EHM: Coventry Edition - Day 61 A roof & windows

It's Day 61 of my Extreme Home Makeover: Coventry Edition, the unofficial name of the building of my new home by Coventry Homes in Edmonton, AB. Though we did have more snow a week ago, most has melted. Thankfully the spring rains haven't come yet--a good thing since most of the roof is on but there are still some openings.

In two months, my home is starting to become recognizable, though there have been some surprises. On paper, the house looked to have a decent amount of space between the right corner of the garage and the city fence. This is the space we need to be able to get to our front door. It's a bit tight! We're considering asking the city if we can remove the last 2-3 panels of the fence. Don't know if they'll do it or not, but it sure would make life easier.

Luckily, the garage has a door into the house. It leads to an open hallway that goes both straight and to the right, which will give us the room we need to move our furniture into the various rooms.

The windows have been installed on the entire main floor. What I love are the windows in my dining nook, and the sliding glass door that will lead out onto the deck, where our hot tub will sit. These windows are tall and large and I'll have beautiful morning sunlight in my dining & kitchen area. I love the morning light.

The front door is also in. There's a window at the top of the door and another one above the door as well. My office window looks out onto the front porch. Not my ideal view, but it'll work for me. I like to have natural light in my office during the day.

The basement windows aren't in yet and there's a lot of work to do inside the house. A staircase has been built to the basement level but right now I have rocks down there. Soon, they'll be adding the floor. Then they'll be framing the basement rooms.

For now, I'll be content in the nice home we're renting. We sold our old house just over a week ago. We had a week to find a place to live and move. It's been crazy busy with packing, moving and unpacking, along with cleaning the old house. I also visited some of my old neighbors to say goodbye and thanked them for being so wonderful. I still have a few others to see. Of course, we haven't moved far so I expect I'll see them around.

Here's Chai, our 2-year-old Pomeranian, claiming her space in the rental. Doesn't she look like quite the princess? Her full name is "Venti Chai Tea Latte With Two Shots of Cinnamon Dulce". I named her after my favorite Starbucks drink.

Ok, not really. Her name is Chai-Chan. Wherever I go, Chai follows.

And this ends Day 61 of my Extreme Home Makeover: Coventry Edition. If you're considering building a new home in Edmonton, I highly recommend Coventry Homes.

Extreme Home Makeover: Coventry Edition - The walls go up

Things have been crazy busy the past few weeks, and there has been a lot of progress on the building of our new home during our Extreme Home Makeover: Coventry Edition. We sold our current home. Twice! Both deals fell through because the buyers were unable to get financing or didn't have the down-payment. So our house is back on the market.

If you're looking for a home in SE Edmonton, the house we're selling has a huge pie lot, double attached garage, lots of backyard room and a defined garden area, plus 2 apple trees--and a prime location close to schools, buses and a shopping centre within a 3-minute walk. It's listed on the MLS site HERE.


As for the new home that Coventry is building for us, the basement walls are all up and done; the floor will be poured later. Right now it is filled with rock.

We can see the basement windows and the side door. Without the inner walls framed, the basement looks huge. Later, there will be 3 bedrooms a large bathroom, a family room, a storage area/kitchenette and the utility room.

Framing the basement comes later.

The framing stage for the main floor is the next major stage after the basement walls are done and the floor for the main floor is secured. This is an exciting stage of the build. This is where the homeowner can see his or her realization of the 'dream home' or plan coming together, recognizable now. It's also the time when small errors can be made by the builders. Hey, no one's perfect--and no company either. The sign of a good builder is whether they recognize the error soon enough and fix it quickly. We've been fortunate in that Coventry Homes is a top-notch builder. A window was placed in the wrong room (that far narrow window in the pic to the left) and was quickly and easily fixed a day later.

In the pic on the left you can see the large windows in my kitchen nook. They overlook one corner of our backyard--the largest area of our backyard in fact. The windows also look out over a walkway and treed area, plus a neat circular park with benches and trees. Of course all the trees are young ones, but give them a few years and this will be lush and beautiful. The best thing: no neighbors sharing the back fence (like we have in our current home).

More walls went up and then they started framing the rooms inside the main level of the house, about 1660 sq. ft. of living space. My (and my husband's) space! There are stairs going into the house from the garage or to the front door and stairs into the basement. But I'll rarely go downstairs, which is a good thing since stairs have been challenging for me lately. Everything I need, including a nice sized laundry room is on the main level.

The left photo shows our bedroom. One thing we learned from building our first house, when the walls are framed, suddenly the rooms seem smaller as your mind tries to fill in the drywall and finishing touches. It's a weird sensation and can cause you to panic to the point where your husband has to go out and measure everything himself and compare it to the floor plans you've had drawn up.

What seems like a small space can turn out to be bigger than you thought, which is exactly what happened when we compared our new bedroom to the one we have now and the one on the plan. Our new room IS a bit bigger than our existing one (and the correct size on the plan); it just looks smaller.

All the rooms on the main floor have been framed. Yesterday, I walked into my laundry room, bedroom, walk-in closet, and the huge open-concept living room/kitchen/dining nook, which will be bright with the morning sun through all the nook windows and sliding glass door. I love morning sun! As I stood near the open windows and overlooked my dirt backyard, some Canada Geese flew overhead, honking and announcing their arrival and that spring is here.

The 3-car attached garage (my hubby's favorite part of the new house) saw walls going up too. There's the door from the garage into my house (left).

Once the walls were in place, they started adding the roof. This is where the design of the front of the house starts to take shape. See that single car garage on the right? That's my space.

All in all, building our second home has been exciting and very fulfilling.

In the words of author Stephen J. Cannell's popular character Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith (George Peppard) from the A-Team, "I love it when a plan comes together."

And the plan for my dream home is shaping up very nicely! Thank you, Coventry Homes!

~Cheryl Kaye Tardif,
bestselling Canadian author

EHM: Coventry Edition - the weeping moat gets rocked by the telebelt

On Day 17 of my Extreme Home Makeover: Coventry Edition, the empty "moat" around the basement walls of my new house is filled with rocks, after weeping tile is conveyed to the bottom by the telebelt.

No, a telebelt isn't some sort of covert teleportation device one might see on the Sci-Fi channel. It's a monstrous truck that shoots rocks down a conveyor belt. And contrary to its name, weeping tile isn't some kind of sappy, wet Italian marble tile but hard plastic piping with holes in it.

According to WiseGeek.com, "These porous pipes work with formations known as aggregates to allow collection of excess water from the surrounding ground, effectively eliminating an overabundance of groundwater in the area." In other words, it channels excess water to a sump or storm drain. Without this, your basement could flood, which I suspect would cause a lot of weeping.

Next, a backhoe will cover the rocks in the "moat" with dirt. This will allow me to walk around the outside of my basement without fearing I'll fall into a big hole, then drown because it starts raining and I can't get out--a recurrent nightmare I've had since I was a child. Seriously.

Yes, you can probably expect that I'll tackle that fear in one of my suspense thrillers.

And thus ends today's lesson in weeping moats and rocky telebelts.

Day 5 EHM: Coventry Edition - the "Ho-Man" digs our lot

We drove out to our lot today, on Day 5 of our Extreme Home Makeover (EHM): Coventry Edition, and were met by Ryan, our "Ho-Man" or "Digger-Man". Ryan spent a lot of time answering my questions. Like, "Why are those sticks in the ground over there?" (They mark the corners of the house.)

Marc, my husband, and I were surprised how BIG the hole in the ground is. Ryan too. He said our house would be a "mansion" next to the other boxier two-storeys. Ours is a bungalow, a large bungalow. My dream home--minus the indoor swimming pool.

Speaking of swimming pools, our daughter's bff Alyssa is upset that we're moving. We live 5 houses away from her, and she's our other "daughter", so I don't blame her. Alyssa told us she'd be okay with our move (a 3 minute drive dow the road) if we put in a swimming pool for her. Well...if it rains in the next couple of days, that hole in our lot will be a gigantic pool. Alyssa! Bring your bathing suit! :-)

So back to our "Ho-Man"--and by the way, that's what he called himself--he told us that the Footings-Guys would be putting in the wood frame outline of the basement floor and filling it with concrete today. We're going to drive by after supper and check it out. I'll get a pic then of the footings and post it here...I know, how exciting. lol

And now for a message from my sponsor...

If you decide to build with Coventry Homes, let me know. Once you've finalized your deal and your house is built, I will give you a signed copy of my 2 bestselling thrillers--Divine Intervention and The River. Don't forget to tell Coventry I sent you; this is how we track the people I'm giving books to. This offer is good for all of 2010.

The second offer: If you contact our salesman and area manager Darren Rose and build with Coventry Homes and mention my name to him, Darren will give you an extra something special sometime around move in day. He's not saying what, but I know it'll be awesome!

Contact Darren Rose at laurel@coventry-homes.com or 780-757-5500