Started from the bottom now we're here!

Hey!  Thanks for stopping in!  Jake and I decided to keep a blog/journal of our self-contracting adventure.  When we were researching building our own house, we found that there was a lack of real information from people who have done it... so hopefully this will help someone else in the future!  And if not, it will be a good spot to keep a record of what we've done and how we went about doing it.  Although I'm sure there will be things we'd rather forget!

Since our house building is technically 3 days in at this point, I'll give you the Cole's Notes version on how we got to this point, and then hopefully we'll be able to keep up as we move along.

March 2014 - We purchased our building lot. Yay! Just over an acre, 2.5km from the town of Lucan, Ontario.

April 2014- Our lot closed on April 25th and it was officially ours!  We had started looking at floor plans in March but knew we wouldn't be starting to build until Jake's house had sold and closed.

May 2014 - Jake sold his house!  Now to start pricing plans!  We found a floor plan we liked on the Beaver Homes and Cottages website, and made some modifications with our house designer to spruce up the exterior.  By the time we had finished "sprucing up" the floor plan, we had a 2400 square foot bungalow... which we were told was a "large" bungalow.  On paper, it looked fantastic!  Until we found out how much paper it was going to cost.  Back to square one!

July 31 2014 - Jake's house closed!  And we had picked out a new, smaller floor plan to work with!

But eventually over time, it too grew from about 1900 square feet to 2050 square feet. We tried!

My dad suggested taking our plans to builders for quotes so we had an idea on budget, so we did. 

The majority of builders in our area charge $160-175 per square foot. We disagree with this method of pricing a house, but a lot of builders go that route. Our thought is that every house no matter how big or small still has 1 kitchen, 1 furnace, 2 or 3 bathrooms... So why does adding 500 square feet, of let's say a living room, equate $85,000? It shouldn't. 

Anyway, moving on! After speaking to a few builders, we decided our best option was to contract the house ourselves to save a bit of money, which brings us here! My dad has done this a few times, so we knew we'd have him to help guide us along. 

September 2014 - We did a lot of waiting. Waiting on engineers to stamp drawings, waiting on roof truss designs, waiting for trades to get back to us with quotes and availability and then waiting on our house designer to modify the plans after the engineers had a look at everything. 

We ran into a few snags, but all in all it went pretty smoothly. 

September 19th, 2014 - We finally had everything we needed to apply for our building permit. We need a septic system as well, so we applied for this permit at the same time. According to the Ontario Building Code, the municipality has 10 days to respond to your permit application. Lucan Biddulph used all 10 days... And even a couple of extras before we could physically pick up the permit. They did tell us everything was fine and they were issuing a permit on day 10. If you're as impatient as we are, don't be afraid to call them and ask for status checks on your application. Squeaky wheel gets the grease! 

Finally, we had the permits in our hands! Now to begin the physical work of building a house...