House building Canadian style Part 1.

Buying a new house on a new housing estate is a very different experience from that in the UK. Our last house was new, although it was two years old by the time we had moved in. Gratefully previous possible purchasers had not gone far enough to choose the carpet! We lived on a building site for the next three years or so and watched numerous houses being built the traditional way. our property was deemed large in the UK based on four bedrooms, a double garage and large garden. Prior to landing we looked at houses for sale online and wondered what 3,000 sq. ft. looked like when it was neatly arranged into rooms and of course we can't forget the garages here - double but with careful parking you could fit in three vehicles!!

Once we were settled in with family we started looking at property and found that 2,000 sq. ft. was far too big for us; we could easily lose contact with each other! We quickly discovered that the yards (gardens) were far smaller than we were used to and while some properties had designer gardens others were quite simply left to grass with a few trees and bushes. After a winter here in Calgary we now understand why. It is March, it is spring and the ground is still frozen; certainly no sign of snowdrops or crocuses poking through the soil. It snowed last Friday and flurries are forecast for the early part of the working week.

We thought that we might be better off looking at condos or townhouses as the floor plan would be smaller - far too small and the lack of windows and natural light put us off very quickly. We found some very desirable apartments in Tuscany, west Calgary, they were beautifully appointed, with balconies and green space around the development but we realised that to have the mountain view was at least an extra 20,000 C$ if not more. The cost of these apartments was more than the condos and townhouses we had looked at. Some builders have large homes and the sales staff, we found, had little understanding that we did not want a large property with a handkerchief garden. Finally we found a builder, Avi, who built smaller homes similar in size to our last house in the UK, about 1250 sq.ft. We looked in the west of Calgary but the properties were a tad too small and so we went in search of other developments in and around Calgary. Finally we settled on a development in the north west - Sage Hill. There are number of builders here and we looked at the show homes with more of a critical eye than before. We chose Homes by Avi as we liked the layout of a particular house and then in true British style asked where this particular design would appear on the development. We were shown a plan of the development, the lots allotted to Avi, given a map and told to go and have a look; some lots carried a price tag but certainly not as large as we had previously seen (as much as 250,000 C$). We found a site we liked and which would enable us to have a walk out basement as well as the sun from sunrise to sunset. So we chose to build at Sage Hill and to have the house that overlooks the Prairies. With the development of Stoney Trail it takes only 15 minutes or thereabouts to reach Highway 1 and the journey westward into the mountains! So on August 30th. 2009 we chose the plot, signed on the dotted line and had to pay a slightly larger deposit than most buyers as would as we were having a rather small mortgage. We spent time talking with a number of banking establishments about a mortgage; our bank wasn't as helpful as another, being more preoccupied with the fact that we were landed migrants, rather than the fact that we had money from the sale of a home prior to landing. The other Bank treated us like real people who had made the decision to migrate and settle in a new country; they took our credit reports (Experian and Equifax) made copies and talked over the mortgage process and procedure in Canada. What's more the offer was made within a few days and because the house was yet to be built we had a builders mortgage offer which secured the rate! Wonderful. Once the builder had submitted the house plans to the City of Calgary and they were accepted foundations and footings were in, this was November 2009 and we were getting excited!

We visited, and still visit, the house site at the weekends, when we had time to walk around and speak with Todd the Avi Homes rep on site; he was invaluable to us and helped us understand the building process. We spent time going around the show home and were shown what were upgrades and what was standard. In October we visited the Homes by Avi selection centre: we had planned a Saturday afternoon initially to see what it was all about and aren't we glad we did! On display different kitchen layouts, appliances, flooring, wall and floor tiles, hardwood, taps in fact you name it and it was there. There a few folk around to help. Our meeting had been scheduled with Megan the following week in October. She was 'awesome' as we deliberated colours, appliance upgrades all inter mingled with questions, questions and more questions. In fact the carpet took longer to choose than anything else even the hardwood floor to the great room! We did upgrade the underlay throughout the house where the carpet would go. It wasn't as bad as we thought and we only overspent our initial budget by a little. It was very obvious though just how much you could spend on upgrades without thinking. Shortly after this meeting we went to the sound system place - yes all wiring is in place at the time of the build not as an after thought. So the sound system for the TVs, the computer, telephone and home security wiring were all discussed, priced and added into the price of the house after the deposit had been paid. During this time the framers were framing the house: up went the walls followed by the roof and then the windows! Internal framing of the walls goes in next and gradually you begin to see the house taking shape.
By now we were into December, we knew that time would be lost due to bad weather and we also knew that work would not really start on insulating the property until the roof and sidings were on. It wasn't until the second week of January 2010 that the roof went on; asphalt shingles as the wooden structure cannot really support ceramic tiles. Inside though the furnace had been added and heating ducts, pipes and vents were appearing throughout the property. Externally it was beginning to look like a house! The floor of the deck had also been added at the back of house, Bill had decided quite early on that it would run the length of the house rather than just a little thing outside the kitchen door. Both of us are looking forward to drinking tea/coffee/wine on the deck in the sunshine. Cheers!

Just by Spray Lake and Mount Shark

We enjoyed a very pleasant snow shoe last weekend in the vicinity of Spray Lake and the intersting profile of Mount Shark. Our final destination was Karst Lake via Watridge Lake. The sun shone, the temperatures rose and the vistas opened up as we progressed along our chosen route.

The route is multi use, namely for cross country skiers, snow shoers and winter walkers. As we stopped to take in the scenery we chatted to other folk out enjoying the great outdoors. At times we felt overdressed as we passed some quite scantily clad people; short sleeves with no hat or gloves visible but no one was in shorts! While some folk were clad in warmer gear as they had been into the back country areas.

The scenery was 'awesome'; the snow clad mountains surrounding us and that bright, bright sunshine and the blue sky. Thank goodness for sunglasses it was far too bright to be without them. We arrived at Watridge Lake which was completely frozen and covered in a layer of snow. It was frozen enough to walk/ski on and we watched as two people made their way across the lake and as two skiers made their way towards us and like us took time to take in the view and have a refreshment break. As ever Bill always comes up trumps at lunchtime, I don't know how he does it!

From the Lake we found a path which made its way towards the forest, wide at first and then quite narrow. Not a place for cross country skiers but there was evidence that snow shoers had been before us. In the forest where the sun's rays hadn't reached for a while the snow covered trees glistened in the light, it felt cooler too. The trail narrowed even more and began slowly to climb. We came to a bench and we watched and listened to the stream as it made its way down towards the Watridge Lake. The final few switchbacks took us to our journeys end, Karst Lake. Not quite a lake but a large pool of water emerging from the limestone.

Now it was easy to understand why the stream was full of mosses - all due to the minerals in the water. There was also a bench, not just to rest after the last push to each Karst Lake but to admire the view, mountains bathed in bright sunshine.

We were the only two people taking in this view and on our return journey there were many times on the trail when we were alone with this magnificent scenery.

Is this winter .....?

It's Sunday February 7th. 2010 and this morning as we headed out of a foggy and chilly Calgary (minus 13C) we wondered what the day would hold for us in Peter Lougheed Provincial Park. We had elected to go snow shoeing along the closed section of Highway 40. Not far along Highway 1 the fog lifted and we were greeted with sunshine and bright white snow along the Highway - the fog produced hoar frost features but left the greying snow gleaming and glistening white.

A few of us turned off onto Highway 40, some turned off towards Kananaskis Village and Nakiska; offering more than 60 runs with 50 or so open for downhill skiing. The rest of us drove further towards the end of the road in winter and the delights of snow shoeing and cross country skiing deeper in the Provincial Park itself.

We parked our car with the two others at the road closure sign; it was bright, the sky was blue and temperatures were rising. We changed our shoes for winter boots, gaiters and snow shoes, locked the car and set off along the closed road covered in snow.

We only passed four skiers near the midpoint of our walk, the mountains opened up as we progressed on our route. The only sounds we heard were that of the light breeze, the odd bird call, running water under ice and planes flying overhead! there were numerous footprints of deer, coyotes, mountain sheep and Wapiti (elk) in the snow. Despite the fact that Bill had the camera ready to snap any living creature none appeared to want to have their picture taken!!

It was so warm that we discarded our hats and gloves for the return journey.

We saved our flask of hot chocolate for the end and as ever it tasted good. The return journey toward Highway 1 afforded us views of the snow capped mountains and Barrier Lake which was frozen, although at the edges the ice was thawing. As we approached Calgary we could see the bank of fog, temperatures dropped and the headlights and fog lights went on. Another grand day in the mountains.

Another opportunity to snow shoe!

Last weekend, as the weather was set fair and most Calgarians were heading for the slopes, we decided to explore another area for snow shoeing. En route we passed the turn off for Kananaskis Village and Bill muttered something about going in for a look ..... well I never. We continued on to the visitor centre for Peter Lougheed Provincial Park; the car park was packed as was the centre. We checked on conditions, looked at possible snow shoe routes and returned to the vehicle. Normally we would turn right but this time we decided to turn left and head for Canyon day use car park and Upper Kananaskis Lake. There were a couple of routes we could choose from but we opted for the lower lakeside trail. Through the trees we caught glimpses of the mountains in their winter cloaks and as the clouds lifted, well ...... awesome (using a Canadianism). The trail went up and down and several folk passed us as they returned to the car park, all wearing different types of snow shoes and Bill could tell me which make not just by looking at the snow shoe but also by the imprint they left behind, impressive or what!

The Lake was was covered in ice and snow and at the journeys end the mountains looked inviting but not really with snow shoes, more like ice climbing. A chill wind whipped up across the Lake and so we sought shelter for lunch. We found a picnic table in amongst some trees and which was not covered in snow. Zof started to put out our sandwiches, fruit and drink rather too quickly a couple of grey jays appeared. As ever Zof took pity; poor little birds, it's cold, aren't they cute ... yeah, yeah, so she threw them a couple of crumbs - big mistake next thing we know there are at least eight of them all around us in the trees and then they started to swoop down to take our tasty sandwiches out of our hands. We put the fruit away pretty quickly. These 'cute' little birds thought Bill was playing with them as he swirled his hiking stick in the air to stop them from swooping on us and into our rucksacks. Our return route took closer to the Lake itself, although we were walking on snow there was thick ice beneath it. In places the ice stood almost vertical and we could see how the water had frozen making patterns in the ice. Zof picked up a piece, it was clear and blue but not minty as in the Fox's glacier mint advert of long ago.

The car park was emptying gradually as we returned, the sun had attracted many people to snow shoe around the Lake and many more joined us on the journey towards Highway 1 and onto it. Another grand day and those views .......

A glorious day snow shoeing

We spent a day snow shoeing in Peter Lougheed Provincial Park with our final destination being Chester Lake. The snow shoe trail was clearly way marked all the way and snow shoers outnumbered cross country skiers. The day was relatively warm at minus 3C in the car park and there was an abundance of snow. We quickly donned our snow shoes, hats and gloves, not forgetting lunch, water and a flask of hot chocolate. Without Bill seeing Zofia had also packed a few treats for the journey.

The route took us through forestry, a winding route with a couple of step ascents. Our snow shoes have heel raising bars at the back for steep ascents and these support the heel when going up. Bill made a wise choice when we purchased our snow shoes, after much research he decided on Mountain Trail produced by a Canadian company. The snow was deep in places; in this photograph Zofia's left hand pole has gone in quite deeply but we don't think it quite reached ground level.

Once out of the forestry we saw the hills in the distance and would have missed Chester Lake completely as the trail skirted to the left, there was a sign which said no fishing, so we knew we had reached our final destination. Chester Lake was frozen and covered in white snow around it we had views of Windy Peak

and Mount Galatea. A glorious day for snow shoeing, some sun, a few flakes of snow and wonderful views.

Winter brings such lovely scenes

Last weekend we had a hoar frost here in Calgary so out came the camera

Once the sun came out and the temepratures rose the frost dropped off of the trees and bushes. More snow is predicted on Monday and Tuesday before Christmas so we shall see what scenes it will bring.

Minus 35C (with a windchill)

Temperatures have certainly dropped following the first major blizzard of the winter and with the windchill it certainly feels and is cold.

Calgary Zoo puts its animals indoors during the winter months and in their place a colourful light display is put on courtesy of the sponsors Enmax. We ventured to the Zoo not only to see the lights but also to Bill's works Christmas bash; apologies for some of the photos but it was cold and Bills hands were shaking a little. We will return at a later date when perhaps it is not minus 35C!