In order for us to move in, we need to obtain an occupancy permit from the city. This does not mean our house will be complete, but means it has all the necessary mod cons for us to occupy it safely. We’re prioritizing tasks that will get us to occupancy. We will have toilets, for instance, but no Interior doors.

Here's the roundup from week 49.

Deck
The deck platform and stairs are finished, with the exception of the final stairs to ground level. We need our final grading to be completed first, which should bring our number of stairs down to 2 instead of 4. We also need some railings. These will most likely be temporary railings, to get us to occupancy.

Tile
Benjamin was at the house and finished laying the tile in our bathroom. It was a lot of tile, extending all the way to the ceiling (which will get the special wood-treatment soon). It’s quite dramatic.

Countertops
Our island counter was installed. And quickly covered as to not incur damage. We chose Caesarstone because it's zero-maintenance.

Electrical
We have lights! Now there’s no excuse for us not to work late. Most of our fixtures are in. Minus a few feature lights. Thank you Yves, and sorry for choosing pot lights that tore up your hands during the install :(

The best tip we received for lighting was to consider what you want to light. With stairs, for example, it's important that the stairs are lit, so you can see where to put your foot, and not the entire stair well. And with general room lighting, it's the walls that need defining, so direct your lights towards the walls and not the middle of the room.

Plumbing
We have a toilet in the house! This is majorly exciting for me. I don’t have to use the porta-pottie when I’m working on site anymore! And we can finally get that thing removed. The remaining fixtures will be installed this week.

This little throne I call my own, I aim to keep it neat. So darn your soul, pee down the hole, and not upon the seat. ~ classic outhouse quotes

Vanities
Mark assembled and mounted our bathroom vanities. We opted for Ikea vanities. We went through multiple explorations, trying to find an alternative, but just couldn’t stomach the associated costs. We almost pulled the trigger on a custom bent metal vanity that we designed, but in the end, it left us with too many unknowns (and no drawers). In our bathroom, we have an Ikea base that we’re pairing with a Caesarstone counter and Toto vessel sink. It will be partially custom, in this case. It will look great, but I really wish that Ikea made a 1 drawer depth vanity. I prefer the proportions, but am sure the extra drawer will be put to good use.

Ceiling
Mark and I had this crazy idea that our sloped ceiling would look fantastic if it were clad in wood. It seemed like a good idea at the time. And I’m sure it will become a good idea again, after all is said-and-done. But now? It’s a lot of effort.

The order of things is a follows:

Step 1: lay plywood
Step 2: level and strap ceiling
Step 3: paint everything black
Step 4: install lighting tracks
Step 5: oil and stain ash planks
Step 6: mount ash on strapping
Step 7: admire hardwork

Graham and Sebastian helped to progress the ceiling over the weekend. Finishing off the strapping in our bedroom and bathroom. They moved on to the main space, over the void, and set up what they nicknamed ‘the death trap’ – a precarious platform to help them reach across the 2-story open space (aka. void) that exists in the middle of the house. It isn’t actually as precarious as the name makes it sound. The hope is that they finish the strapping tomorrow, leaving the death trap setup for Mark or I to paint everything black. Yay.

It really will look fantastic…

Inspiration photo — our ceiling should look something like it

I see a ceiling and I want it painted black

The so-called 'death trap' or 'widow-maker' spanning the void 20' up

Landscaping
We’re working on a landscape plan with Rebecca James, an architectural technologist with a horticulture degree. Landscape design doesn’t pay the bills, so she does it on the side of her regular 9-5. Because she loves it. My kind of girl. We’re happy with what’s she’s shown us so far. 100% we won’t have landscaping for occupancy, nor this year for that matter, but we want to set up the design now, so we know what we’re working towards in the future. I wish it could all happen RIGHT NOW!!!!

Project management
On the project management side of things, we’re hoping to finish electrical and plumbing this upcoming week so we can go for our next construction mortgage withdraw. In the meantime, we’re racking up lots of travel points on our credit cards. One of these days we’ll want to leave Ottawa and our new house, so those points will come in handy. One of these days...

Our heads are down and we're ticking tasks off our lists faster than new ones are getting added. It's looking promising *knock on wood* for us to make the occupancy call on Aug. 23rd. My mom is visiting from Vancouver this week and has taken our kids to a cottage. I got to spend the whole weekend working on site, And will have my evenings to contribute this upcoming week too. Miss the kids like crazy, but won’t have much time to do so. Lots of site tidy-up and painting on my plate. And getting ready to move. Hopefully for the last time.

We’re in the midst of the push-for-occupancy phase, which I mentioned in my previous post. There are many moving parts that need to come together. Our biggest challenge has been staying on top of things and ensuring that the things that need doing, get done. Which is why I’ve been MIA on the blog. There’s a ton to catch up on.

But first, we had a rooftop picnic with the girls tonight (on our newly finished rooftop deck!). When we arrived back at our just-ok rental house a few blocks away, Josie started crying. She said “I no want this house”. Ha! I guess we’re all getting a wee bit anxious.

Stairs and screen wall

Climbing plants to be installed at a later date :)

Our stairs are designed to float between the wall and a 2 storey metal screen wall. So before the stairs themselves can go in we had to install the screen wall and metal bridge. Mark tackled this over a couple of weekends with some great help — huge thanks to Rob Villeneuve, Steve Dufresne, Mike Davis, Graham Dorey, Nick, and Gary Sharp (again! Gary, we owe you so much for all your help on our home). The metal screens support the bridge and the stair treads, and the bridge and stair treads stabilize the screen. Mark installed temporary treads so that the stairs are usable until the finished treads can be installed.

Kitchen install

View of the pantry wall (with our fridge in the way)

We have a kitchen! And it’s gorgeous. Ordered our kitchen from Astro and had Kosta do the install. He was a pro. Took him 3 days. We have a combo of a white, glossy laminate for the functional kitchen drawers and a brown ash, sandblasted finish, on the doors facing the living space. For more on our kitchen design and layout, read this post.

Our counters will be installed next week. We decided on Caesarstone, in a dark cement finish. The counter is from Solid Decorum. And we have some beautiful ash butcher block from the Wood Source for the sill-come-counter under the window.

Tiles

The majority of our floor tiles have been laid. With the remaining to be completed and grouted over the weekend. We have quite a bit of tile in our house. In our bottom floor entry, and our main floor living space, we went with a dark, larger-format tile, arranged in a staggered pattern Mark designed. We’re really happy with them. In our upstairs bathrooms, we opted for a 1” x 3” black tile on the floor, which conveniently hide our linear drain in the master bath. And a larger format white subway tile on the walls. We’ve got a lot of wall tile in our master bath because of our sloping ceilings. Really look forward to seeing it go up – next week.

We’ve also been very happy with our choice in tile contractors. Flowtopp. Highly, highly recommend them. Tiles was sourced from Ceragres. We used Gate on the main floors (in Licorice), Unit on the bathroom floors (black), and I forget for the bathroom walls…

By the way, we aren’t concerned in the slightest that we’ll have cold toes on ceramic tile. We won’t have any thermal bridging thanks to Passive House. We also have a lovely area rug we purchased on our Moroccan honeymoon (years ago now, wow) for the living room, to soften up all the hard surfaces.

Priming and painting

Looking down the void our bright white walls

The house has been primed and painted. Quelle difference. It’s starting to feel like a finished house. We went with Benjamin Moore, Chantilly Lace, in a flat finish (aka. white). We understand that an eggshell finish cleans more easily, but wanted to make sure that when light washes against our walls, they’ll look smooth and dreamy. Flat does a better job at hiding blemishes. We enlisted the services of Michael Fenton, who helped us paint our last house as well. This man knows his paint.

ERV and heater install

Mark is nearly finished installing the Zehnder ERV and ground source heat exchanger. The units are hung in place and most of the ductwork is connected. Our 4kW Thermolec duct heater is also in place. This is the heater for the whole house! It’s small enough for our 3 year old daughter to hold on her lap while she eats ice cream. Nathan from Ackland Plumbing will be priming our ground loop and connecting it this coming week.

Hot water tank install
Nathan from Ackland Plumbing also installed our Stiebel Eltron heat pump hot water tank. It’s an 80 gallon tank that uses an air source heat pump to heat the water (meaning super energy efficient). It looks cool too.

Siding
Our siding is finished and looks fantastic. Thanks to Graham Dorey.

Roof deck

Our rooftop deck also looks amazing. Thanks to Graham Dorey. Who struggled with a strained knee, from a football accident and not the house, these past couple days. Going up and down a ridiculously high ladder with decking materials.

We have yet to install a railing, which we’ll need for occupancy. The building inspector nay’ed our initial design, because it didn’t meet the building’s code definition of safe. He considered it climbable. He did say, however, that if we built a mock-up, he’d come look at it and assess the climbability in person. So that’s something we’ll be progressing next week. And/or we’ll look at redesigning it.

Front deck

Our front deck build is underway. Step one was to get some helical piles drilled into the ground to support the structure of the deck. Why helical piles? To minimize root damage to our big tree out front. A more typical deck pile requires digging of a hole much larger than the post itself. Whereas, a helical pile requires a hole only as large as the diameter of the pile itself, which you see in the picture is quite small.

Step two was to lay some landscape fabric and gravel for underneath the deck. Mark did all the gravel moving himself in the humid, sweltering heat that is Ottawa in July. Deck build is set to start this weekend and continue over the course of next week, with Graham on the job.

That’s all folks. I’m sure I’ve missed things so I’ll be sure to write more frequently over the final weeks to come. If for some reason you don’t hear from me, it’s because we’re building a house, and are busy building it.

Construction week 49: 2 weeks until occupancy

Construction weeks 47 and 48: sprint to the finish

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