Tom’s guys, led by foreman Jon, have been hard at work beefing up the structure of the house. We knew that we would have to add some heft to the house, because our plan calls for opening up the main living space in the back, and the span of the second floor would be too [...]
Tom and his crew have started removing material from the inside of our house, and it’s quite a revealing process (see what I did there?) They say it’s going to take about three weeks, but they’ve already managed a lot of work in one. Amazing what four dedicated guys with crowbars can do. When we [...]
It’s been a bit of a long haul. We’ve been working for a while to get to the point where our renovation was under way, and work has finally started. The major sticking points were finding the right contractor, getting the building permits, and finding a place to live during the reno. We met with [...]
We met with Yoko our kitchen designer last week. She and Cindy had met earlier to get the basics covered, and Yoko came back with her first set of plans for our new kitchen. The biggest change to our house (with the exception of the dormers on the third floor) is that we are moving [...]
Tagged house, renovationOkay, we need some help from the interwebs. We need to add dormers to our third floor, and we are investigating two possibilities. The first is a straight dormer, where the walls of the dormer come straight down vertically, and create another “wall” surface. The second choice is a hip roof, where the wall of [...]
Tagged house, renovationI just got back from City Hall where we were in the Committee of Adjustments meeting. We were 14th on the list, so I got to hear all about the new critical care wing of St. Mike’s and a new restaurant on Dovercourt. Our appearance took about two minutes. Thanks to the excellent presentation by [...]
Tagged house, renovationThe debate around 204 Beech is blowing up. I have been trying to read all that I can about 204 Beech. That means hitting “refresh” repeatedly on the #204beech Twitter search, reading the Save 204 Beech blog, and getting into the comments at OpenFile. In my opinion, the best place to read about 204 Beech [...]
Tagged 204 Beech, TorontoCrossposted from Scimatic Titus Brown has a very funny spoof about how scientists will probably react to the NSF’s moves towards data management plans. Go read it, I’ll wait. After detailing all manner of horrible data, licensing and source code management techniques, he closes with Meanwhile we will continue publishing exciting sounding (but irerproducible [sic]) [...]
Tagged Science, ScimaticIntroduction I wrote this a few days ago and didn’t publish it, because I wanted to think about it a bit. But now the story has exploded since Councillor Sandra Bussin has gotten involved against the Teehans. More details at the National Post and Open File. I hope to add more later. Original I’ve been [...]
Tagged 204 Beech, TorontoBecause we are going in front of the Committee of Adjustments, Paul the Architect recommended that we show our preliminary plans to our neighbours so that they won’t be surprised when they get a letter from the city informing them of the hearing about our changes. So far, it’s been a great opportunity to introduce [...]
Tagged house, renovation