Another I Spy item from the paper — a lecture series on “green”, sustainable building/retrofits every Saturday at 2pm from Oct 17 through Nov 14th, over at Radha.

Topics include:
Green Roofs
Sustainable Building
Light and Heat

All the details can be found here.

I know it’s last minute, but I spotted this in a community paper – Vancouver Heritage Foundation is offering an all-day class on old building/house conservation this Saturday (Oct 17). See their site for all the details.

Although the bath/kitchen renovation was spec’ed out to be a 6-8 week project at the most, and started back in late January, the last 10% of work has been dragging on for months. In the meantime, one of the few fully functional things in the kitchen is the sink and faucet. So I thought I’d comment on its performance.

This was one of the few purchases that we didn’t anguish too much over because really, aren’t all sinks more or less the same? Anyway, we really, really wanted a farmhouse (aka “apron”) sink. They have been a little overplayed in the past couple of years but it seemed like the perfect thing to capture the sort of vintage-y look we were going for. There aren’t too many models to choose from in Canada, and we ended up going with the Franke (though really, it’s by Villeroy and Boch though) because it was the only one that had close to the right dimensions. We considered the Ikea DOMSJÖ sink but read some bad reviews about poor craftsmanship and cracking, and decided not to chintz out. Modification of the Ikea cabinet to house the non-Ikea farmhouse sink is an entirely separate post, complete with its own drama. Let’s just say it’s not a straightforward process.

The faucet was also fairly easy to narrow down — not only did it have to coordinate with the sink, but I also had specific requirements for a) one on/off waterflow control that could be regulated with, say, the side of a hand (for those grimy situations) and b) some sort of integrated pull-out sprayer to get to those hard to reach spots in dishes. We checked out the aisles of Rona and Home Depot and came to the conclusion that not only were their faucets for the most part very suburban looking (to put it nicely), but they did not were not designed with farmhouse sinks in mind.

Once more, the modest options available to us in Vancouver meant that we were left with looking at faucets at a few small retailers. The only store that had something appropriate seemed to be Cantu, and then it was just a handful because most of their options were very modern. One model left us gasping at its pricetag, and then there were two. The one we ultimately decided on was by Hansgrohe, still somewhat pricey but with a decent reputation. And on a lark, we checked to see if it was on Ebay. We lucked out and found the model we wanted at significant savings there. Unfortunately, I no longer remember the model name — why, you ask? Well, we did purchase it, and got it delivered while a trip down in the US, and then on the return flight, the airlines promptly lost it. Poof, gone into the ether. Right around then, we happened to be at the new chi-chi, ultra-confusing Cambie location of Home Depot and they had a similar looking “Metro” Hansgrohe faucet laying around in a random bin for a fantastic price (none of the staff seemed to really know anything about it). Sure, it was a bit more modern looking but by this point we didn’t really care.

The day arrived when the whole thing came together: the cabinet could finally house the sink, the granite finally had the hole in the correct spot for the faucet (it wasn’t done correctly the first time), we had the second faucet, and the water was turned back on! How exciting not to have to wash our dishes in the basement bathroom sink anymore! And visually they both worked really well in the kitchen, and made for a nice contrast against the black granite.

As we turned the faucet on, we realized that the thing really blasted on. By blasting, I mean that when you press the handle, either the water is all the way on, or it is off. And “on” meant lots of splashing and in some cases, a nasty ricochet of water bouncing off of plates right into your face. To find some nice, trickling middle ground requires some serious finesse and patience, not an easy nudge of the hand. Also, it’s somewhat difficult to describe, but the “needle spray” holes that surround the circumference of the spout drip even when it’s streaming water in “regular” faucet model. Icing on top is that the fixture overall is a bit wiggly. Hard to believe for a faucet that can retail for $500.

As for the farmhouse sink, it did mesh well with the vintage vibe. What we didn’t realize was the sink interior isn’t angled to encourage the water to flow down the drain. This means that various pieces of rinsed off food, debris and suds etc get stuck in its corners, much like the completely rectangular modern sinks. Huh, can’t believe a relatively expensive sink could have this design flaw. Good thing we have our pull-out spray, even if a washcloth is needed to clean up its watery aftermath…On the plus side, the width of the sink means you can wash large pots and pans with no problem. Not to mention you can cram a lot of dirty dishes in there!

So, all in all, good look but not as great functionally as we thought it would be. We’re not sure if we can stomach removing the faucet and sending it back to the manufacturer for the mystery drip and wiggle. It might just have to be one of those things we accept.

Lessons learned:
1. Check out the drainage situation in kitchen sinks, make sure that it’s angled so gravity can take over.
2. Try to avoid modifying Ikea base cabinets for farmhouse sinks if at all possible.
3. If there’s any way to check out the pressure of a faucet before purchases, try to do so.
4. Having some way of leaving the pull-out spray “on” (without pressing continuously on a button) would have been a very handy feature.
5. Higher-end products doesn’t necessarily mean better design. Sigh.

Well, six months have come and gone, and it has been a busy time for us indeed.  Updates coming soon.

In the meantime, laneway housing continues to progress.  Attended the “information session” (really, more like a bunch of posters flanking the walls, with people milling about reading them, while holding coffee and gulping down cookies) yesterday at the Italian Centre.  The public hearing is set for July 21st (here are the report and minutes).  For a 33′ lot like ours, we’re talking a max of 500 sq feet (1 or 1.5 stories).  One or two parking spaces may be required too — still TBD.

It looks like another company specializing in laneway housing, Vancouver Laneway Housing,  has come into play.  The spokesperson mentioned that there will be two options — either you can go with a custom design or choose from several predesign floorplan “models”  to keep costs down (this option starts in the ~$150/sq ft ballpark).

For the full scoop on the laneway housing proposal, see the official website.

All of our dawdling on the garage/carport meant that we have spent the fall and winter scraping or squeegee’ing our car’s windows on a daily basis, getting soggy unloading groceries, and suffering from nasties like destroying a tire (thanks to running over the metal bracket remaining from one of the carport’s beams).  But on the upside, our procrastination means that Laneway Housing is now in a pilot phase.  Sure, that kind of renders our exorbitant carport permit kind of useless, but imagining a wee house in place of our ramshackle garage and concrete monostrosity of a parking pad seems a lot more…desirable.  Media stories have been quoting $150k as the estimated figure for replacing/converting a garage into 600 sq.ft. living quarters, which sounds rather ridiculous (one can only hope that was the pre-”the economy is falling!” quote).  Zoning changes apparently TBD, and the info available about permits seems to be rather sparse for the time being.

So, we’ll probably continue to procrastinate…err, strategically wait.

More laneway info here.

I’ve been having a problem with my Flickr Photo Album plugin–when selecting photos with the plugin to appear in a post it seems some are replaced with a “This Photo is Currently Unavailable” error image.  This would happen even though the photos are available.

After much research I learned that this error happens when you update a photo because Flickr plays some tricks with its urls making the plugin think that the photo isn’t there, even though it is.

Its nice to have a diagnosis, but what’s the treatment?  Well, Google wasn’t much help.  But, stumbling around the plug I did manage to find a way to fix the problem.

So, after you have updated a photo flickr…

View your full photo album in Wordpress.  You can do this either by

• going to http://your_blog_root_url/photo-album/

Or

• Open your Wordpress admin
• Select “Settings”
• Select “Photo Album”
• Click the link /photo-album/ next to the “Photo Album Syndication” label

Then all you need to do is click the “Refresh Photos” button.  But, that will only refresh the photos displayed on that screen.  Some of your albums might have more screens.  If so there will be a  “Next Page” link.  Click it, and click the “Refresh Photos” button again.

Repeat till all those error images are gone.

I’m sure there’s a better, faster way to do it, but this is the only way I’ve been able to figure out

So after months of stuggling to find one decent contractor to work with, I think we’ve found two.  And overall, they seem equally good–which makes choosing a very difficult task. 

In case you’re wondering who they are (listed in alphabetical order)…

• DiMan Develoments, Emanuel Giassemis, 604-990-1671, diman@telus.net
• Variant Home Services, Dragan Markovic, 604-724-4535, varianthomeservices@shaw.ca

Maybe I should just flip a coin.

Here are some resources you might find useful:

• http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/2007/01/contractors.html
  The full episode of Marketplace with Mike Holmes trying to help you avoid getting stuck with an unscrupulous renovator
• http://www.hiringacontractor.com/
  A site from the Canadian Home Builders Association about what and how to get things in writing in order to protect yourself
• http://www.gvhba.org/cons_reno_renomark.aspx
  A few points from the Greater Vancouver Home Builders Association about what renovators agree to provide in order to get thier RenoMark seal of approval.  You may not necessarily looks for this seal, but it might be helpful to ask your potential contractors about each of the points to get thier reaction

Over the past 4 months I’ve contacted about 40 contractors ranging from generals to individual trades and handymen.  The responses have varied from having my voice mail ignored, to only speaking over the phone, to someone coming out to the house, to someone actually responding with some form of quote.  Overall, I’ve received quotes from less than 40% of the contractors I’ve contacted.

This may seem like an awful lot of quotes.  It isn’t really.  If you want 2 or 3 quotes and you’re speaking with generals and individual trades (electrician, plumber, tile, drywall, floor), that adds up to around 15 quotes. 

Of the total number of quotes I got, I’d say about half were clustered reasonably close together in terms of the dollar estimate.  The others were much higher.  I didn’t get any that were lower than the cluster.

So from these 8 or so quotes we rejected 2 because of poor references and poor pre-sales responsiveness.  And then there were 6.

These got chopped down to 2 becuase we decided to go with a general rather than manage all the trades ourselves.  Speaking with the trades however was still valuable because it helped us better contetualize the estimate line items from the generals.  We are now down to just 2 contenders.

The actual search experience didn’t quite flow this smoothly.  On 2 prior occasions we thought we had found the contractor we wanted to work with only for him to reveal a giant red flag that scared us off.  These false starts has added about 10 weeks to the project.

I had one contractor try to berate me for collecting quotes (nice sales technique).  He said I was wasting my time and the time of all contractors. I thanked him for helping to narrow my search and then told him to get out.  Do not let them try to push you around.  You are about to spend a huge amount of money, and take on an emormous amount of risk (they can get away with just about any form of fraud, and there virtually nothing you can do about it).  Talk to whom ever you need to in order to feel comfortable with your ultimate decision.

So This should give you some idea of just how much time and leg work you should expect to do before you’ll find 2 solid contractors (and we haven’t started work yet, so things could still fall apart as they have twice already).

What resources did we use to find contractors?

We’ve used the yellow page, the BBB site, Google, Craigslist, referrals from other contractors, and referrals from friends and complete strangers.  Of our two finalists we found one through word of mouth and the other through Craigslist. 

We did not find any partiuclar resource more or less helpful — they’re all mostly useless.

Here are some other lessons we learned:

• Cast a very wide net, because time combined with pure luck is a big factor in find a good contractor
• If you want 3 quotes, be prepared to contact 8 people
• Don’t be surprised if it take 3 times as long to find your contractor as it does to do the work
• Be ruthless in your vetting process, absolutely call all references
• Do not work with anyone who tries to give you the hard sell — kick them out rudely and immediately
• Negotiate hard to pay only a minimum deposit because your risk burden is much bigger than theirs — these guys can put a lien on your house if you break a contract, but you have virtually no options if they do or if they run off with your money.

 Several months ago we settled on a basic kitchen design. Since the carport permits pushed out the start time out, and I was sent a few inspirational photos, I took another crack at some design options. Here are the 3 design options we’re looking at:

1. Original
   

2. Stove on the Side Wall
   

3. Fridge on the Side Wall
   

Now here is the important question:

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