Money flying out of the account

 2010 was going to be an exciting year, now that the lot had been cleared, we could start building the house. We had the winter to investigate and gather information on basement types (poured, block, insulated cement forming etc...) I really enjoy that. You can never have too much information.  There were two things I was not involved in when I built the house I am in now, the footings and the building of the basement.  I was determined to do this as I wanted be a part in each phase of building my house.  ICF (Insulated Cement Forming) was the only one I could do by myself and in my mind the most energy efficient.  There are a few companies that manufacture ICF but with a lot of research and talking with contractors that have worked with ICF, I decided to go with Nudura.  I will get into that further in following blogs.  Now with the basement decided upon, I approached  a friend that was able to draw up plans for me. I gave him all the information that Lisa and I had decided upon and he performed his magic. A few weeks later after countless phone calls and emails, the plans were ready to be picked up.  Only a few minor changes had to be made.  Spring was on the horizon and I wanted to start digging in early May. Many people are afraid to deal with the town offices for some reason? They are a wealth of information that make your building experience a  more enjoyable one.  I asked what was needed to build a house on flood plain in Bracebridge and what costs I could expect. "Sorry I asked!!"  Here is where the money started flying out of my account.  911 sign-$22.65, driveway permit-$350.00 (and I already had a driveway), flood plain survey-$1400, lot survey with house location-$1076.25, building permit (involved a few things), house plans-$600, heat loss calculations-$500, septic permit-$300, the building permit itself came to $2256 ( total calculation of sq.ft and value). The big shocker was the lot levy ( there are many other names for this). I had to pay the Town of Bracebridge and the District of Muskoka the grand total of $ 7,725, ouch!!  Before I even put a shovel into the ground I had spent $12,229.90

Working on the driveway

Removing Oak stump

.  It's always a good idea to get a few quotes for anything that you aren't going to do yourself. I had 2 contractors give prices to dig my basement and do some work on the driveway. It was nice that the contractor I chose had previously done some work at my parents cottage, and had done a good job.I still wanted to be sure he was in the ball park, and he was.

Keeping it level

Time to start digging the basement, and digging in the Canadian Shield is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get. All we were hoping for, was enough room so we could could put our laundry room and our utilities down in the basement and if we got more room that would be a bonus.  We did hit some bedrock but we were able to dig and brake it up.  We lucked out and we ended up with a  full basement in depth and in area.  It took 3.5 days and $5,500 later I was ready to start the footings. Approximately $18,000 spent so far and I haven't bought any house material.