tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71607469180089088022012-02-16T02:26:16.880-05:00We own a duplex, have flipped a duplex, and have just bought another duplex that we will be converting into a house. Here are some tales of property juggling, construction, and home renovation...Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10195330065473423233noreply@blogger.comBlogger141100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160746918008908802.post-23229855731327716192008-09-28T10:17:00.000-04:002008-09-28T10:18:08.430-04:00

And in case we didn't have enough to do already, we are initiating a facelift on our condo as well.  Figured we may as well go nuts and just get all of this stuff done at the same time, so that once we're through it all, we really will be through it all.  Yes, we are nuts.We live on the ground floor of a duplex, and we have the 2nd floor rented out to tenants.  This place was a fixer upper when

Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10195330065473423233noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160746918008908802.post-64429337562228456422008-09-26T09:33:00.007-04:002008-09-27T08:31:56.245-04:00

Admittedly September has been a really hard month. Not only did we start it with a huge kick to the head from the city, but I'm also on crunch time for a delivery deadline on my film, so my mind has been on overdrive for weeks. I'm not sure how much more I can handle, and I'm hoping the chaos level will not raise any more than it's current peak.My dad was pretty speechless when I had told him

Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10195330065473423233noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160746918008908802.post-26943717322670851972008-09-07T10:00:00.009-04:002008-09-25T13:24:22.251-04:00

I usually write as though this reno project is some sort of movie, and that it's not much to worry about... But the honest truth is that I lose a lot of sleep at night.  I'm a nervous wreck these days.It's fun to give the play by play of tearing a place down, and putting it back together - but what I don't always weave into the fold is the incredible pressure and stress on my shoulders, the

Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10195330065473423233noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160746918008908802.post-4580536336392391932008-09-04T22:20:00.003-04:002008-09-25T12:02:33.089-04:00

My dad is a draftsman by trade, so the plan was that he would handle all the technical drawings required by the city, and that his licensed architect friend would handle the final review/revisions to the drawings before signing off and stamping them.   We originally had an architect that we wanted to work with, but my dad insisted on his route because "he had a guy".  The goal here was to save

Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10195330065473423233noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160746918008908802.post-3398034150163202772008-08-26T07:21:00.018-04:002008-09-07T23:07:31.390-04:00

We knew this house was a disaster when we bought it, but we didn't really think that when we stripped it all to the bones that it would have turned out to be a soup bowl.The subfloors on the main floor and 2nd floor are seriously f*cked.  They slope and bend in more simultaneous directions than I thought even existed.  The center of the house is essentially the deep end.  The grading slope from

Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10195330065473423233noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160746918008908802.post-2242468447722521112008-08-22T17:34:00.008-04:002008-09-06T09:58:06.184-04:00

It was a week ago today that we'd had the bomb dropped on our permit applications, and now Larysa is going to do something about it.  Just because the city says we have to wait forever, it doesn't necessarily mean we have to sit around twiddling our thumbs.Larysa had the day off work today, so she decided that she was going to take another stab at landing us a permit to change the doors and

Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10195330065473423233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160746918008908802.post-1022966366460194532008-08-17T15:29:00.000-04:002008-09-04T21:57:15.894-04:00

We pulled out of the sawmill lot and I was stoked. Finding these amazing beams has really made my day, and now I will probably dream of them every night until they find there way into the city - and into the house.Now we're on the road to Ile Perrot, just 20 minutes down the road, to visit Martin at Village Wordworks. I found out about this guy while doing my research on beams and reclaimed

Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10195330065473423233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160746918008908802.post-44063234639499037552008-08-16T19:27:00.001-04:002008-08-25T23:12:58.154-04:00

Yesterday was a pretty disappointing day with the permit nonsense, and a Friday at that. So today we decided we were going to need to have a little fun, and take advantage of the weekend (and the fact that my dad left us his truck) so we took a ride out to a sawmill in Vaudreuil to look at materials for new structural beams.We need to install a new beam because the first floor of the house is

Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10195330065473423233noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160746918008908802.post-61493106014601527402008-08-15T14:52:00.026-04:002008-08-24T20:04:34.166-04:00

City permits have become the bane of my existence.   We just found out the final word on the timeline for obtaining permits for our extension and interior renovations.  It's gonna be significantly longer than we thought, and it's gonna set us back big time.  I knew it wouldn't be long before shit hit the fan - up until now things had been rolling a little to smooth.  Go ahead and get comfy.We met

Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10195330065473423233noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160746918008908802.post-58024283887821044702008-08-04T13:38:00.007-04:002008-08-19T09:52:06.982-04:00

That's right, I didn't get buried in the rubble.My apologies for lack of writing, we've been busy destroying this house and figuring it our how to put it back together again. Making films by day and houses by night has left me pretty tired, and as a result I've been rather lazy in the little spare time that I've had. Oh, and did I mention that we've started an overhaul at our condo - looking

Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10195330065473423233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160746918008908802.post-9486713655002341032008-07-26T18:44:00.002-04:002008-07-26T18:48:24.892-04:00

Seeing the inside of this house getting smashed to pieces is beautiful.  It may look like hell right now, but through all the dust I see old bricks, beams and floor joists being shown the light of day for the first time in nearly 100 years - all of them just shining with opportunity.Demolition is so much more important than most people realize.  Behind the walls and ceilings of old homes lie

Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10195330065473423233noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160746918008908802.post-69214164026741583272008-07-21T18:53:00.001-04:002008-07-23T17:00:25.564-04:00

Demolition was set to begin today, and to mark the occassion of this exciting first day, only 1 person decided to show up for work. Looks like the first big bang is sounding more like a sad fizzle.I found this out because the guy I'd hired to come and take all the old trailer trash junk out of the back yard called me at work to ask me why there was only 1 guy at the house handling the demolition

Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10195330065473423233noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160746918008908802.post-31383448012489769392008-07-19T22:34:00.003-04:002008-07-23T16:59:02.736-04:00

Here are a few pics that I took last week after we took possession of the building. Larysa's friend came by to check it out at the same time, and while she kept a brave smile on her face as she soaked it all in, I reckon she thinks we've lost our minds. Problem with these pics is that you can't smell the house, so you simply can't get the full effect.Starting with the first floor (note - we

Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10195330065473423233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160746918008908802.post-30434513466816148112008-07-17T06:54:00.001-04:002008-07-17T13:36:52.568-04:00

The irony of the situation is that now that we've closed, it only means we're just getting started.Larysa and I just signed all the papers, and are the proud new owners of yet another duplex, our third in 3 years - and this one's a real dump. It's 25' squared, and at the back is a really poorly constructed gallery extension - totally water rotted, uninsulated and collapsing to the ground. We

Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10195330065473423233noreply@blogger.com2