Why Do It?

My husband, son, daughter, cat, and myself live in a tiny little bungalow, which I bought before we got married almost 15 years ago. The house was built in 1919, and it is 625 square feet, although that doesn't include the finished basement, so our actual living space is more like 1100 square feet.

The one washroom in the house is in the basement, and thank heavens my dh is "only" 5'11" and my son is still not very tall (just turned 13 this year) because the basement is hazardous to taller people. I remember the first time I got into the shower, the water hit me in the middle of my back because stepping up into the tub meant that the shower head aims just too low for anyone except a child to get under it. Needless to say we put a handheld unit in so we can have proper showers.

So the house is a crappy little sh*tbox, and the walls are cracking and there is no airflow and we keep cleaning mold out of the basement bedroom (and everywhere else), but we do like the neighbourhood the house is in. It's a quiet street, with a dead end, and with 24 hour public transit all around us in every direction; bus service has just improved a great deal recently, and the plan is to build a subway line and a light rail transit line at our 2 nearest intersections, so the access is just going to get better and better. We have decent schools nearby, and good access to the 2 closest universities, which means the kids can live at home if they go to those universities, which we are going to encourage in order to cut down on university expenses.

Anyhow, all of these points make this a good location to live in, but clearly, we need a bigger and better house. We talked about just moving into another home, but housing prices are still very high, especially in the places where there is the most public transit access, and plus we would really like to have the home that will work for us, and we would like it to have the least possible carbon footprint and be cost-efficient, all of which leads us to the decision to build our own home.