need them like geotechnical assessments (which are usually $2000 plus). If you want to become rich, become one of the following: real estate agent, home inspector, a lawyer that specializes in real estate closing. It's crazy the amount of cash that goes back and forth for real estate transactions.

3) Opening costs: Yes, the closing is just the beginning. Next up are some of the following:
- Site survey: $1500-$2500. Don't ask me what you get for the extra $1000...we won't know since we're going to go for the $1500 version. NOTE: You might as well get started on the site survey as soon as you realize you're going to be doing a renovation.
- Architect: A decent ballpark number here is probably about 15-18% of your hard construction costs (the money you put into actual building materials and labour for the construction). Oh, and on a side note, here's what an architect does (in relatively plain English): A) Sketches your ideas into a rough design; B) Refines said design based on your input; C) converts it into fancy graphics program so you can imagine it all; D) Provides measurements and specific details on materials to the contractor; E) helps you estimate budgets and hire contractors; F) gets approval from City Hall for your building permits; G) Checks in to see that the trades are actually building what the architect designed and asked them to build; H) Signs off and says "looks good" at the end.
- General contractor: Not sure, but guessing about 15-18% again of hard construction costs for a renovation. Yep - those %'s add up, eh?! The general contractor is the one who: A) Helps you hire trades; B) Oversees those trades; C) Curses and swears on your behalf when those trades show up drunk (hopefully not); D) Translates the architects vision into reality via trades; E) Keeps your project on schedule/budget (if they're decent); F) Tells the architect he's got measurements wrong; G) And other things I'll figure out in time.

4) Timelines: So, when you start this kind of thing, you think to yourself: it's not like we're building a house from scratch, how long can this thing take!? Then you realize the bureaucracy (aka, City Hall). The estimates right now are as follows: 4 weeks for conceptual design (mid-Sept to mid-Oct), 10 weeks for detailed design/construction information (mid-Oct to end of December), 1 day for lifting the house (yeah - super fast),  6-8 months of construction (lord knows why it takes that long = June to August), before move-in. HOWEVER, I've also been told that between the point of getting a design submitted to City Hall for permission, it can take up to THREE MONTHS for them to approve it. SO, that could mean November of next year if things don't go smoothly. And that's not even really accounting for mishaps along the way.

So - there you have a dull, but information-filled post.

Meeting with the architect tomorrow, so perhaps more then.

The decision (or at least one of the first big decisions) and free sh*t

So, for all of you who were waiting up for the past few nights to hear about our decision re: architects, you can now get your fix and enjoy a peaceful night of rest. We opted in the end to go with Bruce Carscadden Architect.  We'll be working primarily with Ian McDonald, who is the brother of one of my old colleagues from WWF. He's been super helpful since day one (he was in fact the one that recommended us to many of the other firms), plus he wears a lot of Fluevog, so heck, we KNOW he's got good taste. (NOTE: should introduce him to Zeha Berlin...which, while crazy expensive, are crazy comfortable and classic-ly stylish to boot, no pun intended). You can see the playful element of his (and Bruce's) work in some of these examples of their projects. They seem to be particularly adept at doing fun things with stick men. While Ian's an Ontario boy, Bruce has also spent his fair share of time in the big smog, and in fact came recommended from another architect I know of in Toronto - Levitt Goodman - whose house I actually toured in Toronto during Doors Open one year. Kris and I went and had drinks over at Bruce's house on Friday which, I think, reassured both of us of the fact that architects can do design on a budget as well (vs. the $10 million dollar scale which seems to be what most projects are).

So, with architect chosen, general contractor (or "GC" as the cool kids say), its on to surveying, demolition, and gathering of stuff. And the miracle that is craigslist/freecycle.

In case you were wondering, yes, it IS possible to outfit an entire house in old Ikea furniture in a matter of days for free. It's quite impressive actually. The amount of ivar, malm, ektorp and other sverge-termed stuff out there is truly amazing. Who knew particle board and laminates could endure for so long and be so ubiquitous!?

But yes, between free online things, and the generousity of our next door neighbour (who also happens to be moving/doing a renovation), we've managed to pick up doors, mirrors, cabinets - go Malm line!, bookshelves, a stove, a dishwasher, a vanity/sink, and a really nice soaker tub - kinda like this one, plus all sorts of other things (an awesome danish milk jug - in turquoise, a retro Swingline Cub stapler, some potted bamboo, and a vice to name but a few - older looking version of this). And we've got two other things that we may yet get - two modern chairs, and a desk unit (not for free, but great price). In fact, we've realized that we're going to have to start to be pretty picky about what we get because in one week we've almost managed to get more than we can handle. The real challenge will be in tracking down a decent murphy bed for less than $500. That and beginning to find building  materials. Thrilling eh?

Ok. That will do it for now - a more interesting blog soon when we actually get into the guts of this work.

A few more pics of this thing...

Now that I've sent people an email about this place, I figured I ought to post some shots of the mess that is our new chunk of turf in Vancouver (located at 1815 East 6th Ave., Vancouver - go for it in Google...it's the one hidden by the tree). Enjoy the shots...there will be more in the future.

Shot of the backyard. The good: backs onto a park! The bad: it has some weird concrete foundations in  it...any guesses as to what used to be there???

Shot of the back of the house: The good: it can be fixed. The bad: it needs to be fixed.

Shot of the living room. The good: south-facing onto a great street. The bad: faux-wood paneling covering asbestos-ridden plaster...ugh.

Shot of the basement. The good: well...it soon won't look anything like this. The bad: it does currently.

Shot of the kitchen. The good: it's got a 1970s retro-chic element to it and I've entered it into a kitchen makeover contest on House and Home. The bad: the drapes? the faux brick? the everything?

Shot of kitchen with Kris and Gina. The good: light coming in, and some working appliances! The bad: they removed those working appliances and sent them to the dump (except the fridge, which was returned, along with some compensation for their faux pas).

Kitchen shot #2. The good: I dunno...nothing really. The bad:  honestly, it's horrific. The good: it won't be.

Choosing an architect

I never thought that choosing an architect could be such a process. Once we knew we were going to buy the place (in fact, even before we knew), I'd started looking at architecture firms. I would have considered a "designer" (which, on a side note, is what exactly?), but I couldn't seem to track any down outside of "design-build" firms. Add to that the fact that it seems like their credentials are a bit...how do I say...missing, and the fact that we were doing some structural work (and less finishing work), and it felt like an architect was the way to go.

So what was the process? Well, I started by having a meeting with the only practicing architect that I knew - a friend, and the brother of an ex-colleague of mine - Ian McDonald from Bruce Carscadden Architect. Ian and I met up and had lunch and he kindly went over exactly what it was that an architect provided in terms of services, how the costs, worked etc. Aside from giving me a better understanding of the whole process, it also made me understand Kristina's dad's current job a little better (interesting side note). Armed with that knowledge, and a few of Ian's recommendations, I began searching online. I googled the kinds of things I was looking for, I searched through the Architecture Institute of BC (AIBC), the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (and their award list), as well as magazines like Western Living that does a feature on architects, etc. each year. I was looking to find a firm that was younger, did modern styled architecture, had strong green/sustainable credentials, and that I liked the feel of ("vibe"). We didn't want someone who was going to impose their vision on us, didn't want to pay through the nose, but also wanted someone with some experience. After tracking down a list of about 6 or 7 firms (below, plus Battersby Howatt, Frits de Vries, and a couple of others), I emailed them all and just gave them a sense of what I was up to. A few didn't reply, a few were dismissive of my budget (we shall see...) - no need to name names, and a few wrote back saying they were interested: Proscenium, Measured, Shape, and Carscadden. All fit the bill, so we met with each of them face-to-face.

4) Proscenium indicated that they were pretty busy, so really wouldn't be able to fit it in and they were probably on the higher end of our budget anyhow, so then there were three.
3) Measured were great and we really enjoyed meeting with their two leads. They had some really interesting projects in the mix (deconstruction, etc.) and provided us with a good proposal - but it didn't quite measure up to the other two...
2) Shape were also really impressive. Alec and Nick (the two Principals) were excellent - exactly the sort of people that I would have envisioned us working with - young, into sustainability, design, small things, and in general the nature of our project. I had the chance to visit two of their sites - one off of Commercial Drive (where one of the Principals built his own modern strata with a friend), and one in Kits (where a young family did a lift-renovate, which was interesting). Both visits were really interesting and quite impressive.
1) Lastly, Carscadden. Bruce and Ian first chatted with me, and then again with Kristina. While their green credentials weren't as strong as some of the other firms, there was no doubt it played into their thinking and designs (more via design than knowledge of systems). We also did two visits to their sites - one to a fancy West Point Grey house (not QUITE our budget), and then to Bruce's own house.

In the end...we picked...

The backstory

So how did we end up in this endeavour? Here's the tale...

In the fall of 2010, Kris and I had a chat about whether we were going to set up shop more permanently in Vancouver. With an agreement of "you never know what could happen, but for now, sure, let's do it", I sold my condo in Toronto. While the sale went through in November, the closing date wasn't until early January, and due to some odd complications, I didn't actually receive the money until late January. With some cash in hand, we began to ponder our next step.

Looking at the housing market - which was growing by a few percent per month - we originally said forget it and continued to ignore, but as spring arrived, we began to have a serious chat about it. Given that average detached house prices were in excess of $1.3 MILLION for the west side of Vancouver, and well over $700K for the east side of Vancouver, I've long felt that the market was out of whack with local economic fundamentals (people just don't earn that much in Vancity!). Furthermore, there is more and more evidence that mainland Chinese buyers are driving much of the market here (which makes sense), and I think we've ended the era of "local real estate" - rather we're in a globalized economy where real estate is a global commodity. If prices continued to increase, we would soon be priced out of the idea of ever owning something in Vancouver (something that's happened in a lot of cities around the world).

We ultimately decided to start looking in late April, and hooked up with a friend of my sister, Gina Rossi. We were ideally targeting something around the Fraser-Cambie-8th-33rd box (Mt.Pleasant, Cambie, Main, Fraser on this map - which has great neighbourhood profiles), but were were also open to some other areas such as around Knight/Kingsway, Trout Lake, or Commercial Drive. As time went on, we even started to consider places up around 29th and Nanaimo as you can get a heck of a lot more for your money up around those parts than you can around the areas we wanted. We were looking for an RS-1 (residential, single family) zoned lot, with a standard Vancouver 33*122 lot size and a back lane - which would have allowed us to have built a laneway house at a later point. The problem was, we couldn't find anything in the areas we were interested in for under $800K that met all of those criteria (which, as you can appreciate, was out of our price range). So....on to plan B....using high Walkscores (over 85-90) and a price of less than $700K (side note: ended up using Sutton's mapping (over MLS) because you can use the walkscore function in the advance search)

HOUSE #1 - THE CUTE OLD, ROTTEN HOUSE: 632 East 20th Ave.

The front of the house on 632 East 20th

Awesome detailing!

The retro-cool "out of a 1950s catalog" kitchen

A great dining-living space to boot

In late June we came across an old hundred year old place on East 20th, which was just west of Fraser. It was super cute from the outside, and as you can see below, really neat on the inside as well. It had a main level bathroom, living-dining room, and kitchen-pantry-laundry area, along with a front and back porch. Upstairs was two bedrooms and an attic crawl space. Downstairs had a workshop and a semi-finished space. And a big south-facing backyard to boot. It was an 8 minute walk to Main Street and close to some other up-and-coming areas on Fraser. Pretty great, right? We thought so. With the market starting to falter, the price had been reduced from $669 to $650. We offered $645K, and they accepted (conditional on house inspection and finance). We knew it wasn't perfect, and that it would need some work, but...

What we weren't expecting was a house that was sinking. We went through the house with Gary Douville (who was very helpful). The front of the house had dropped nearly a foot from the front to the back of the house, and the floors had been propped up over and over. Ultimately, the fact that the house was located on a bog meant that building a new place would cost an extra $50K+ (deep pilings necessary), and that would also affect resale value. "The bog" an area that runs in an irregular shape from roughly Prince Edward St., along 16th and then up Kingsway, to 21st, soon became our nemesis (see House #2). With all of the concerns, we decided to walk away from the offer in the end even though we loved a number of details about the place. But as they say, the foundation is key, and "location, location, location!" matters, so we turned our sights elsewhere. The place ultimately sold in August (we're going to find out for how much, but my guess would be well below $650K)

HOUSE #2 - THE NEW-OLD-UNKNOWN PLACE: 627 East 21st Ave.

The living room at 627 East 21st

Great little backyard!

Dining/kitchen area at 627 East 21st

The next place we moved onto was practically in the backyard of the first place. Why so close, given the bog problems? Well - it's on a hill, and therefore "in theory" should be above the bog soils. The place was listed at $699K and had a pretty nicely finished upstairs (2 bedroom, 1 bathroom), a great backyard, mountain views, and a half-finished basement that looked like it had the potential to become a mortgage helper (i.e., rental suite). We put in an offer, and ultimately had one accepted at $677,500 conditional, once again, on an inspection from Gary and financing (which I'd been approved for previously...and we'll get around to in a later post). So what went wrong this time?

Well - first off, the house had undergone a number of renovations recently, including a lot of work in the basement - new draintiles (why?), foundation reinforcements (why?), and a few other things. Vermiculite in the ceiling, and evidence of work that had not been done as well as it could have been, also added to our uneasiness. The final nail in the coffin came when we ordered soil testing (agreed to by the seller), and they could not drill because the seller refused them permission when the drilling company arrived on site. Furthermore, I had to negotiate all of this with Kris (who was taking care of the pup, taking two full-time accelerated courses at UBC, and working at MEC in between) from Sri Lanka - certainly not the easiest scenario.With soils in doubt once again, and us being at our breaking point, we opted to pass on the second property and walked away, now $2000 poorer due to house inspections, drilling, etc. from the past two properties.

With two near hits/misses, we decided to take a step back and re-evaluate. With the financial markets melting down (late July/early August 2011), we were feeling a bit nervous about what the housing market might do here in Vancouver. While we had agreed not to return to searching until fall, we couldn't avoid the siren call of real estate listings (Gina had this robot-MLS thing that posted us on new properties and sales), and noticed the this place...

HOUSE #3 - THE AWESOME LOCATION / NOT-SO-AWESOME HOUSE: 1815 East 6th Ave.
I'd first noticed this place because of it's location and price. 6th and Commercial (on "the Drive" in Grandview) was a really awesome location - close to transit, shops, restaurants, etc., backing onto a park, on a great tree-lined street - it was really above and beyond. Furthermore, at $599K, the price was "affordable" (makes you laugh, doesn't it?). However, it was a really small house (600 sq. ft.), a pretty small lot (25*100 ft), didn't show any pictures of the inside (always frightening), and was zoned RT-5 (meaning there wasn't much leniency on "the look" and building a modern styled house was out of the question). Nevertheless, the market in early August was slower, and I opted to swing by the open house on a Saturday. In going through the place my impressions were as follows:

- The street and location were as good as I had thought.
- The house was dark, old and smelly on the inside.
- The basement was unlivable (but had decent height ceilings)
- The backyard had a weird concrete foundation in it - my best guess was a chicken coop. (but had potential)
- There was carpet in the bathroom (gag)
- There was wood paneling EVERYWHERE.

Bottom line: it was going to require massive amounts of work, but had a lot of potential. I took some pics and told Kris about it, and touched base with our friends Brett (a general contractor) and Ian (an architect with Bruce Carscadden) and the group of us toured it again on Sunday. In general, the thoughts were similar to mine - it was going to take a lot of work, but it seemed like it had decent bones to it and the potential for renovation was there. So, on Monday we put in a bid of $610,000 (in retrospect, probably should have gone for $605K), and it was accepted that evening.

The house inspection (Gary and I were becoming well acquainted at this point!) revealed a fair bit of asbestos/vermiculite, and an incredibly disgusting toilet/bathroom that was simply draining directly into the FLOOR (gag again), but did indicate that the foundation, outside and roofing were in decent condition. Systems needed complete removal (plumbing, electrical, etc.) and all of the appliances (aside from the fridge) were ancient, but the shell seemed solid. So, after a lot of humming and hawing, Kris and I opted to go for it. Which brings us to now. More later, but this posting has been way too long to begin with, so I'll call it quits here.

Voyage of a Big, Small, Green, Reno

So - starting a new set of blog posts....all about our new adventure - the purchase and renovation of a property here in Vancouver. Basically it is a mission to buy an older (1936) detatched home in Vancouver (yes, at the crackshack-or-mansion prices) and give it a second, green life. I'm going to use this blog to chronicle the whole journey - the good, the bad, and the ugly. My next post will be the background of the past few months - a bit of a prologue to bring you up to speed on where we've been and where we're going. We close and take possession next week (September 15th, 2011), so that's when the journey really begins. In the interim - here's a shot of the place to whet your appetite.

I know it doesn't look like much now...but hopefully we'll have something a fair bit different in the end *fingers crossed*.

Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines...here we go!