I have always wanted to "build" something, whether it be a house, or a building. It's been on my list of goals for a long while actually, and while I am not building the actual building itself, I am building the office, mezzanine and relocating my plant. I have never really understood the ins and outs of dealing with trades, the city and permits, or contractors, and I always wanted to know how that all works. People who've done it before can tell you how it goes, but until I actually go through the motions, I don't actually understand fully how its done.
Realtors talk about engineers, architects, planners, trades, permits, the city, bylaws, lawyers, conveyancing, contractors, and about a million other related parts of the process like it's common place stuff. Bankers talk about close dates, rates, terms, deposits, down payments, conveyancing, blended or straight line, etc.... They have done this their whole life. Realtors have done this their 1,000 times. The contractors have done this their whole lives. The banking part I get, cause I've bought houses before, but commercial lending is different. What none of these people think about when they're talking to you, is that you may not know what they hell they are talking about sometimes. They assume you know the terminology, or the order of processes and whatnot.
For example, the realtor and bankers talk about conveyancing like it's assumed you know what that means. Now I do, but until I hired a lawyer for myself, I never really knew what they were talking about, and nobody tells you. (And by the way, I don't quite understand why I pay for my lawyer AND the banks lawyers, except that "it's just the way it is". When I suggested to my bank that it just doesn't seem right to pay for their lawyer to fight against my lawyer, my account rep said "Its just the cost of doing business." Like, WTF? I hate when people who aren't paying the bill tell me "It's the cost of doing business." Are you not doing business? It could be your fucking cost of doing business. Anyways, I digress.)
So after some delays with the conveyancing, the units are finally mine, and I can begin the build out of the office and mezzanine. I will have 1550 square feet office space upstairs, and 700 sq feet downstairs office. I don't need all that upstairs office space, but I can find many ways to use it down the road, or try to rent it out. Maybe a recording studio would be good use of it hehe. We'll see.
I don't have the permits back from the city yet, so I am not sure what kind of pain I am about to incur in the coming months, but I am excited to start to see something happen soon. I will keep you abreast of my build as it happens, if you care to follow along.
