catching up with what is done so far.

Downstairs main shower with the open wall for ventilation.

Guest soaking tub/shower in 18x36 vertical tiles.

We dug for the city water tie in, backfilled and paved in 1 day.

My brother and I got the craftsman syled balustrade constructed in front of the elevator shaft.

I stripped off the temporary rails from the platform lift and installed the steel today. I will add balusters tomorrow.

@Kelly M your showers look great. Is there a walking space between the stairs and elevator. Or is it an open shaft so when it's on the other floor it will be open space?

Kat, the tile contractor situation sounds exhausting. A few hours here and there across 2.5 weeks is somehow worse than a delay you can plan around. Hope they find their consistency this week.

Kelly M -- the shower tile and the elevator platform work in the same update is a range I wasn't expecting. That craftsman balustrade detail sounds like it's going to be one of those things visitors notice without knowing why.

Still in the planning phase over here, but this weekend was useful. My builder had laid out where the house, driveway, and second garage would sit, and I went out with a measuring wheel to verify and stake it all out. Used t-posts so they'd hold, and ran plastic fencing around the footprints to make everything abundantly clear on the ground.

Then I went back out in the morning, afternoon, and evening to watch where the sun was actually hitting. That walk-through paid off -- I'm realizing I probably want to shift the house a few feet to get more room for screening near the garage where there's a tree line. And my spouse could finally see where things were going to land in a way that no floor plan drawing had quite accomplished.

Took most of a morning but I'd call it time well spent.

@Kat I designed the shaft and stairs so they wrap around the two shaft walls from the basement to floor 2. It is otherwise open.

I placed a 4x6 picture window at the top to admit SW light down.

I designed the cupola to admit southern light to that northern main bathroom, via an interior window. This is standing with the shower wall on the right and the vanity area on the left.

I see some art glass there, some plants. I see plants on shower wall opening.

My brothers assembled the landing gates while I welded the rails on the lift yesterday.

This is the view down from floor 2 and where that gate goes.

Those walls are getting a vinyl flooring on it, so I can add plants to the wall and I dream of a 20' water feature down the left. My wife is a textile artist so we will be battling over those walls.

Always impressed by Kelly M's work. Much of it not allowed in our jurisdiction.

for instance, welding by an owner/builder forbidden unless you are licensed and the work is inspected by a structural engineer.. And those unprotected elevator openings merit large fines should an inspector drop by. Our shaft had to be designed by an engineer as well.

We were not allowed to excavate for the water/sewer tie-ins either. City-awarded contract likely twice the cost of a private contractor.

It is a different world across the border for sure.

For example, I passed my final electrical inspection yesterday. I don't think a homeowner can pull an electrical permit in Canada, but I may be mistaken there.

That platform lift would also not be legal in Canada, I suspect. I did have the foundations engineered and the slab under the shaft is reinforced and it is 8" deep to allow for a typical elevator like yours, @worthy

I got those specifications by pulling drawings from a couple of local elevator vendors here in the PNW.

I figured someone might come along after me and want a traditional elevator.

I also reinforced the lfit side with double 2x12 to support one of those.

All an elevator company needs to do is come in and have the back wall installed and fur it in to his specification, I made it oversized to allow for that.

Beats having to carve out a space in an existing structure for certain.

We are American citizens now, but both my husband and I were born and raised in Canada and lived in Ontario for the first years of our marriage and you can pull an electrical permit in Ontario if you own the house and plan to live there. My BIL built his own house and pool and was able to do a very large part of the work himself and also has gutted/renovated a home for his daughter and he did it all legal, so yes the rules may vary by province, just as they do by state in the USA.

Residency isn't a concern for the Electrical Safety Authority (ESA) in Ontario. I've done renos for rental properties for everything up to the pole connection.. No way I'm trying to pull those cables down the conduit. Let alone connect live wires as I've see the sparkies do!

For the elevators, in addition to any Ontario Building Code requirements, local municipalities can pile on their own rules. For the elevator, in this build north of Toronto the pit and the shaft had to be speced and inspected.