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 [...]

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 [...]

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% [...]

Thanks to Firefox, Wordpress lost my original post.  I know the fanboys love FF, but through death by a thousand cuts, I keep learning this lesson:  Don’t use FireFox.  From poor stability with flash files, to losing my place when opening new windows, to losing Wordpress posts, FF gives me more trouble than even lousy [...]

As mentioned earlier, we had some reliability trouble with the first renovation contractor we started working with (he promised answers to questions by certain dates and then never delivered on time, which made me worried about how he would be with real work).  It took over several weeks for me to find him and I [...]

Our contractor has let another deadline slip.  After stalling for over a week to give us a start date, last week he promised to give us an answer by Sunday.  It now Tuesday and still no word.  Our plan B contractor fell through as well.  So we’re back a few steps.  Hopefully I can find [...]

Here is the story so far on trying to get my major contractor to start work:

Thu 9/4
I called contractor to set a meeting for Monday to make arrangements to start work.

Mon 9/8
He called me to postpone meeting to Thursday.

Thu 9/11
Called to postpone meeting to later in the afternoon.

Thu 9/11
He finally stopped by to talk. I [...]

This might be the single biggest problem in tackling a home renovation or restoration.  How do you find good people, that you can afford.   Hell just finding contractors who will call you back is difficult enough right now in Vancouver.
Doing the research you find lots of happy stories, and lots of horror stories about contractors.  And [...]