A little discouraged

I haven't posted here in for the last little while because I am feeling a little discouraged. This is for a number of reasons.

Firstly, a couple of the people I've talked to seem to think that by budget for the project is at least 100% too small and I should be expecting to pay at least twice what I'm budgeting. Obviously this is a major concern for me because while I really want to have a fencing hall, I do not want to go into debt to do it. There is no way that I can recoupe my costs in an effective way to make going into debt for this a good plan.

That being said, I do think that there are a number of potential income sources, including the local fencing groups and also, the local SCA dance group.

Another concern has been figuring out how to do the roof so that there is actually room to swing a sword. I've managed to find lots of information on roofs but I can't find any information on structural engineering to tell me if, for example, I need to cross bracing you would get from normal rafters for a Gambrel roof. The alternative is a scissor truss and a cathedral ceiling, but that still losses me about two feet in ceiling height and makes a loft impossible.

I'm also considering a post and beam style construction, but I don't know how that would change my costs given the structural requirements of the beam and the expense thereof. None of the building supply places seem to have their building material prices on line so figuring out how much things are going to cost me is not something I can do from my desk.

Yet another possibility is a flat roof, but I suspect that that would require some central support. Which limits the open space I want inside.

Then there is the foundation. Some of the reading I've been doing is telling me that a slab foundation just won't be stable enough and I should consider other, more complicated forms of foundation. I don't know enough to know if this is a good idea or not.

Thankfully I have a wide selection of friends who are willing to help out. What I really need is to sit down with someone who knows what they are doing and see if what I have planned makes sense or if I'm insane to try and do it with the budget I have.

I could always just go with the slab and an ugly steel shell, but while that would solve some of the problem, it would not be an attractive addition to the character of the neighborhood nor would add anything to the value of our property.

I wish I was dating someone who has built homes for a living like a couple of friends of mine.

Feasibility Studies

I've got most of the design finalized in my head now. My current vision has a small loft at the back of the building that will act as storage, a change area and possibly a viewing platform.

The main walls will be about 3m and then the peek of the roof should be a meter and a half above that. While this won't permit things like quarterstaff fencing indoors, we should be able to get away with longsword and, if we are careful, poleaxe.

My big concern right now is figuring out how to have the clear span trusses without breaking the bank.

According to Rona.ca, I should expect to spend between $30 and $40 per square foot. I'd like to see if I can get that down to at least $25 given volunteer labour (aka friends) and see if there are other building techniques (like straw bales or cordwood) that I could also use to help reduce my costs.

Part of the problem for this is that things what are cheep (like the steel or cover-all buildings) are pretty ugly and don't fit the character of the neighborhood. So while they would keep me in the cost range I have for this project, I'd prefer to go with something that won't look terrible.

On the plus side, it looks like I won't have too much trouble finding one of the things I wanted to add: Lockers. I took a walk up to Cohen and Cohen at lunch time and I should be able to get the lockers I want for about $500 total. this will give me space to lock up club equipment and also let people store some stuff on the site without getting worked up about mixing things together. Unfortunately the half hight lockers are not quite tall enough for swords (there was a golf club handy which I used to check) so I'd have to use the full hight lockers for that. Fortunately they had both and it looks like the full hight ones are cheaper.

Getting Started: I really mean it this time

While there are many things with this project that could stop me (money, illness, magic, giant mutant rabbits) the one thing that would stop me cold is if the city says no.

Expecting to be on hold for ages I gave a call to the city (3-1-1) where, after informing me that if it is a life threatening emergency I should instead call 9-1-1, I spoke to a live human moments later. Unfortunately this live person bumped me to the building permits department and I fell into the voice mail of someone named Judith. I was so pleased to almost get a live person I didn't write down their full name.

I hope they call me back.

24 hours later

No one has called me back yet so I tried calling again. This time I spoke to Martin who forwarded me to the Nepean Development Office at extension 41250. I left another message.

I hope they call me back.

24 hours later

They just called me back. The requirements are pretty simple. It can't be taller than 15 feet and the set back is 2 feet from the eves (not the walls). It must be more than 4 feet from the house. Finally, it cannot take up more than 50% of the yard it is in. Other than that, apparently I can do whatever I want from electricity to plumbing to a second floor to anything.

Now I need to generate a plan and submit it.

Preview of the after

If the city allows it and we can afford it, I'd like to see the end result look something like this plan from eplans.com.

And, even though it's tall, I don't have to feel like I'm a jerk for blocking the neighbor's view because there's already a big tree there.

The expected before shot

You may well be wondering exactly what my back yard looks like if I'm considering dropping a giant building into. That is a fair question and thanks to the consumption habits of my continent I am able to take pictures to show you without any snow to hid the still green grass.



This is my yard as seen from the back deck. As you can see it's a pretty big, empty yard. The only feature of note is the decomposing stump in the center of it.

This is the back yard seen from the south east corner of the back yard.

Here I've laid out the walls to show where they would be taking up space in the yard to show how much space we would have left afterwards.
"Walls" from the south east.

"Walls" from the northeast.

6m is plenty of room for a lunch, which is nice and 9m is easily enough for linear line drills.

Step One, The Dreaming

For the last few years my wife and I have been tossing around various dreams: Our 5 year plan for setting up a fencing club, renovations for the house, becoming a fencing instructor, running WMA events and so on. Over the holidays this December, we had a revelation. Instead of adding new space, we need to make better use of the space we already have. There is no way that a small club can really make enough with member dues to be able to rent a usable space in this city.

So, if you can't rent Mohammed a mountain, then build him a mountain in the back yard. Thus began the Salle Project.

Initially I tried to come up with ways to do this as cheaply as possible and settling for what could be a fairly mediocre space. While this kind of dreaming has it's place, especially once I start to see how much this is likely to cost me, I may as well start out with a big dream as I can always scale it back.

There will be some unsurmountable limitations. The big one I'm currently aware of is that we have a limited space in which to build this, and there may be some city regulations on top of this which I have not been able to find out. Right now it looks like I have enough space to for something with a footprint of about 6m by 9m.

So, what does my dream space have?

1. at least 4m ceilings.
   
2. 2 walls of windows (or at least great big doors) to make for an airy, studio like space.
   
3. 2 walls (the other two) of mirrors, ideally seamless.
4. storage space for all of the equipment, possibly upstairs
5. an upstairs?
6. lights!
7. running water
8. a floor that won't hurt when you fall on it

If you build it, they will come

Gentle Readers,

Welcome!

This blog is the story of the Salle I am building in my back yard. Currently this salle is in its planning stages, so expect lots of posts of links and discussion about floor plans, building ideas, and building permits.