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Posted 4 months, 4 weeks ago at 11:41. 0 comments
Assuming we figure out financing, construction of our new house will begin in a few short months. The first step in that process is to get rid of the existing house, which is decidedly in the way.
One of the primary goals with our new construction is to manage all aspects of the project (or delegate that management) to maximize recycling and re-use of materials. Rather than demolish the existing structure after picking it clean of any salvageables, we thought we’d see if anyone would be interested in taking the entire building. We started contacting building movers last week.
Now I understand that physically moving a building is serious business, but here’s a tip for estimators: if you agree to come give me an estimate, don’t do a drive-by in your truck, decide you’re not interested, and then never get back to me. Yes, Chamberland Lalonde Building Movers, I managed to figure out that you weren’t interested on my own, but I’m sure glad I didn’t take the day off work to wait for you. Enjoy the bad reviews you’ll be receiving around the internet today.
The estimator from CDS Building Movers was much better, showing up early, and taking a proper look around. He seemed keen, but alas, a key part of the building moving process is getting it from our site to his. They’re based way out past Kanata, so he politely declined.
Sadly, that pretty much exhausts the list of businesses in the Ottawa area who will move an existing structure for resale. If anyone out there wants a free house and is willing to pay the costs associated with moving it, it’s all yours.
Otherwise, we’ll be stripping it for parts, which is a lot more effort for less gain.
Current Tunes: Above and Beyond - Trance Around The World 314 - Marcus Schossow - 2010-04-05 | Filed under House, Ottawa, Reviews
Posted 7 months, 1 week ago at 18:53. 0 comments
Inspired by the physical model dropped off today by our architect (and the relentless requests for photographic evidence thereafter), I posted a bunch of pictures today, both of the model and some from Christmas time as well.
On the house front, things are obviously progressing well if we’re at the model stage. Kris has a post up over at her blog about some of the green certification systems we’ve been examining and synthesizing (and by “we,” I of course mean “her”) over the past few months. In redux, we’re much more interested in a house that performs well over the long-term in terms of energy savings and being comfortable rather than one-time, “hooray-for-us” points. As such, we’re heavily invested in making design choices and choosing systems that will last.
Current Tunes: Above and Beyond - Trance Around The World 302 - Lange - 2010-01-08 | Filed under Family, House, Parenthood, Photography
Posted 1 year, 2 months ago at 23:40. 0 comments
Kris hasn’t posted anything in a while about our ongoing house project, so I’ll pick up the slack. We’ve chosen our architect! It was not an easy decision.
Continue Reading…
Posted 1 year, 6 months ago at 13:05. 0 comments
I never thought I’d see the day, but my wife, Kris, finally has a blog of her own. The final impetus for her was our nascent house rebuilding plans.
Continue Reading…
Current Tunes: Above & Beyond - Trance Around The World 254 - Dan Stone - 2009-02-06 | Filed under Family, House
Posted 1 year, 10 months ago at 09:12. 1 comment
I know, never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by mischievous, drunken teenagers, but I woke up this morning to find our Green Party lawn sign gone and an NDP sign in its place. I doubt we’ll be able to get another Green Party sign before the election on Tuesday, but I wasted no time taking down the offending sign.
UPDATE: We called the local Green Party office to get a replacement sign, and apparently this was not an isolated incident. Highly uncool.
UPDATE THE SECOND: We now have a new sign. Wow, maybe the Green Party *is* organized enough to actually run things!
Current Tunes: CBC Radio One Ottawa (streaming) | Filed under House, Politics
Posted 2 years, 4 months ago at 16:15. 0 comments
The wall between our house and our neighbor’s came tumbling down around dinnertime last night.
The wall *was* already leaning at a rather precarious angle, enough so that we had actually talked to the neighbor about fixing it just last week. He has a pool in his backyard, so I’m guessing his timetable’s been moved up a little now. We’re just glad no one, especially those of the pint-sized variety, was out there when it crumbled.
Current Tunes: R.E.M. - Carnival of Sorts | Filed under House
Posted 2 years, 4 months ago at 11:23. 0 comments
Thanks to kev for coming over this past weekend to help me wire up my office for ethernet, and the rest of my house for phone. My office feels much less ghetto now, and it sure is nice to not be using wireless on my iMac any more.
Current Tunes: The Crystal Method - Blast | Filed under Friends, Hardware, House
Posted 2 years, 5 months ago at 19:30. 1 comment
Sorry I haven’t written much in the past month. Could you even tell? Anyway, there’s a reason.
I’m pretty reliant on an internet connection. I work from home, I have an IP phone for work, I have a Tivo that needs to talk to the internet to get its program data, I have a son that loves to watch old Sesame Street clips on YouTube…etc, etc. We had been connected via Bell at the old house. The service was decent, but recently we’d started having problems with random charges or long distance packages being added to our bill without our consent. As the base monthly cost crept up, we resolved to go with something new and non-Bell when we moved. (Aside: we are, in fact, all moved now, and the old house has been sold. More on that later.)
I did some research, and had decided to go with a bundle from Rogers since we already had cell phone service with them. I arranged everything to be setup on the day before our move (Feb. 25th), and that’s where our tale of epic fail begins.
I won’t bore you with the details, I’ll just bore you with the summary instead: between Rogers and Bell, it took them from Feb. 25th until Mar. 20th to get all our various services running, with internet being the last one to come up on the 20th. The details are somewhat comical (if you don’t happen to be me) and I’m happy to share them over beer at some point.
Despite initiating the entire fail chain, Rogers actually salvaged a lot of good will at the end of the process by getting their act together, but I’m not very impressed with either company or their customer service to be honest. Thanks to my parents and in-laws for letting me work at their houses over the course of this fiasco, although I hope I don’t have to commute in order to telecommute again any time soon.
Gotta love a two-party system.
Current Tunes: Josie and the Pussycats - Come On | Filed under House, Ottawa
Posted 2 years, 7 months ago at 22:56. 0 comments
(With all due apologies to King Apparatus)
The past month’s work of purging, cleaning, and painting has finally come to fruition. Our house listing hit MLS today. The house looks awesome, if I do say so myself. I’d be tempted to stay, if only we didn’t need more space for our growing family.
Current Tunes: Manuel De Falla - Danse Espagnole No. 1 | Filed under House
Posted 2 years, 12 months ago at 21:43. 0 comments
- Get a digital camera.
- Set it down on something when you’re taking your pictures. Ideally, this should be a tripod, but any flat surface will do, really.
- Clean up your room/yard/pool before you take a picture of it. Pile all that crap right behind the camera or wherever…I don’t care.
- Check the pictures once you’ve taken them. If they are blurry, take them again. THAT IS THE MIRACLE OF THIS TECHNOLOGY!
- If you need to do anything other than crop your photos, you fail. Misrepresenting your property and/or wasting my time is _not_ going to make me buy your house.
You’re only trying to unload your most expensive asset, I’m just sayin’.
Current Tunes: Orbital - Nothing Left 2 | Filed under House, Ottawa
