NaturalUrbanHome Natasha Chiam NaturalUrbanHome Natasha Chiam

I am thankful that we can build a dream!

The Thanksgiving weekend means a lot to my family. It is the weekend that Natural Urban Dad and I got married eight years ago. Is is our favourite time of year and 3 years ago it was my last weekend of being pregnant with Princess L. I have so much to be thankful for in my life and not the least of these is that we are building our dream home.

Here are the latest updates on the progress of the Natural Urban Home. {And can I just say again that I LOVE, love, love our builder!!}

The second level of ICF (insulated concrete forms) went up very fast and we actually missed the concrete pouring day. You can really get a sense of the shape of the house now and the kids are getting so much more excited about it. They ask if we can walk or bike or drive by the new house almost every day.

 The best day so far, at least for Little C, was when we stopped by the house one day and caught them using a truck crane to hoist our main support beam into place. He was in 4 year old boy heaven and all I could think was, "Please DO NOT wreck my trees!!" Well, you can hear my pleas in the background of the video!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sv1Ri_YlSo[/youtube] And with the beams in place the roof trusses went up in record time. And I am so impressed with our site foreman, Steven. Not only is he one of those construction dudes that is not hard on the eyes (ahem....no...that is not why I drive by every day), he did most of the truss work BY HIMSELF and with sheer muscle and man power!!

The roof line of our house is not quite flat (it has a 1/12 pitch for all you home building geeks) and as such the roofing is somewhat different. We are going with a metal roof and the prep work for that involves laying 2 X 4  for a 2 inch gap and then plywood over these and then membranes and then the roofing materials. They are almost done the prep work and the membrane is down on at least half of the house.

And this means that once the roof is all closed and prepped for the metal, the guys can start framing the interior of the house. When I spoke with Steven last week and told him that I would like to be in the house for March 2012, he said, "Well, that's good, because we are aiming to be finished in January."

Needless to say, everything is on track with our dream home and I am so very thankful for all the people involved in making this a reality for our family. Big thank yous to our architect, Mike Scezny from Fuse Architecture + Design, our interior designer, Dawn from Dawn Stiles Design and Grant and his team from Serenity Contracting and Design.

And I will leave you with this....

My new incredible view from the kitchen into our backyard! (Ok, so it doesn't look like much just yet, just use your imagination!)

Thankful and blessed,

Natasha~

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The BIG hole in the ground

.....is filling up!

Two days after the BIG house move, our contractor had the excavators on the site to clear it out and dig the big hole for the new house!

Even with the actual house moved off the lot, there still was A LOT  of work to do to clean up the site and get it ready for excavation.  I believe the finally tally was 12 full dump truck loads of both concrete and the remainder of the house debris that was removed. The kids and I have been making almost daily trips to the house (which really is only a 5 minute drive away from our current house and a nice walk for all of us)!

This is the third house that we have built 'from scratch' and every time, I am always amazed and somewhat shocked when what we have been looking at in 2D for months starts to take shape. This house is no exception.

I don't think I quite appreciated how big a 2500 square foot bungalow really is until I saw the really BIG hole that took almost three days (it was raining for one of them) to fully excavate. Now granted there is an extra 3-4 feet all the way around for back-fill and all but it is still huge!! This can also be attested to by the not-so-small mountains of dirt piled all over the site!

Part of building the Natural Urban Home involves using technologies and products that will increase the energy efficiency and sustainability of our house for years to come. We decided to build the whole house with ICF (insulated concrete forms) and the product being used is called LOGIX ICF. Using the Logix ICF system is going to give our whole house increased energy efficiency with an thermal resistance rating of R-50 and will also reduce the sound transmission from the outside (and also from the inside--our new neighbors do not need to hear me screaming having calm rational discussions with the kids!) by about 50%!

My son is really digging this process because the ICF blocks look like HUGE Lego pieces and really he is not that far off. They all fit together like big building blocks and it is amazing how fast they can put it all together!

Yesterday was concrete pouring day and there was NO WAY my little man was going to let me go without him to see this process. We arrived at the house just as they were priming the pumper truck! The whole street was blocked with three concrete trucks and the huge pumper truck. He was in construction site heaven!!

The nice thing about building the house and being able to be there almost daily to watch the process is that we get to meet our neighbors too! We met the lovely elderly couple who live across the street from the new house and the kids have already been invited over for cookies!! And ahem...don't tell Natural Urban Dad, but I met the mailman too and well...let's just say that I will really be looking forward to getting the mail once we move!

And that is where we are at with the Natural Urban Home. Next week they will be working on the flooring system and then starting on the main floor ICF forms. Our fabulous contractor, Grant Plamondon from Serenity Contracting and Design, is confident that we will have the roof on the house way before winter hits, and at this rate I can't see why not!

It is a wonderful thing to watch a dream unfold before your eyes!!

Natasha~

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Summer Blog Challenge posts for August 19, 2011

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VERY WIDE LOAD

My last post about the Natural Urban Home was on April 17th. And there was snow on the ground!

It seems that my initial excitement about the old house actually moving off the lot was a bit premature!

But in the end, it all works out as it should.

After looking at our house plans for months, one day it occured to me that we may have made a fatal flaw in the design of our new home. We had designed and configured the house perfectly, except for one thing--we had no direct view or access to our beautiful back yard!

So we all went back to the drawing board and worked hard to get it right on round two of designing the Natural Urban Home!

What we have now is not only the perfect house for us, but it is configured perfectly on the lot so that we can truly enjoy all of the amazing features of the lot and the yard!

The old house was finally moved off the lot on July 26th. And let me tell you, it was quite the production!  We took the kids down to see them get the house attached to the truck earlier in the day and the crew told us that they would be back that night at 2 AM to start the trek to it's new home south of Calgary.

I decided to stay up and go and film the event. You know, for posterity and all.

At a quarter to 2, I packed up the dog and myself and headed out (in the pouring rain) to the house. And when I got there my heart sank....

...they were already gone!!

I was so sad and dissappointed that I had missed the big move!

So with my proverbial head hung low, I put the car back in gear and headed home. I turned right instead of left as I usually do and it was a good thing that I did, because up ahead I saw flashing lights and a VERY WIDE LOAD heading down the street!!

I caught up with the large caravan of vehicles with flashing lights and followed them for about 10 blocks. It really was a sight to see!! Moving slowely along in the pouring rain, lightening and thunder, the house-moving caravan consisted of two Epcor trucks, an arborist truck, two police cruisers, and two wide load pick-up trucks. And me in my Mazda 5! In the few blocks that I followed along, they had to take down a set of traffic lights, removed and then replace a traffic sign and stop all traffic along the road and at a major intersection.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM6ldRXWd8A[/youtube]

 

A final goodbye to the house! Which by the way, took three days to reach it's final destination.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM4LkBNeNts[/youtube]

 

And with the house off the lot, our excitement is at an all time high!  We are thrilled to be working with the amazing folks at Serenity Contracting and Design (the same ones who built our current home) and things are starting to move along quite nicely!

I thought I would leave you with a little teaser ....

Here is our architect's rendition of the southwest corner of the new Natural Urban Home!

Natasha~

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Summer Blog Challenge August 12, 2011

 

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This old house is on the move.

Well, it is Spring 2011 (sort of) and that means that if all is on track than we should be starting construction of our new house. We started this little family project last summer when we bought a new property not even 5 minutes from our current house. We have had five months of design work done and are almost set to 'break ground' and really get going. We are just waiting on a few more details from our architect and of course all the permits from the City.

There is some activity going on though. The house itself has been purchased by a nice family and it will be making the trip down to Calgary in the next week or so. Yes, believe it or not, it is possible to lift and move a two-storey house.

See...

My son is loving this whole process and can't wait to see the house moved onto the truck. Although I am not sure if we will be able to accommodate that. The house moving guys tell me that the actual moving itself happens late at night to avoid major traffic.

We are all pretty excited about getting this house build going and this was step one of the process!

Now, I am off to get the kids and I some hard hats later this week!

Safety first!

Natasha~

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Design Update & Our New Backyard!!

Sorry it has taken me this long to get you an update on our new house.  We are 2 months into the design process with our architect and it is going really well.  We had our latest meeting last week and have finalized the floor plans and the roof lines/shape of the house.  Here is a quick sneak preview of the house for you (this is a very rough draft, but I think you get the idea of where we are going with this!)

We have also decided to try to sell the current house that is on the lot rather than just demolish it.  We think this is a good decision for a few different reasons.  First, it is a much better way to recycle a whole lot more of the house (ie, the WHOLE house), than if we took bits and pieces of it and tried to sell or give it away to various organizations (Habitat for Humanity, Architectural Clearing House, etc...).  And secondly, it is a way for us to make some money off the sale of the house AND save even more money on the demolitions costs (which can be upwards of $50-60,000 for a two story house).  And believe it or not there are companies that exist who do just this.  They come in, find buyers for your house and arrange all the moving/deconstruction of said house.  The logistics of moving a two-storey house are a bit more complicated, but we are confident that we can get this done.

And the bonus of doing this (we hope) is that it puts us in the good, or at least better, graces with our new neighbors.

You all know how much I love this property (and really pushed for the deal to go through) and this point was really driven home to all of us this fall when we went to spend some family time over in our 'new' backyard.  The trees are simply AMAZING at this time of the year and then the HUMONGOUS piles of leaves were so much fun for everyone!  Granted, it took us three weekends to go over there and rake them all up (and there is still more to do), but I think the FUN and future family time in that yard is going to more than make up for it!!  Here are just a few pictures for you to get an idea of what my fall seasons are going to be like from now on.

 
Things are really going to start moving along now that we have the floor plans all figured out and it is becoming more and more REAL to us every time we see the newest drawings.
That's were we are so far.  Thanks for following along on our journey and as we get closer to some actual deconstruction and then construction, I'll start posting more and more!!
Natasha~
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Let the Designing begin!!

We got possession of the new house and lot on August 14th.  And as of this week, we have hired an architect to start the design process.  This is the fun part for me.  I get to rip out picture after picture from magazines and books, send our architect links to all of my favourite design websites, etc.... And I really think I am going to like working with this guy.  His name is Michael Sczesny and he is a partner in a new firm with 2 other architects.  He has been in the industry for over 20 years and has some pretty cool projects under his belt (The Selkirk Hotel at Fort Edmonton Park for one!).  He is super keen on incorporating as much green technology and sustainable materials as possible and also staying within our budget (a big selling point for Ben).

We are hoping for a spring 2011 ground breaking and to be in the house by late 2011 or early 2012.  Mike has a great contractor that he works with exclusively and he too is very keen and excited about our Green Home project.

In the mean time, I think that we are going to try to rent the house for the next 6 months.  The previous owners replaced the hardwood and carpet throughout the house and outside of an abundance of floral wallpaper it is in quite decent shape.  It is a big house and would be great for someone looking for a short term lease, is rebuilding their own house or someone on a sabbatical here in Edmonton.  If you know of anyone who fits that bill--let me know!

My next few posts will be about some of the technologies we are going to incorporate in the house, so bear with me as I do my research into ICF, radiant floor heating, passive solar energy and on-demand hot water heaters!

 

Cheers all, Natasha~

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Natural Urban Home - Here we go....

We've done it again.  I went looking on MLS one day and two months later we have bought a new house/lot.  Not that we NEED a new house, I mean really, we just built the house we are in three years ago and it is a beautiful house, in a great neighborhood.  But like any great life experience, you learn as you go and what we have learned is that this house is not going to grow with our family.  As the kids get older (and bigger) we are all going to want our own spaces clearly defined and there are countless other little things that we would like to do better. Then there is the green aspect of things.  We are a pretty eco-conscious family, my kids know that we need to turn off lights and water to 'save energy'. They know that veggies from a garden or the farmers market taste WAY better than store bought and my three year old is pretty good at knowing what goes in the blue garbage bags versus the white ones.  This new house is the fulfillment of our dream to build a "green" home to match our green lifestyle.

These Natural Urban Home posts are to document the whole experience, for us and for others too.  I hope to learn A LOT during this process and I plan on sharing as much as I can with YOU!  We are planning to implement a fair amount of eco-friendly materials and incorporate as many energy alternatives as we can.  Solar water heating, recycled glass counter tops, bamboo flooring, concrete floors, ICF walls, and the list goes on and on and on....

Here are a few pics of the new lot.  It is a corner lot in a fabulous mature neighborhood, faced a ravine and is just about 13,000 square feet. It is HUGE and The Hubby is not looking forward to all the street shoveling (I think we are going to be hiring a 'guy').  I am interviewing our local green builders and architects right now and will let you know as soon as we have decided on who is going to be helping us realize our dream.

Off we go!!

Natasha~

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