An Historic Moment in our Small Project’s Life

front view

On Monday we finally heard the news we were hoping for: our financing is approved (!), nearly four months after we initiated our application (read the whole story). Then on Wednesday, I successfully submitted for our Building Permit (our second attempt after being turned away on a number of formatting technicalities).

It’s beginning to sink in that our vision may actually be realized in bricks and mortar – or, in our case, mostly wood and insulation. It will become even more real when construction starts within the next month.

2 years and 8 months after we closed on our property, it feels really good to have arrived at this moment. There are many things that could hinder us from finishing construction, but there is now nothing that will prevent us from starting. And as we’ve grown accustomed to overcoming challenges every step of the way – from losing out three times before finally landing the winning bid on our house, to facing combative neighbours, to being denied financing (to name a few!) – I’m feeling confident that we will be able to resolve the ones to come as well.

In the spirit of pretending we’ve just won a big award, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the many wonderful friends and co-conspirators who have helped us get this far: our many supportive friends and neighbours; our creative design team (Mark, Kate, Jonathan, Ian), our enthusiastic and flexible builder, Russ; helpful city staff and a progressive City Council; our friends in the mortgage business pointing us in the right direction, and our dogged mortgage specialist (thanks Paul!) who was willing to keep working with us despite our early setbacks. Thank you thank you thank you!

To mark this moment before steeling ourselves for what’s to come, I thought I’d shared some last photos of our house in its current form. Thanks to my friend and co-worker Chris George for snapping these beauties.

rear view

front corner view

what’s to come