Progress so far

I do mean to update the blog as things move along, and they are moving along these days.

But work and other things get in the way, so now there are too many changes for one post.

It should be chronological, of course, but I'm most excited about what happened today, and the day before.
So perhaps I'll go at it backwards.

May 18th

Found a great kitchen (cabinets, quartz counters, sink, taps) on Used Victoria the night before. So unusual! Dark blue beadboard with no visible hardware at all. Very traditional material with a very modern look. They were custom-made by Swiftsure, a top cabinetry company just a couple of years ago, but the new owners want something more traditional.

These will go in the new suite. Not all of them will fit, but I'm sure we'll find a use for the leftovers elsewhere in the house.

One of the things I like about this kitchen is how it doesn't look too kitchen-ey. The absence of upper cabinets and full backsplash makes it look more like living space, which will be nice in a smallish one-bedroom suite with an open kitchen-dining-living-room layout.

I had planned to get new cabinets at Ikea, but these are less than half the price, and far better quality than anything we could afford new. I'm trying not to brag about how much I saved, because I know it is kind of gauche.

I love the colour. It looks so Scandinavian. So far, family members are not too impressed by the pictures. We'll see what potential tenants think. There's always paint! With a couple of coats of white and some old-fashioned glass knobs it could look totally like a traditional farm house kitchen.

May 17th

The addition for the new suite is taking shape - at least the foundation wall.

It took a week to build the elaborate wooden forms for the concrete footings and foundation, then suddenly the concrete truck was there, and a day later the forms were gone.

The addition increases the floor space of the suite by a couple of hundred square feet; the difference  between a comfy one-bedroom apartment and a small bachelor/studio.

No more garage

It took longer than expected for things to get started, with delayed permits and another job that the contractor had to finish. Over the past couple of weeks, though, there are welcome signs of destruction.

We never parked a car in this garage. It was just used as storage. Some of what it stored was useful, much of it was junk. Its eaves hung over the neighbour's property and it was built too close to our house. The roof leaked and the bottoms of the wall planks were flush against the ground, so they were rotting. Unwelcome creatures - rats and raccoons - sheltered in the space underneath the floorboards.

Now it's still a bit messy but it's nice to see space and light between the houses.

Goodbye to all that

At some point, in fact right around my 50th birthday, I lost my appetite for collecting stuff.  Old furniture, vintage "collectibles", dishes, textiles, all piled up in the garage or basement, or sat on display, cluttering the upstairs rooms.

Many of these were project pieces, waiting for refinishing or repair. Some were house components, like brass faucets, a charming kitchen nook or a built-in display cabinet, intended for a role in the renovation that never seemed to begin. Things that would be cleverly repurposed, in ways I had seen in some magazine or other. There were also lots of documents, files and books of course, from my actual work. Every time I saw them I felt a little bit guilty and stressed for not getting the job done, or for the space they were taking up.

All at once it dawned on me that these jobs would never get done. There would never been enough space to deploy the things I collected, even if they were fixed. We were going to need less space and less stuff as time went on, not more.

So gradually the stash has been shrinking; at each annual garage sale another layer of stuff sold off, dragged to the curb and plastered with a "free" sign, or hauled off in the trunk of the car for donation at Value Village.

With the renovation getting started, over the last few weeks a few final things got the heave-ho. Things I'd been more reluctant to part with. An Art Deco-styled table that never really went with anything else.  Extra drum parts that Johnny doesn't need. A colonial-style hutch that was one of my mom's auction bargains in Winnipeg. My brother brought it out to the coast for me, in his broken down van, after the folks died. I finally realized I don't need the actual hutch to remember the parents' resourcefulness, or my brother's kindness.

It is such a relief.

Ready to reno, with a slight change of plans

Pepe and Mickey check out the new 'hood

After our original plans came in at more than double our budget, we took what we thought would be a short spell to rethink the renovation. That was eight months ago.

I thought we wouldn't have to live through another winter in our cold, drafty house. But we did, and it was a fairly mild one, and now it's starting to feel like spring, with birdsong at dawn and plum trees blooming on the boulevards. Our contractor, Tim, says they'll be ready to start next week. I'm counting on getting the building permit by then. I was told it was a three-week process when I submitted the permit application almost three months ago.

To escape the chaos that is to come, we've temporarily rented what we're calling a beach house. It's one block to a strip of sandy waterfront where the dogs can run and sniff and chase balls.

Our home renovation will now be much more modest than originally planned. Instead of jacking up the house, blasting out the basement and adding a strata-ready 3-bedroom suite, there will be no lifting or blasting, just a small basement addition at the rear of the house. We'll add a one-bedroom secondary suite, and the renovations upstairs will be more limited as well. We won't get everything we want, but we'll get what we need to make it safe, warm and, I hope, at least a bit straighter.

I thought I'd learned from my rookie mistakes in past renovations. I thought this one would go more smoothly. I guess there's always more to learn.

A lesson for next time: Get rough contractors' estimates on the scope of work you have in mind, before getting completed plans and applying for permits and variances. We spent thousands of dollars and wasted a lot of time on design and engineering work that had to be redone, an unnecessary hazardous materials assessment, some preparatory work and the first of two variance applications.

Of course, at the time, it didn't seem useful to get a bunch of contractors' estimates without a formal plan and a sense of what the city would permit.

Let the spending begin

We have had a couple of meetings with the designer who's working on plans for our house reno/redevelopment. There are still lots of details to work out but it already seems to be most of the way there. Our designer is Wil Peereboom of Victoria Design Group, whose broad portfolio includes many conversions of heritage-type houses in Victoria like ours.

Our plan is to excavate the basement (a polite term for jacking up the house and blasting tonnes of granite). We (meaning not us but skilled workers) will then construct a fabulous three-bedroom ground floor suite, and rewire, re-roof, straighten, insulate and renovate the bathrooms in the upper two floors. The kitchen will move to a different part of the main floor. I want to demolish the existing, decrepit, single-car garage that is wedged between the house and the neighbor, and build a new garage behind the house, not for cars but for storing books. We need some new windows that actually close. Two chimneys will be demolished, and gas fireplaces will replace the old wood/coal burning ones. Closet space will be modestly improved.

This has all been like fantasyland up to now: Watching the designer sketch out what we want, without actually paying for any of it, yet.

The devil makes work for idle blogs

Did you ever wonder what happens to an unwatched blog?

My attention has been focused on my other one, The Merida Initiative, for the past couple of years while our project in that lovely place progressed. This one stayed alive but dormant.

Unnoticed until  now, during this period of inattention, spam comments sprouted like the weeds on our tropical patio. It was a bit of a surprise. I guess I'll have to adjust the settings a bit as we get underway with planning and execution of the reno I have been dreaming about for almost 15 years, of our rambling, run-down Victoria home, which I not-always-lovingly call Fallingdowne.

At least I think we're getting underway. With Mérida, I blogged about a dream, and it happened. Could blogging be the charm?

I am inspired by our friend Angela's blog on her family's big project to update and improve their very cool midcentury house. You can follow that one here.

Meanwhile, if you want to see Obama playing with an Xbox or learn how to make a fortune working in your spare time from home, you'll have to find some other neglected, spam-filled blog.

The Merida Initiative

Haven't written much here for awhile. Houses got expensive in Victoria, and we're stuck as ever on how to tackle the many challenges of Fallingdowne. So, not much happening in the way of amazing transformations on a low, low budget.

However the lure of Merida, Mexico is powerful. Many months of research, questions and daydreams have turned into a plane ticket to see if this could be an affordable way to satisfy the urge and create a nice little place to get out of the cold.

For the occasion (and because I like the title) I've created a new blog: http://themeridainitiative.blogspot.com/

Merida dreaming

It's a year since we spent a too-short time in this enchanting city. These days as the cold bites at my fingers I spend way too much time trying to figure out how to get back there to stay, at least part-time.
I plan and calculate ways of turning a crumbling, inexpensive hole in the wall into a tiny oasis where we can escape the winter months. A little place like the one above.
There is a dissenting opinion, however, which favours something grander, like this:













As always, the object of desire is just out of reach (or way out of reach) and the risks are a bit frightening.

Farewell toast

Long time, no post. Renovations have happened, are planned, are underway, here and there. But on the last day of the year I only want to recognize a good person who has gone. Martin Auld was one of those small-sized people with huge energy. A highly skilled and conscientious carpenter and contractor. Opinionated, funny, well-read, a dedicated CBC listener who would sometimes call to challenge what was put on the radio. He appreciated working for "nice people." He didn't much like working on "dirty old houses," but did anyway, a fine job at a more than fair price. A devoted dad who started early and worked like a fiend to be done by the end of the school day.
On a bright, late summer morning he was struck and killed on his motorcycle by an apparently drunk driver.
I don't know if he realized how he made it possible for me to realize a dream of buying and renovating a "dirty old house", something I really didn't have the money or expertise to have any business doing. Here's to Martin and other good friends and family, gone this year and missed.

http://www.legacy.com/CAN-Victoria/GB/PhotoAlbum.aspx?PersonID=116884850&EntryId=

Take a look...

...this could soon be gone.
I know, there's nothing "Wow" about a plain white room with no pictures or fancy pillows, but believe me it's a big improvement. (See: "This wallpaper exploits women", Aug. 15.)
I spent the tag end of the good weather clearing, stripping wallpaper, repairing plaster, painting, stripping woodwork and installing new light to get us a real bedroom. Now, if we follow through on plans to DO SOMETHING about this cold, run-down pile, 10 years of DIY will be ripped out. Or the house will be sold, then it will all be ripped out. I'm okay with that.
Today I went to meet with a designer who specializes in strata conversions - turning houses like this into multi-unit buildings. Award-winning. One of his recent houses is going to be in Architectural Digest. After all these years of imagining what could be, and often being told it was nonsense, it was amazing to watch this man place a tracing paper over the original house plans and draw exactly the side-by-side duplex split I had in mind. All the challenges and questions about parking, sloping floors, excavating the crawl space, creating new entrance doors...all had workable answers. The cost estimates were lower than I had guessed - that never happens! I was told this house is a rare thing, a gold mine. A big house on a big lot with great "setbacks". If we decided to sell, not renovate, he said the developers would have a bidding war over it.
I left feeling like I was in a dream. Perhaps I was. I don't think anyone here is going to believe what I was told in there.

Escape from Fallingdowne

You ask how it got that name? Well, okay, you didn't. But it's a nod to Frank Lloyd Wright and his house, Fallingwater, and another kind of gesture to that very Victoria penchant for attaching pretentious vowels to names, like Ocean Pointe.

It's not falling down any more, since we lifted the back end of the house and replaced the buckled foundation a few years ago, but it still has a pronounced lean to it. And now at last we might be able to do something about that.

We've agreed we've spent enough cold drafty winters in this ramshackle place. I've wrecked my joints and my lungs stripping and sanding and replastering and painting as many surfaces as I can get to in my spare time. And stopgap repairs by electricians, plumbers etc. just don't fix what's deeply screwed up and broken about this house.

So we're investigation the options, which seem to be: A full update and renovation - replumbed, rewired, new windows, new roof, insulation, new kitchen and bathrooms, everything (and level floors, please); converting the house into a side-by-side duplex and selling off one of the strata units to pay for the work; or selling and finding a new place that is warm, up-to-date and where all the lights work.

Oh Inez

Inez is back on the market. The house near the Gorge on Inez St., that is. Looks like the sale collapsed. Now I will be tortured anew with thoughts of how it could be transformed. Here are some of the really icky pictures I didn't show before.

Getting wired on Friday night

Presenting The Light Fixture From the Dump:



Rewired, refinished and with nice new antique-reproduction shades. It's another one of my expensive bargains, but unlike many of those, it's definitely not junk anymore.

No more euphorbia euphoria

The last two days I've been trying to get the garden under control here at Fallingdowne. The weeds are rampant, particularly the couch grass (is that how you spell it?) that invades everywhere and defies weeding and smothering. I'm clearing great swathes of fussy things that are hard to weed around, and will try to smother it once again. Almost 49, and I'm warming to the idea of "low-maintenance" gardening at last.

For a while I had a bit of a mania for euphorbias, with their weird colours and big billowing stems and otherworldly flowers. But I've decided to rid the garden of plants that maim and disfigure, and these are the worst offenders. I have several lasting scars where the sap of these plants has burned my skin. I will keep a couple; the "chameleon" with its early spring show of bronzy purple, and the giant in the back yard, partly because it's too big and scary to take on right now.

This wallpaper exploits women

So the fancy new bed frame required a new mattress and box spring. And the bedroom was too awful to even let the delivery guys see it, so it was time after 10 years of squalor to clear it out and fix it up. Scrape off the despised textured ceiling, remove the crooked picture rails, wash off the residue left on the walls by the old oil furnace. And wallpaper removal: Who knew that two layers below the beige stripes on our wall lurked scores of naked young women?

Oh yeah, the dump

A lot of catching up to do on the blogging, obviously. Here's the light fixture I found on the latest trip to the dump. I took it to Water Glass Studio to get rewired and refinished in an "antique brass" colour. So it is no longer free, in fact it's damned expensive. But probably $150 less than buying one of their ready-mades, which are beautiful.
I'll add a photo when it's finished.

Call me Miss Tint

I love the difference you can make with a couple of cans of mistinted stain from the bargain shelf at Home Hardware. Okay, the colours aren't the very best (blue-ish grey and "black spruce", which is definitely brackish greenish.) But it beats flaking fake-cedar-orange.
The deck in Fernwood was in serious need of attention. It's not the most stylish deck, and probably has only a few years left before major repair or replacement, but a good pressure washing and a couple of coats of stain will help extend its life and make it look a bit less godawful. It was a good way to spend a very hot day while thinking about whether we could really take on another derelict house project at this very moment.

A really good (bad) one

Checked out this little house by the Gorge this week. It would have been an ideal project: Loads of charm, and filthy enough to keep the competition and the price low-ish. Vacant for a couple of years, we were told. Needed a lot of work (a bathroom, for one thing), but room in the basement for a nice suite. Cobwebs so thick they hung like mesh curtains in some of the rooms. Much speculation by Morley and me about the source of the stains on the ceilings.
Alas, must take a pass on this one. It's perfect, but the timing is wrong for us at this moment.

Good night little house

Hard to imagine I haven't back to the little house. On closing day I mowed the lawn one last time, added more cardboard under the mulch where weeds were coming through, planed and hung the closet door (ran out of time, so the new owner has a bit more planing to do), put a second coat of trim paint on three windows. Dug a couple of dozen potatoes from the garden to bring home. Then off to work, no ceremony or celebration.

Handed over the extra keys yesterday and got the cheque from the lawyer's.

Took it to the bank ("you can take this to the bank" as they say) but couldn't
deposit it - ooops, needed both our signatures, and a week's hold on the funds. How come whenever I have to provide a cheque for this stuff it has to be certified or a bank draft, but we get paid with the crappy kind?

Anyway, it was great to receive congratulations from the circle of women there who helped make it happen - they figured out ways to get the financing for an amateur who usually doesn't have enough loose cash to buy lunch, let alone a house in need of a major cash infusion.
There is one woman in particular who has a kind of brilliant and creative approach to financing. She showed me possibilities and strategies I could not have figured out myself. Some time back she had been off work for awhile, for health reasons. I have been so grateful for her support.

I found myself uttering to her some observation about how this project went pretty well "according to plan."

Then on my bike ride in to work I couldn't help feeling stupid and smug, for saying such a thing when so many things in her life and the lives of other people I know and care about are so clearly not going according to plan.

Return to Fallingdowne

This is what I've been missing these weeks and months of rushed renos at the other house. It's so nice to just sit and look.