How We Got Here
Why did we buy it? We loved the neighbourhood, the price was right, and the yard was an amazing orchard of fruit trees and vines. We figured we could deal with interior issues - we were up for a reno project - but were not prepared for the magnitude of the challenges we'd face.
Our initial renovation - to make the main floor liveable - was a great success. We lived in a tent for six weeks as we gave the main floor a complete makeover - including drywalling and insulating all the walls. Weeks without water and power didn't deter us from turning our crazy little house into a home.
Over the years we did a host of updates to "green" the house - insulation all around, adding a programmable thermostat, new double-pane windows, removal of the asbestos-laden siding, and the replacement of a 1940's era furnace with a 94% efficiency condensing model.
That was the easy part.
From the beginning we had thought of ways to add a few square feet by building out the unused attic space upstairs. Then in late 2006 we pushed hard to get a design together and get started. Over the winter of 2006/2007 we expanded our concept from a single loft bedroom to two small bedrooms and a small bathroom. The plan was to add about 500 square feet and to do some minor reconfiguration of the main floor to make the main and upper floors work well together. In the midst of this, Krista became pregnant with Jack (now 8 months old) and the urgency on the project was on the rise.
The craziness of the Vancouver construction scene, and the protracted city strike of 2007, put the kybosh on our plans to complete a second floor reno before Jack arrived. We got to the point of getting a couple of quotes for the job but we needed a variance - because of the proximity of the original house to the north property line - so we were put on hold by the strike. When the city came back we successfully argued for our variance and got our development permit.
At that point I had steeled myself to a budget that was just about double my original goal. The problem was that those quotes had now expired and when we went back to the market in early 2008, construction pricing had leapt from extreme to ridiculous in a few short months. We were excited to find a contractor we trusted whose initial estimate fell within our budget. Unfortunately, when they ran the detailed numbers we ended up with a quote well outside the realm of reality (~$550/sq ft for just over 500 sq ft) even with significant compromises on project scope.
That was our wake-up call that our attractive, small, and really quite simple reno wasn’t going to work. That gave us a few options:
- Sell the house and find something in the neighbourhood with the room we needed
- Shift gears and look at a way to lift and move the house to develop the basement
- Tear the house down and start from scratch
Until that point we really hadn’t considered tearing down our great little shack. But, as always, Austin was right and when we ran the numbers, it was clear that – in this real estate & construction climate – building new could give us the best bang for the buck. After much discussion on the topic, Krista and I agreed to at least look into the potential of a re-build.
Check out the next posting to find out what happened next…
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