My Purple Odyssey

When I purchased our new place last November I went into it with my eyes wide open, the way that you when you're buying a house.   Thinking to yourself the whole time, “okay not my taste but I can live with it in the short term and do something with it when I move in”.   

As you can see my garage is purple!   A rather dodgy shade to be quite honest, Sami was so funny when we first visited the place.  She said she really liked the color, but now in retrospect I think she was trying to sell me on the house and not to look too closely at the color of the garage – yep, she’s pretty tricky so its possible she was diverting my attention given my reaction when I saw it.

My purple monster!

So ever since we moved into the new place in March I've been scheming to replace my old purple classic with a new double garage.   I hate parking on the street plus there is the added cost and hassle of not finding a park and ending up blocks away.   The main issue is that my car is too wide for the narrow driveway that was built for a car of the 1920’s.  As you can imagine cars have come a long way in the 90 plus years since my house was built.  In fact they've widened considerably over the decades especially if you have a big fat SUV’s (okay that would be me – but my saving grace is that I specifically got a diesel to be more fuel efficient).  ☺

Okay – where to start?   Well I guess I start with a builder, so I canvassed a bunch of friends and uncovered a local guy in my neighborhood that came highly recommended from a friend of mine who he knew and had done work on his friends’ house.

I called and asked him to come over so I could explain what I wanted the quote on.  When he arrived he walked around the old garage and looked at my back laneway, fence and yard – poking here and there.   I explained that I was looking for a quote for a double garage. 

Not so much… did I have plans he enquired innocently?   Ah nope, then you should see my colleague and have him draw some up for you.  Okay I replied eagerly!   Once you have a set of plans then I can give you a quote for the garage.   

And so now the dance begins…

Two weeks later I finally got hold of Norman his architect friend who is rather infirm and unable to move about too freely due to his advanced years.   Don't get me wrong – a lovely chap but his first question was “do you have a land survey?”   Ah nope, I didn't have one of those either - you can see where this is going fast!   

So to get plans drawn up I needed a land survey first – yep, makes sense.   No worries I thought, so early the following week I approached the City of Toronto thinking they would have a survey that I could buy.   Out of luck, surprisingly they don't keep land surveys nor do they have the original survey from when the house was built in 1920!   To proceed I had to find a surveyor and have a new land survey completed afresh… 
   

My deceptively wide SUV...

After three attempts I was finally able to convince a surveyor to quote me on a simple residential survey.  Feeling a tad frustrated with the first couple being too busy and not really interested in such a small job it was another two weeks wasted. Try as I might to convince a surveyor to come look at my land for an hour so I can pay him $1500 was ludicrous   Eventually I got one to accept, and with high hopes and his assistant assuring me they'd be out first thing Monday to do the job I was finally starting to believe that this would actually happen.  

This year we've had an unseasonably cool and wet spring, so I called the following week – “no, sorry too wet to work this week” was the reply “but we'll be out next week…if the weather holds".   The next week dawned beautifully with a week of glorious weather forecast – this is it I thought!

After not hearing from them I called the following week, “actually the guy who normally does the drawings has been sick this week”, when I called the following week the response was “our software was corrupted and now we have to reinstall the software to create your drawings, but with the large backlog it’ll be at least another week before we can get you your drawings.”

OMG!!!!    

Eventually after 6 weeks I got my drawings...  Finally I had something to give to Norman so I drove over and gave them to him.  He assured me that he only needed a couple of weeks to make sure the plans met with all of the city by-laws etc, but to be patient and that he would get back to me as quickly as he could.   Did I have a choice?  ☺

As predicted two more weeks passed before Norman asked me to drop over one Saturday morning to pick up the plans.   “Steady there big fella” – not quite there yet.   

There was a new city bylaw that states that to get a building permit you have to have all of the paperwork, plans etc placed on a CD along with three full sets of photocopies before they will accept it for review.   

“Oi vey” I thought to myself slightly exasperated, when does this self-fulfilling gravy train end!   
Next he sent me over to a friend of his to get everything placed on a CD, plus make photocopies for my submission – yes, shelling out more cash but still no quote.    This whole thing smells like a cottage industry don’t you think?

Wow, who knew it would be so difficult – I felt like I was trying to get through a barrel of molasses.

The prototype for our new double garage - sweet!

So last week finally I fronted up to City Hall to get my long awaited Building Permit. After finding the said department and waiting patiently in line (yes, I was good – no eye rolling, heavy sighing or any other antics – strange for me actually when dealing with bureaucracy). 

When my turn came and I quickly stepped forward and confidently placed everything I had accumulated over the past few months on the counter before me.   The city bureaucrat now eyed me suspiciously (or is that my paranoia?) and asked me why I wanted to build a double garage?   I explained that my car was too wide for the driveway and that I wanted a place to store my car especially during the winter, plus the bigger garage would allow me additional storage – note to self - probably too much info.

Hhhmmm he replied in a rather non-committal way…”I see”.   What does that mean I thought to myself, as he scooped up all of my paperwork and CD and disappeared out into the back. Now my mind was running amok, playing out a host of bad scenarios…”no, sorry we can't approve that because your lot is too thin”, or perhaps “your plans don't meet code…”

Unfortunately he had all the control, and he knew it.  I was standing there (like we all do when faced with the same situation) with my veritable “hat in my hand” hoping that he would okay it, so then I could finally get my long awaited quote to build the garage.

Eventually he came back, and said that after I had paid the fee he would submit my survey, plans and paperwork for review and that I would be hearing from the City…no real timeline was given even as I pressed him ever so gently on it. 

I didn't recognize the address, but when I opened the email late yesterday afternoon I realized as I read the first paragraph that my building permit had been approved!   

Finally I could pass this information along to my builder so he could get me a quote...finally!    
However, when I called him this morning he sounded a little surprised that I had actually gotten everything together so quickly, “wow”, he said that’s great how did you get it done so fast.   FAST? I thought incredulously…FAST? – was he serious?   If you call three and a half months fast then I'd seriously hate to see slow!   I'd call it “glacial”!

The upside is that he’s now working on the quote and assures me that I should have it within the week...now where have I heard that before????   

Somehow I don't think I’m out of the woods just quite yet…I'm just sayin!