Hey everyone! 
Just over two weeks ago I finally got everything submitted for the building permit and for the financing! Woohoo! …………. but…………. then we realized we had a serious problem.

After submitting the financing application and seeing what the monthly payment would be, it became clear that we had a serious math problem. The main purpose for building the cottage was fundamentally a business plan. There were other perks, like being able to build sooner which would allow us to live there sooner, but ultimately the reason was for cash flow.  And therein lies the rub. When we bought the land and came up with the “Auxiliary Dwelling Unit” aka Cottage plan, I was pretty confident that I could build it for about $350k. At the time interest rates were around 2.5%.  Fast forward to today with all the inflation, mixed with a 7%+ interest rate, a challenging lot with a ridiculous foundation, and a final price tag of $600K! the math doesn’t add up. No one will pay $5000 a month to rent a 3 bedroom cottage no matter how cool it is.

SOOOO…. Karianne and I made the decision to pull the plug on the cottage plan . This was not an easy decision as we have put a lot of resources into it.  But as of this week I have withdrawn both my financing and building permit applications.

Not to worry though.. I got a lot of mileage out of the horrible news. I milked it a good deal with Karianne, talking about how “life is not worth living” and “I have no purpose in life” .. you know.. first world problem type stuff. Karianne rolled her eyes at me more than a few times this week.  

At this point … you might be asking.. what now?  That is a very good question! If anyone has any good ideas I am all ears.  For now, we have decided if we are going to spend that kind of money we want to work towards our actual home. Which is great .. but if we can’t build the cottage, we definitely can’t build the dream home. We have tried several times to try and split the dream home into phases. Everytime we looked at it, there never seemed to be a decent way to make that work. And then Karianne came up with the “hair brained” idea to split it horizontally instead of vertically (probably to get me to shut up about how I had no reason to live).

This means we are trying to figure out what will take to build the walkout basement first and make that a complete home.  Then in the future we could come back and build the main floor on top.  Unfortunately, this plan makes the most sense so far!  So that is what we are working towards.  There is one MAJOR obstacle I don’t have a good plan for yet.  How do we build a  temporary roof over the basement until we build the upstairs and the real roof?

Keep in mind this is a modern home plan with FLAT roofs.  Unfortunately, with flat roofs there is still a little bit of slope. I need 1/4″ of slope per foot on the roof. My longest span from the center of the roof  to the exterior wall is 16′.  Which means there is a 4″ difference from the center of the roof to the outside wall.  So if I build a roof over the basement and then convert it into the floor of the main floor, I have to find some way to level it out. I can’t have a 1/4″ per foot slope inside my house :).  If anyone has a great idea to get rid of those 4″ let me know! We have talked through several ideas but nothing seems to be the “right” answer yet.  This is a work in progress, but this is all I have left so I am holding on!

There is a chance we still get to build this year, but I have to get a bunch of new plans drawn up and all that jazz. The best case we would start the foundation in June. That would give me plenty of time to get it water tight before winter. So fingers crossed something still happens this year.. but for now we are definitely delayed until June! Very sad. But I know we will figure something out!
(Feel free to pray for our souls if you think we are totally a lost cause at this point )

Here is to hoping!
Mark