The paving contractors I have used have also been hard-working and efficient. Maybe because the paving project stands on its own and happens at the end of a build? They can't leave too many half finished driveways when dealing with people that have been building for 29 months and are out of patience and money!

Glad you can see the light at the end of the construction tunnel! When do you think you'll move in? Unless you've found some other project/property and decided to sell this one?

I've seen poor paving jobs too. This was through our landscaping/demolition contractor. Good work, good price.

Move in likely two months. We are working to make our current house presentable for sale. Since we're 500 meters away as the crow flies, gradually moving things over as the trades finish rooms. I'd just as soon sell it if the gain were acceptable. But mrs. worthy is adamant. She hates moving! Single, I once moved 7 times in two years.

Here's the latest luxury listing in our neighbourhood.

C$8.990

But the market in the Toronto GTA is in the dumps, says Oxford Economics. “We anticipate a housing market ...rebalance in the late 2030s, but over the next five to 10 years house prices will be largely flat in real terms." I should be so lucky to see that date!

I cut in the trim paint by flashlight so the gutter crew could install gutter and downspouts.

Paint, gutter, snow bars are in the bag as of yesterday. They picked up the boom lift this morning.

Nice solar. Extremely rare here in the city where houses are viewed more as investments to be turned over for profit than long-term residences to be lived in and passed down.

Waiting to see how Kelly M's water feature works out.

Our water feature is inadvertent.

The channels to drywells and the drywells remain wet on top of the clay that counts for soil here in "The Wetlands."

Finishing off some details the next two weeks prior to move-in ready.

Library. The cabinet maker, unhappy with the design, is adding another row of glass front shelves at the top, for only the price of the glass.

Custom black steel rails and guards.

I prepped for the next two concrete pours Friday. Note the landing on the right for the timber stairs to the sundeck. I prefer concrete over asphalt. We do not salt the roads here and it will last a lifetime.

This is a fun couple of pictures. I removed that board Friday.

My brother and I put it on to retain the top of the waterproofing on November 4 last year.

Blueskin seems to be the #1 choice hereabouts. The key with Blueskin is using the right primer for the weather and substrate. The Resisto requires the application of an elastomeric sealant bead at the junction of the wall and footing. When you have the luxury of doing it yourself, you can be sure it's done right!

I lapped that joint, twice. I did a 24" wide application up from the base of the footing, using sikkens primer for that purpose.

Then I laid on the full course to cover the cold joint between my ICF walls and monopour slab.

The conditions here are very dry below grade. The deep end of the excavation never put out any water over the whole wet winter.

Unlike most footing drain installations, I have cleanouts where I can observe the conditions in the drains both straight down and with cameras.

Why more people don't do that I don't know. I also have 3 cleanouts that are independent of the recently installed downspouts.

In other words, I can clean out or camera inspect that system without removing any downspouts to do so.

Another huge mistake people will sometimes do is connect those systems. We fixed one for someone last year that had repaired basement sheet rock damage from flooding 2 or 3 times.

I was tasked with solving their issues and the boss wanted me to install a french drain 12' deep across the backyard, up hill of the basement.

They did not realize the mountains of soil that would make. It was not possible with the area I had to work with. It would require shoring for safety and maybe trucking out soil and back in, on a very steep property.

I started investigating, and found that 40% of the roof area was dumped right into the (plugged up) footing drains!!

We camera inspected everything and I was confident the other 60% was not part of the problem, and I ran 35' of new pipe to correct the mistake.

I did install a french drain uphill of the basement but only about 3' deep to catch and control the surface waters.

All that flatwork to the right was 10's of thousands and just put in the year before by another contractor to "fix the problem." Of course they did nothing at all, and furthermore made it really odious to do the proper fix and excavate along the foundation and waterproof it proper.

It goes all the way across the uphill side of the daylight basement. Imagine shelling out for that flatwork not twice, but 3 times counting the demolition.

It is clay soil, and I gathered all the water coming off the yard and the flatwork and took around the corner and below the basement footing level.

The customer is friends of the family, and I cured their issues as far as we know.

I don't see the crazy lady with the near worthless land here. Everyone told her to come here but nada. She didn't come to worthy's party thread and her thread is gone along with her account. I guess she didn't get the turnout and attention to her thread she expected thinking the world evolved around her. Seeking out strangers to bath in her all mighty glory as queen of the ball didn't work just like she got from her friends and family.

I called her out questioning her mental state and was dumped on so I deleted all my posts days before she bailed the titanic of snobs, so it wasn't me. Kelly, she didn't want to here about your build and wanted to only talk about hers and hear how great she is. Remember, only a few in the world can do.

Kelly M.

Details as I expected!

Cleanouts at each drop.

However the drains are solid and go strictly to the two drywells. So the water accumulation is from the adjoining soil.

Drain lines to drywells.

We're not allowed to alter the existing grading. And if we had lifted the house further out of the ground so the water would drain to the back of the lot we would have lost building height.

One of two drywells filled with gravel 7'-7'-7'.

As it was, we had to lower the parapet at one corner. (The AHJ limits flat roofed houses to 8' lower heights than traditional sloped roof homes. Even though those actually are flat roofed, too, where the slope begins.

Looks like Kelly M and I are the last two actual home builders standing!

And here barely, as the finishing costs are soaring while the economy totters. Such things as dozens of higher-end knobs and pulls for two kitchens, window cleaning, paint and drywall touchups and final cleaning of 8,800 finished sq. ft. Moved hard furniture and items to be refinished into the garage as we ready our temp home for sale.

Out with the old. (Psst C$1,795,000)

You won't abandon us with no monthly thread, will you?

We need your leadership, Worthy. I would try, but I'm not worthy LOL.

All the low voltage cans are in, and two floors are all but done with rough in wiring for lights.

The tile guy set the foam wedges today and will waterproof for the flood tests tomorrow. Darling wife and I will do some tile shopping over the weekend and see if we can push on through with the showers.

I'll get a plumber up to rough in the shower fixtures in the next couple of weeks.

He can install the two outdoor hot/cold faucets and the other two bath/shower fixtures.

There are quite a few people posting floor plans for new builds in the Dilemma/design forums ... but I think they get scared off the forums when people start making suggestions (some quite harshly) about how to improve their floor plan.

I got those comments, mostly on another forum from one person. I just had to grow some skin and forge ahead.

Oddly enough, the thing that bothered him the most I have completely changed. Now I have a stack all in one W/D in the main bedroom closet, and totally abandoned the laundry plan on the main floor to a butler's kitchen.

I wonder what he thinks of that?

No i don't!

Right! Although I had been participating here for a long time before I built and "know" many people here, I never posted my floor plans. Bottom line, is that a lot of layout decisions are personal/unique to that individual and family. Sure people can make mistakes, but RE and design is a hobby I enjoy and I felt I had a good idea of what I wanted.

The only changes I would make if I could go back in time, which no one here would have suggested, was to raise the slab another 18" above the standard/code elevation. Wouldn't have added any steps as we could have just sloped the driveway/walkway. It would have cost more in concrete, but given us some breathing room with flooding during hurricanes. Our area got hit by several hurricanes last year and our neighborhood had minimal flooding, but I do wish we had thought about going up those 18 inches!

I actually did post a kitchen plan, anonymously! Got the usual complaints/suggestions/orders, so I just did the kitchen that works for us!

I am currently building and definitely did not post my plans!
As you say Chispa, sometimes design decisions are made for very personal and specific reasons.
However, 4 years after our plans were approved by us, with a primary bath at a significant distance from the bedroom- which my husband repeatedly “pooh poohed “,
who do you think suddenly had to convert another space to an extra 1/2 bathroom that is abutting our bedroom as the builder was framing…Ugggg.
Maybe posting would have made him take the issue more seriously a couple of years ago!
I hope some more people will join this discussion…I love seeing what people are building and the design choices they are making.
Hopefully, the economy will improve and more people will feel comfortable taking the leap into this process.

Press here for November 2025.