a recap

To recap our story to this point:

We love our neighbourhood. We have a decent sized, but awkwardly designed house, including a strange 1976 addition we've dubbed the "Uncle Louie Special:" a DIY Disaster of epic proportions complete with fake wood panelling, odd little closets, upside down paintable wallpaper, and a sponge-painted toilet room on a platform with a curtain for a door and a leaky RV sink. Uncle Louie allowed us to afford to live in this neighbourhood, but has become the bane of any attempt to re-design our space.

Since moving here, to our "starter home," our family size and the housing market have exploded. Our house is worth triple what we paid, but our wages haven't tripled. And all the other houses have tripled in cost. To buy a perfect house (four bedrooms, an ensuite) not requiring renovations, we are looking at over $800K. So we make do with Uncle Louie. We are walking distance to schools, shopping, parks, and the beach. Our neighbours are awesome. But now our boys are growing and no longer so happy to be all in one room. We would like a kitchen with an eating area (we have no dining room). We live in about 1400 square feet of our home, but we have a basement we could use.

So we're trying to renovate. I say trying because it's taken us so long to get to this point. Two years of looking for a house, a year of designers, architects, and contractors trying to make sense of our space and failing. Our plans went BIG, then reasonable, and now, minimal. We didn't want to be candidates for "Til Debt Do You Part." Now minimal is becoming smaller and smaller. To meet lot coverage requirements, we now have no stairs designed to go into our home except the front door. All existing furniture will have to be chopped into pieces to be removed from the home. Or there is that airplane emergency exit idea I had...

Although our renovation consists of: one kitchen, one enlarge window, and one closet, all the problems with building code, bylaws, and variances, have had to do with our basement/non-basement. Because the house is not deep enough in the ground, our basement is considered a first storey, not a basement (ie. looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, but is a horse). We must now meet all codes affecting two-storey homes.

On Friday, I submitted a second set of plans, heavily white-outed, for "non-variance work." That is, building a closet and starting on fixing floors and heating.

On Monday, I submitted a separate variance request for the kitchen renovation.

It's been 5 days and no word from City Hall yet, although the inspector is "away for the first week of October," which must be government-speak for "you will be ignored from the week before he leaves until the week after he gets back" and that we will be delayed into mid-October, then must try to get to two City Hall committees before the November council elections. November elections! We started in August! For a KITCHEN.

I consider it a credit to my amazing self-control that I have not lunged across the City Hall desk yet (plus the woman there is really sweet). We began our permit process on August 4th. It is now September 30th and I don't have permission for anything. I cannot imagine why people do renovations without permits. Stupid HGTV, do it once, do it right? How about "do it quietly, under the cover of darkness?"

the non-basement basement

So. We dealt with all the conditions but one. And that is:

"As lowest story is the first story, the upper second story requires a 10 foot setback. Variance to the bylaw is required for the proposed second story seven foot setback."

In other words, our basement isn't a basement. Nevermind that you access it by coming in through the front door and going down stairs. Nevermind that half of it is unfinished concrete with no windows and the rest has high, small basement windows. Nevermind that it isn't "living space." No. Nevermind logic, common sense, or intuition. Our basement isn't deep enough in the ground to be a basement by, on average, 4.5 inches. Due, in part, to the lack of depth of the Uncle Louie Special and its weird little room/non-room. To recap, our basement, sorry, I mean first storey is floor space, but not living space. Welcome to the other side of the looking glass.

The lack of depth from ground level makes our home a "two-storey." I will eventually attach a photo here of my neighbours' home. They have often said they should sell to us, as we need the space. And we all laugh HA HA HA. Them, because they are generally good-humoured folk, and us because we know damn well that their house is worth over $800K and it is well out of our price range. So our HA HA HA is tinged with a little hysteria. They have a two-storey for two people. And now, so do we, only ours is worth over $200K less, has half the space, five folks and a dog. HA HA HA.

We are permitted a 3800 square foot home on our lot, but only 2400 feet can be above 2'4" below grade (that is, ground level). A 3800 square foot home is more than we need. Yes, it would be lovely (an ensuite, an ensuite), but unnecessary. Our current home is about 2400 feet including the basement and the garage, but they don't include the garage as floor space, so we have a couple of hundred feet to play with.

Except...

If we were a bungalow, we could add to our home to 5 feet from our property line. But now that we are a two-storey, we can only add to our "second storey" to 10 feet from the property line. None of our house is 10 feet from the property line. So, our existing house is non-conforming.

Our options were presented: lift your house, dig out your basement. $10K for the original house and who knows for Uncle Louie. That doesn't include drains, electrical, plumbing, drywalling. Or we could fill a portion of our basement with gravel and make it a crawl space. Because that makes sense. To build a kitchen extension. Upstairs.

After some thought, Scotch, and copious swearing, we decided to pursue the variance. Bet you've never seen any of this on HGTV...

plan check rejection

September 9th missive from City Hall:

"At the site visit yesterday, we determined the basement is actually the
first story of the house, reviewed ceiling heights, and have now
completed the zoning analysis. Please see the attached building review
notice for details.

Please also note the proposed playroom ceiling height is less than the
minimum 79 inches required for occupancy, and this room will have to be
relabeled as storage."

And there were more conditions:

*fan required for new bathroom in basement
*not permitted to enter sleeping room directly from parking garage
*lot coverage has been exceeded by approx. 1%. Reduce footprint to 25%.
*As lowest story [sic] is the first story [sic], the upper second story [sic] requires a 10 foot setback. Variance to the bylaw is required for the proposed second story [sic] seven foot setback.

What?? Are you ready for this? Have you read any Kafka? Maybe Catch-22? Any Pinter? Well, if you have then the next few posts will take you back to those mind-twisters. And if you haven't, then this is your crash course in"this is not a chair" post-modernism.

Let's start slowly. First, we got our Costco-sized bottle of whiteout and dealt with first few issues. Our basement is now a large, well-appointed, lit and heated storage room. Oh yes, it is floor space, but not living space. And certainly not living space next to a garage. The crawlspaces have been well and truly labelled as such (4' and under). We removed the wall (with whiteout) in the garage to better envisage a beautiful, completely pointless sealed garage for a car we don't own that we'll never park there.

As for lot coverage, we need to reduce our "footprint" by 1% or approximately 60 square feet. We measured and calculated and re-measured and we could not figure out how they calculated the one percent, so we assumed that the original plans did not include stairs as part of the footprint. So, we eliminated the door and stairs from outside down into the basement. Since we don't have living space in the basement any more, we don't need to escape said space in a disaster and therefore don't need an exit. Don't get me started on the safety implications of complying to these "safety" codes because my language devolves rather quickly. I guess we'll just put in windows that unlatch from inside easily. This change eliminated 44 square feet.

That leaves us with 3 other entrances to the house plus the garage. The deck MUST be removed, which leaves us with two. We designed stairs to the backyard from the small deck at the back of the small kitchen addition (have you noticed how NONE of the conditions have had ANYTHING to do with the ACTUAL reno? Sigh.). We also have stupid existing stairs at the front of the house. Why stupid? Look at the photo. Now look again and imagine trying to move any furniture in through that door. Any furniture not from Ikea. So what to do? Well, we took the whiteout to the planned back deck stairs to eliminate the full 1%. I suppose we can always take out a window and move our piano out with a pulley. Or rope ladders. Or a big inflatable slide, like on an airplane.

And of course, we now, on paper have no access to our back yard. We already have access to only one side of our house thanks to the ardent ex-Navy bylaw officer who made us move our tent trailer from our double driveway, on our own property, beside a 12 foot hedge. It is now beside our house, which necessitated taking down a fence, a gate, and ripping out gardens. Again, of course, the safety implications make me want to swear like an ex-navy sailor, but I know it's our own damned fault. You see, as he said, we could pay for trailer storage. Of course, we have a tent trailer because we can't afford fancy vacations, big trailers, or @!@#ing storage. Or we could move it into our garage. The darling man even measured the space, scratched his head, and suggested we should have bought a trailer that would fit into our garage. To which I responded that I might have done so should they have a trailer that sleeps five that would fit into our 1946 garage, but the last time I checked they still called those "tents."

I may have said a few more things too. Something about the bylaw being elitist as we were being punished for owning such a small lot in a swank neighbourhood. And I may have gently suggested that by advising we spend 10s of thousands of dollars on a separate garage for our tent trailer perhaps he had missed my earlier point. At least now, I have the satisfaction that by ripping out a fence and gardens to shove the trailer into such a tiny spot, it now looks like crap. Aesthetic bylaws be damned.

But I digress...

So, when is a basement not a basement? Stay tuned!

the inspector's first visit

After some emails back and forth, it was determined that the two inspectors couldn't "make head or tails" out of the building plans we had submitted, despite my assurance that the house had been surveyed. Twice inside and twice outside. I gave them the original surveys. No go. Guess which part made no sense? Yep. Uncle Louie strikes again. They couldn't quite believe what they saw on paper.

So the inspector came, he saw, he measured, and said, "it didn't make sense when I saw it on paper, and now that I see it in person, it makes even less. It's so...so..."

"There is no adjective you can possibly think of that hasn't been used by a builder, designer, contractor, architect, or real estate agent already. And I've used all the rude ones." I added helpfully.

I pointed out that a corner of the kitchen was held up by a piece of bannister. That the original railing was knee-height and wide enough for a toddler to walk through into a 10-foot pit of death. That the door swept open across the landing of the t-shaped stairs, thus sweeping unsuspecting kiddies down the stairs. "And yet, the City approved it."

"We only approve code, not design, " then added that the "playroom" little bodies were flying into was only approved as a storage space. Ah, so it's our fault for using the space inappropriately. What were we thinking?

The inspector made me nervous as he poked around here and there in the basement measuring things, scratching his head, mumbling a lot of "what the...?" and "why would they...?" He measured the garage, such as it is, and determined it's too short by two feet. The wall has to come down. The door needs to be self-closing, the walls and ceiling need to be sealed. The ceiling height in two rooms wasn't high enough for much of anything. Floor space, yes. Living space, no. Have I mentioned that NONE of the renos are in the basement?

And then there was the "grade level" to determine zoning. Oh boy.

He couldn't quite believe the surveys, but when he measured from window sill to ground level, then from ground to floor, there was a lot of muttering and shaking of head.

And that's a whole entry by itself.

lot coverage

Our lot is 6051 square feet. This matters because our municipality allows 25% lot coverage by the primary building. Thanks to Uncle Louie, we don't have much we can add. The addition was clearly built as cheaply as possible (I can understand that). Without touching the kitchen or bathroom, they built a hallway between the two, leading to the stairs they tacked on behind the house, then the additional room (plus lower "storage space") was added behind the "stair room" in the middle of the house.

Several of our renovation ideas had to be chucked because we had to consider the 25% limit. The existing deck was built without a permit and has to come down as it's over the limit. My porch idea had to be scrapped (I hate our awkward entrance). Our walk-in closet and ensuite idea had to be scrapped (boo hoo). Stairs to the back door. Scrapped. Window seat. Scrapped.

This is why we seriously considered taking a sledgehammer to Uncle Louie's work. Of course, the price would jump phenomenally. And it still didn't help us with the lack of eating area, even if the thought of ripping it down crappy two-by-four by crappy two-by-four made me very happy.

As you'll see, even with all the adjustment, the lot coverage issue comes up again...

living space

Living space and floor space have little to do with each other. Living space is floor space with a certain height (for most areas 6'11" and in ours 6'7") and requires emergency egress. That is, a way to get out if bad things like fire or earthquakes happen. We added a door to the basement design to facilitate egress, but the height issue caused problems in two of our four spaces in the basement: the playroom and the guest room. Because they aren't high enough (6'4"), they cannot be considered living space and therefore cannot be approved as such. Which is good, sort of, because stairs leading into "living space" need to be minimum 34" wide, which none of our Uncle Louie Special stairs are.

The playroom in question is the downstairs part of the Uncle Louie Special. It was designed and approved as "storage space" back in 1976 because taxes at the time were determined on ceiling height (ie. anything over 6'7" was taxed). So it has a low ceiling and narrow stairs.

The guest room caused issues because the previous owners had taken part of the required indoor parking space to build a room (by two feet). They also built a strangely high sub-floor.

Neither of these rooms can be approved as "living space" so they are now well-appointed "storage space" thanks to whiteout. We just happen to store a big-screen tv, surround sound, and couches in one and a guest bed in the other.

Result: one of four issues solved.

the (first) conditions

We received our first response September 7th. It had "conditions" as follows:

1. Fan required for bathroom in basement.
2. Not permitted to enter sleeping room directly from parking garage.
3. Please complete the attached Zoning Bylaw Requirement document (excluding height).
4. Provide cross-section showing ceiling heights to joists and beams for playroom and crawlspaces, and games/utility room.
5. Stairs to playroom and games room to be minimum 34 inches wide.

I responded to the conditions, via email as follows:

Bathroom Fan
The basement bathroom has a fan. Previous owners had a bathroom installed to which we added a fan. It exhausts appropriately, but I'm not sure I could find plans for that. Would a photo or visual inspection suffice?

[turns out the "fan" is code for "you have a bathroom on your plans which previously didn't exist; therefore, it must be inspected to make sure it is up to code." So our lovely updated bathroom needs to be inspected. I wonder what they'd have thought if they'd seen the original curtained throne room with the camper sink and the awesome sponge painted walls...]

Door from Garage to Sleeping Area
We have no intention of using the space labelled "guest room/utility room" as a guest room. Our intention was simply to finish the space properly while we had contractors onsite as it is unfinished at the moment. "Guest Room" was a suggestion of the designer as we were discussing finishing the space into "something more usable." As we never use the garage for parking vehicles with exhaust, it did not occur to me to ask her to change the label on the adjoining room. Can we do so now?

[you can't have a sleeping area next to a garage. So I renamed the "guest room" to "storage space." We have a lot of storage space now. Our "garage" has not been used as a garage since at least 1976 which is when they poured a new driveway and made a 3 inch vertical drop into the garage. But according to bylaw, we have to have "indoor parking." Nevermind that the garage is 2 inches shorter than our van and directly under our bedroom window. We need to take down the back wall, seal the entire room, put a self-closing door on the garage, sell our van and by an Austin mini with a sunroof. And why? Oh yes, so we can add to our kitchen. Upstairs. ]

Zoning Bylaw Document (excluding heights)
My husband was sure he had included this document which leads me to believe that we missed something in filling out the forms.

[It was there. And filled out. The guy just didn't see it. Or was he messing with us?]

Cross-section of utility room
This cross section is available on the original house plans which I also have copies of - obtained from City Hall.

[the cross-section was to make sense of the Uncle Louie Special and sort out floor space. More on that later. Much more.]

Oh my. This was just the beginning... fill your wine glass and settle in...

the building permit

You are about to enter a phase of the renovation process that HGTV never discusses. Why? Because it is mind-bending. Normal laws of logic are rendered moot and you enter bizarro world. Up is down. Down is sideways. You can't get there from here. Note: this step may require the use of copious amounts of alcohol or medication.

Step 1: Take 2 copies of plans to City Hall. Make final adjustments (thank you whiteout) to simplify. Re-draw this wall, erase the extra bathroom the designer insisted we need (trust me! three teenage boys, you'll need it!). Try to make copies at copy shop. Discover that designs are copyrighted and designer must be contacted for permission. Discover that designer is out of country until Christmas. Find another copy shop with 18-year-old part-time employee who has no idea what copyright means.

Step 2: Make square footage calculations. Discover that designer cannot do math and has tripled measurements to calculate square footage. Huh? Thank God for a husband with a brilliant mind. Get out the whiteout.

Step 3: Pay a percentage of the estimated renovation cost to City Hall. For us: $240

Step 4: Wait for 2-3 weeks. Which actually means 4-5 weeks. Discover every one-day holiday in government equals one week holiday for everyone else. Submitted August 4th.

Step 5: Re-submit plans to address conditions. Buy more whiteout. Stop at liquor store. Question sanity.

Step 6: Repeat step 5. And again. And again.

choosing a contractor

Just like HGTV says we should, we asked around, got references, checked the work of a series of contractors. And, completely unlike HGTV, we discovered that a HUGE part of choosing a contractor is availability. We waited for our first choice to be available for months before he admitted that his current job was going long, and the next big job started too soon to leave any space for our little job. Only in this neighbourhood is 80 grand considered a little renovation. I should have known after I he told me one of his jobs was featured in a local magazine.

I never read this magazine. In fact, I have been known to over-zealously chuck said magazine into the recycling bin. Sometimes, I take perverse joy in using it as a fire starter: page by page. It's byline is "Life at its Finest," but it needs to be renamed; I just haven't come up with anything clever yet. So far, my best are "Stuff You Can't Afford" or "We Got It; You Can't" or "If it's in this Magazine, you Can't Afford It." I once called a concrete company advertised in this magazine. When the fellow on the other end heard what I needed, he responded, "Oh, we don't do cheap stuff." Only he didn't say stuff.

So, onto the next candidate. Not available for one year. Next candidate, not available until next year. Next candidate, not available. Next candidate, available this fall!!! OMG. Book him! HGTV be damned!

the design(s)

Our current design is one in a long line of plans. Our first plans were small, trying to eke out a kitchen area without touching the outside of the house or changing anything structurally. Nothing seemed to work. The layout of our house is too odd. After many attempts, the architect, clearly trying to be kind, said, "there does come a time when moving becomes a viable option," and we reluctantly agreed. We spent the next two years going to every open house in the area, which we love, only to discover that to move into a home with better space (not more space, or updated space, just better space for renovating), it was at least $100K over what we could get for our awkward little home. Add to that moving expenses of $40K and we decided to go back to the drawing board.

Our next designs were big, adding a floor, taking down the 1976 addition, lifting the house and digging out the basement. Then we starting pricing construction. We were looking at more than $200K for these options. And the results still felt like we were settling.

We looked, briefly, at rebuilding. At adding $600K or more to our mortgage, then carrying close to a million dollar mortgage for what still amounted to a lovely, but average-sized house. Yes, we considered it. Like we might consider buying an island in the Caribbean, moving to Manhattan, or winning the lottery.

Many of our design issues have to do with our "Uncle Louie Special," our name for the 1976 addition, and yes, it really was designed and built by the previous owner's uncle. It isn't square, as we discovered when installed hardwood (although the triangular-cut pieces make for an interesting conversation piece). And it is so convoluted it took several minutes to run through the maze to the front door; I often threatened to put a chunk of cheese at one end. During one visit, we heard a voice faintly calling, "help! I don't know where I am!" but before we could discover her whereabouts, Grandma discovered the (occupied) second bathroom when moving aside a curtain (yes, a curtain). I'm not sure she ever came back.

After rebuilding the addition, we would have a lovely master bedroom with an ENSUITE and walk-in closet. Oh, how I wanted that ensuite! Unfortunately, to meet current codes, we lost some square footage. Also, the boys' rooms were in the basement and we'd have to move the stairs which meant redoing the existing bathroom, and laundry room and doorway. We would also have to move while the renos were going on for 6 months or more (more!?). Dave was all about living in our tent trailer in the backyard and cooking on the barbecue. Excellent. In a town where it rains for months at a time, we'd be the only trailer park family in the neighbourhood - cue the banjos. I'm sure there's some aesthetic bylaw against that. Thankfully, the financial reality hit us and we realized that we could have the reno or a life.

So we started again. We simplified and simplified until we had only the bare minimum of what we wanted. So no walk-in closets. No ensuite (my heart still hurts a little over that sacrifice - I do live with 4 boys after all). No big kitchen. No deck. No front porch. Just an eating area. That's it. Our 1946 bungalow has no eating area and no dining room. So an eating area. Simple, right? Read on.

I love HGTV. All the programs. I've even designed a drinking game around house hunters who wander through massive homes and complain about a)the size of the walk-in closet or b)lack of granite countertops. But here, in this blog, I will outline how renovations work when HGTV doesn't come and fix everything in a half hour. Let's just say, there's drinking, but it's not a game...