Tag Archives: Lane Home

We’ve signed the Part 2 of our agreement with the builder, so they are going ahead with the detailed plans for the laneway house.  The people up the hill in the big house got some (sort of) bad news, their current budget will not allow them to completely finish all the plans they have — they are going to have to cut up the remodel into smaller projects.  Right now they are looking at gutting the basement and completely building the studio suite, roughing in the rest of the basement to finish later.  When the laneway house is in place, of course, their property will be worth a lot more, and they could borrow enough to take on some of those other tasks.  They just don’t want to get in over their heads financially now by taking out a larger loan.

I am tidying up our shelves, so I put away some of the family photos until we are in our new home.  We’ll have to stage the condo to sell it — clearing out our personal belongings so potential buyers can more easily see themselves in the place.  We don’t want people thinking that they’re in OUR place, we want them to be able to see their things here.

We’re also replacing the builder-grade vanity bar lights in the bathrooms with new fixtures.  After we’d painted the bathrooms, DD suggested we swap out the ubiquitous bars with something more stylish.  We checked out the big box stores, but they were quite pricey and we want to do this as thiftily as possible.  We also looked at Craigs List, but most of the stuff there were fixtures people had pulled out of their bathrooms — the same ones we were replacing.  We wanted something nicer — but we know that one of the first places people make changes is in their bathrooms — why spend the money on something they are just going to tear out?

Then I remembered Restore, the retail outlet for the items Habitat for Humanity have donated.  It’s not just used stuff — although there are lots of used doors, shelves, and fixtures.  It’s obvious that sometimes builders get too much tile or flooring for a project, so the remainder goes to Restore.  We nipped up a couple of Sundays ago.  There were lots of friendly people to help, and within a few minutes we had found our lights.  Still in the box, they are easy to install and look great.

This weekend the designer, Laurel, came over to show us the concepts the team had come up with for the renos and the laneway house.  This is the preliminary preliminary part of the design process.

First they showed us all the plot lines, etc. of the current home. The property slopes quite a bit from the front to the back, and that gives them some chances to put the laneway house onto more than two levels.

Then they showed us three ideas for the basement reno.  The idea is to split the space into a legal suite and a family room/bedroom/bathroom/laundry room combo for the homeowners (DD and DSIL).  The first plan was a split with one third suite and two thirds family room etc — not quite right.  Then they showed a design for a half and half arrangement — too much suite and not enough family etc.  Then, just like that Goldilocks story, they showed one that was just right! The suite will be a studio, but the family room, etc, is lovely and spacious, with room for a nice bedroom.

Then they showed us a very clever way to split the back yard between two spaces, that could be combined just by opening a gate.  Very handy when one of the homes will have a dog and the other home will not. Or will have a different dog.

Then onto the laneway design.  The first design they showed us was the main floor — bedroom with closets, bath, laundry, etc.  Nice, but…..Then they showed us the design tweaked by moving the closets out of the bedroom and into a separate space with the washer.  Yes!  Love it.  Love the staircase.  Love the idea of French doors onto the yard half way up the staircase (using the slope in the yard to provide access at that level).  The top floor looked great, too.  Small galley kitchen with counter for eating.  Very small sitting room with good-sized deck.  Loved it.  Loved the roof lines, too.  Many levels of flat roof (living roofy-garden) with a gable open to the top floor over the stair case.  So light and airy!  They also had plans drawn up for a top floor with a gable roof — there would be more storage on top, but the design was ix-nayed by Cal, who just didn’t like it as well. I didn’t like it as well, but it was also cheaper.  When someone says cheaper, even if I know I don’t like it nearly as well, something deep in my wallet says to give it a chance. So it’s good  that I don’t have to consider that plan.  Too much choice makes a person insane.

Next Saturday we will go for the Lane Home Tour put on by the Vancouver Heritage Foundation.  DD had to bow out because she is attending a wedding, so we were able to offer her ticket to Laurel.  Looking forward to seeing what other people are doing with their homes.

Up, as in “above”.

When we first started looking into the different styles of laneway houses, I thought I wanted a pitched roof. The reasoning was that the style would fit in better with the main house, which has a cottage roof.  Plus I thought we would get more storage, as anything under 4 feet in height is not included in the overall square footage.

But then I started looking at what the top floor of a pitched roof laneway house looks like, and it seemed a little … cramped.  Not so bad if all you want upstairs is a bed and bath combo, but we want our kitchen and sitting room up there.  Because we are so strictly limited as to the height of the finished building, the pitch really cuts into the living space. The ceiling seems to press down on the rooms. And we definitely lost wall space for shelves, so the storage problem/solution was all swings-and-roundabouts.

So, a flat roof was looking more suitable.  But not literally looking better.  A flat roof with traditional shingles or tar-and-gravel will look like some kind of elevated asphalt slab when you see it from the deck of the main house.  Great if you’re installing a heli-pad, but we are building in someone’s garden.

The answer, of course, is a living roof.

We discussed it with the builder, and it turns out that they are affiliated with the Live Roof system.  Laurel explained that they use sedum plants, a very hardy succulent. They look great all year round.  A living roof will improve the livability of the home by increasing the insulation of the roof (cooler in summer, warmer in winter) and not absorbing heat all day.  They help mitigate the Urban Heat Island problem so many cities have.  And they can last twice as long as traditional roofs.

And voila!

We are starting from scratch, so any structural changes to support a heavier roof will be accommodated from the beginning.

We are really looking forward to this!

We have chosen our builder/designer.  The company is called Novell.  How did we choose these fine people over all the other fine people?  Luckily Dear Daughter did most of the heavy lifting.

As you know, DD and DSIL want some changes to their basement, like a new bedroom, family room, bath, laundry room, and luxurious though eensy legal suite.  We want a laneway house.  Ergo, which always means I’m going to use logic to explain this, we needed someone who wanted to build a laneway house but also was comfortable making renovations to an existing structure.  Novell fit the bill.

DD interviewed dozens of contractors, some of whom had done both renovations AND lane homes.  And after a lengthy elimination process, chose Novell as their candidate.

I interviewed three laneway builders, and after a short process, chose our (unnamed) candidate.

We all gathered to met both candidates (separate appointments, of course, we are not cool enough to handle both at once). Novell showed up on time, OC (our candidate) was 20 minutes late (bad GPS). Novell has experience primarily in renovations, but was super keen to try their (qualified) hands at building a laneway home.  OC told us straight to our face that, though they had experience doing both, they were “trying to get out of the renovation business” because they didn’t like to do it.  Novell explained that, if any expenses were incurred due to their comparative inexperience, they would absorb them because they think it’s an exciting idea, and would love to have laneway design/build in their (extensive) experience.  OC said that their initial quote had been low.  Why?  They had discovered they were not leaving themselves an adequate profit margin, and had to raise their prices.  (note:  don’t tell us you WERE bad businessmen and now you know better.  LIE TO US so we don’t feel like we missed the last ride on the merry-go=round). Oh, and that adorable laneway house I had seen in our neighbourhood that we thought was, you know, adorable — the one that convinced me that OC would be Our Candidate?  OC don’t like it.  They are embarassed about it.  One must ask, “WTF? Why did you build it? And what will be wrong in the one you build us?”

So we made our decision.  One deciding factor, that is not quantifiable, is that we just liked the people. We felt comfortable talking with them.  We didn’t have any qualms handing over hundreds of thousands of dollars to them.  You know when you meet someone?  And you just know you can work with them?  We felt it.

We’ve met with Novell again to discuss the broad stokes of the project.  Once again totally comfortable with them.  They are raring to go — and so are we.