The second sign

You can say that some things are meant to happen and fate just makes it so no matter what you plan.

After Valentines, our idea of building a new house cooled off somewhat and we once again began to look at buying a new house we could move right in. Unfortunately for us, two things worked against us. The first problem was that our neighbourhood was small and there were only a few houses available at anytime. The other problem was after reading books upon books about houses, I became pessimistic about the quality of houses builders or flippers sold. Machine cut brick/ stucco with faux moldings over OSB. Inadequate heating/ venting/ sealing of the house. It was more than just the quality but about the appearance of the house. From their top to bottom, inside and out multi-shades of brown and beige to their mixed up collage of victorian/ tudor/ italian/ french country style of design to their protruding double garage (see Book’s I read and you should too about designs). Even more than this, every one of these houses looked like some variation of the other with a complete lack of inspiration in design, style or colour. All of the care, quality and dedication you would like in your house thrown out the window to maximize profit to the largest number of potential buyers.

My wife and I actually did try to buy a house. A nice house completely renovated by the owners and with that it contained their own love and care that was evident in their design and style. We lost the bidding on that house and in June, we found ourselves in Vancouver attending the wedding of my younger brother with our house hunting the furthest thing from our minds. It was during that summer wedding along the seaside of Stanley Park that we got a call from our real estate agent. view from Stanley Park

The house was a bungalow sitting on a 52X145 foot lot in our neighbourhood with a lakefront view. We at first did not believe the agent because it was almost too perfect! The house met all the criteria for a house we could dream about (see “What’s the best land to start with…”). It just lacked one big item- and that was the perfect house itself. I would recommend to anyone considering to build a house to read this entire blog and reconsider it at least 6 more times because it is a large undertaking. It is stressful and both my wife and I knew that but after house hunting for almost a year and not being satisfied with what we saw available and being offered the prime location to build our ultimate dream home, my wife looked to me and said ‘buy it’. So that is just what we did.

The first sign

After a few more years, our family grew enough and we had lived long enough in our home to justify buying another house. We started to look for larger houses in our neighbourhood. My wife argued for a long time that we should just buy a ready-to-move in house for the convenience and considering we have a family, it was hard for me to say otherwise.

Our first sign of something different came on Valentine’s day. As with everything, there was a little history behind valentine’s day and so after many many many years of planning our valentine’s day, I said to my wife, this year maybe you should plan our valentine’s day and so she did.

I had no idea what we were doing on valentine’s day because my wife had planned everything. On the 14 February, we got into our car and started to drive. We drove right across town to this old eccentric theatre that was converted to a Salsa bar.  It was in a neighbourhood of the city that we had never been to and it was in a restaurant that we had never eaten at. We sat down and started to watch the show and have dinner when a nice couple leaned over from the table next to us and said ‘do you guys come from our neighbourhood?’ Fortunately for us, they were our neighbours! They weren’t neighbours we had talked to personally but we knew of them because it just so happened that they had built a beautiful blue custom home in our neighbourhood a few years before. They had done just what we had started to dream about! Even more amazing, sitting right next to them was one of the contractors that had helped them out to do this.

My wife and I had a few laughs talking to all of them and the funny coincidence it was for all of us to drive half way across the city to meet. In the end, I bought them all a bottle of wine and we took it as a sign that maybe building a house was meant to be for us.

What happened next…

After we saw this house on the lake for sale, I became curious about how people have custom houses built.

A few of my friends had already achieved this goal. Some of these houses were turn key homes built from large manufacturers and some of these homes where DIY homes where they got right in there with the contractor and hammered some nails. The point was that some people I knew had already built their own house.

The other reason I thought more and more about building a house was because I was spending a lot of time fixing our own ‘frankenstein’ house from the 1950’s. You know, the type of house that starts as a cape cod and through time, misadventure and loose building inspections gets morphed into a frankenstein type of house with its cape cod features and a box on the back. Don’t get me wrong, we bought the house because of its solid structure and cozy interior. It has 3 wood burning fireplaces and hardwood throughout. But in modifying an older home, I’ve come to the conclusion that by changing the original design, intent and purpose of the house, you inevitably inherit some problem with the house that will develop sooner or later.

I guess I was getting sick of fixing up every little problem that occurred in our home so I spent the next few years reading and reading and reading (see book list) as much as I could.

How we got started

Like most people, we love where we live. We love the schools nearby, the children that play with our kids, the fresh air from the lake, the nearby beach and the great places to walk in the area. The best part is that we live right in the city and we have access to all the shops, restaurants, activities and shows that comes with it. So, like most people, we love where we live.

A few years ago, my wife noticed a house for sale nearby that overlooked the lake. At that time, I was not interested in buying a new house as we had just recently purchased our house here and it was an old house that needed a lot of work. I believe my reply to her at that time was ‘ we cant buy that old house, we would have to tear it all down and build a new house’.

I honestly believed years ago when I said this that it was the craziest idea for any regular person to build their own house.