November 3, 2006

I get an email from Ray- We need to get up to the house ASAP as they have suddenly been going great guns! The foundation has been poured and now the first story is starting to be framed and some important decisions need to be made. I am the only person free to go up to Canada (espcially on such short notice!). I enlist my friend Victoria (who also flies for free) to accompany me to the beach house. We leave from Oakland, on a beautiful Monday morning --and can’t believe the news that Seattle has such bad weather that our flight has been delayed 5 hours! We finally take off at 6pm and arrive in Seattle at 8pm. By the time we pick up the rental car and get on the road it’s 9PM---The weather has improved, it’s only drizzling, so we make our way north and cross the border about 10:15. We just make the last ferry at 10:45 and by the time we get to Nanaimo and disembark it’s almost 1am!! We are lucky that our contractor's wife owns and runs a B&B, that Ray built. We arrive atthe B&B at 1:30am. Thankfully he's left our key out for us, we’re exhausted and fall into bed--never even Waking up until 9am! We’re up and out to the job site by 10AM. I can’t believe it. The beach house is finally started and we can actually walk over a threshhold! It’s an amazingly beautiful Fall day, and I can just imagine our house on a beautiful summer day!
The first big Whoops is discovered---the kitchen window has been accidently placed into the far right hand corner (I had failed to notice on the working drawings the window had been placed just 1 foot off the right hand wall, yet on the exterior drawings the window was centeered on the wall correctly.)--It needs to be reframed--but the view now changes dramatically. It changes from looking out at the side of our neighbors house--to now looking out at the bay and the Straits of Georgia! This is the first of Per’s drawing mistakes. I can’t believe I didn’t notice it on the blueprints- but I was looking at a scanned copy at 1/32 of an inch--a mite bit challenging--especially as my eyes are getting weaker by the moment! We Also make the window 6 inches taller as the view is incredible and we want mom (who is barely 5 feet now)to be able to see outside!!! The sliding glass door that faces Conrad’s house is deemed unnecessary as it looks straight into a tree--so we take that out--we also remove small window on the right side of the kitchen door--as the dutch door will be open over the window much of the time.
Ray takes us to the Door store and I pick out the interior doors and front door and the moldings for all the windows. I had no idea I had to make those decisions so quickly. Luckily, I had clippings of doors and the beadboard interior door that was my first choice was what door they had picked out for us. It’s amazing to see the vision that was in my head--start to come to life! I suddenly feel the overwhelming responsibility if the house doesn’t work well or look right----I designed this house---EEEEEEK--I had Per do the structural and working drawings- but this is really my baby!!!!! The house looks so wide on the lot--I hope it fits into the space ok---its hard to imagine our future beach house is really starting! To take shape!!!!

I also head back to Qualicum, to Tom Doll cabinets, Where I meet Tom and Rea who will be building the cabinets for the house. I unload my piles of magazines--clippings and pictures culled from years of being a magazine junkie! I have a very clear picture of the kitchen--and luckily Rea knows the cottage look I’m trying to obtain. She take lots of photocopies and we find the perfect Cape Cod cabinet door with beadboard. I would like a different color for the island and she suggests “chocolate pear” --even the name sounds good. The color is a very rich deep brown--a perect compliment to the clear white of the cabinets
. We talk about countertops. Unfortunately, money doesn’t grow on trees and we will probably have to settle for a laminate--However, the good news is that they have improved the quality and look of the laminates and both Victoria and I really like “deep-bronze star” by Wilsonart. Rea is able to give me a great sample to take with me--so I can confer with the rest of the family on these important decisions.
We head off to Home Hardware where we look over siding and roofing choices- than off to one of ray’s newest homes. It ‘s siding is the timber bark color that I would like to use- and it’s great to see it in person. I was afraid it would be too dark, but it looks great outside in natural lighting.
It’s getting dark and we head back to the Cornerstone B&B, where Gay, Ray's wife, is making dinner for us. We brought a great California Merlot to share for dinner, and we have a wonderful dinner and Victoria is a welcome addition to the group!
Ray and I stay up until 11:30 making changes and notes on the blueprints. We work on the windows and then I finally fall into bed, I’m sure dreaming of the beach house! Victoria and I are up a 5am-our plan is to get the 6:15 am ferry. We head off and grab a Serious Coffee
before we take off on a beautiful fall morning. We make our early ferry and then head for the border. Traffic is great and we easily drive into Seattle and just catch the 1pm flight back to Oakland--the timing is right and I drop Victoria off with her family for dinner and head home to find Bob and talk about nothing but the beach house! (poor guy!)
The rest of November is filled with phone calls and faxes to both ray and the cabinet shop. We are headed to San Diego for Thanksgiving, so I will be able to run lots of ideas past Bobbi and Mom.
The Second story starts to go onto the house. I can’t believe my design is unfolding before our eyes! The roof line will be amazing! I’m so excited to get these emailed photos. I wish I was there every day to watch--but alas, I must work to help pay for some of this excitement!

October 2006

Mom, Bobbi and I are leaving on our cruise and Ray has not heard from the city yet. We can’t believe it’s taking so long. We have a great cruise from Montreal, through the Eastern provinces, the coast of Maine, Boston, Rhode Island and finally end up in Norfolk, Virginia. We buy some wonderful new art to hang on the beach house walls. Mom is hoping we have walls to hang them on. I am convinced we will--but when???

september 2006

We have been promised our final permit to start building any day. My mom is taking my sister and I on a 12 day Fall cruise for her 94th birthday! We are leaving on our cruise in early October and we want the house started by then. Ray still has not heard anything from the building department. We are worried that we will be running out of good building weather. We can't lose another summer to this incredibly bad permit process. We have even paid for a woman that works here in Qualicum to walk our Developmental permit through the permitting process. We have used up almost all of the insurance proceeds and we haven't even started building yet!

July 2006

July 2006- Nothing has happened yet on the permit side of things. We did get our final clearance on the Indian bones- so now we know we can build. The archaeologist gave us his report, and the Indian tribes had a blessing of the bones, an actual ceremony where they blessed the grave site of past generations. We don't know what happened to the bones they found (but we do know they found an entire family including 2 children) but the shards of pottery were taken to BC museums to be enjoyed by all. The archaeology report is great news--- Mom was convinced she would never live to see a new beach house-But, I know we will have a new--even better beach house some day! We just hate to see another summer that we can't enjoy being up at our property. (We can't even camp here--the land is so dug up from the archaeological dig and the construction equipment everywhere, there would be no place for us to even park!)

may 2006

I am working trying to get all the designs for the house to Per before I leave to Peru for my 25th wedding anniversary. We now need a special developmental permit that is a new thing required by the city of Parksville. (of course) They now want a new geotechnical report to supplement our three other reports. We also need a new survey and now a landscape planner has to give the city a required landscape plan for our lot. We have owned the beach house for 40 years and never even had landscape----t’s just been whatever natural floral and fauna happen to grow around the house--I can’t believe what the city is requiring. Rebuilding this house is turning out to be an incredible test of our patience. I really feel the city would be happy if we just gave up and put the lot on the market---hmmmmm maybe that's what they do want. How nice it would be if they could get their hands on over a half acre of waterfront property. Well that's not happening. We are determined this house will be built!

April 2006

April 2006 We now find out that our original blueprints that we have been working with for the last 18 months--will no longer work- unless we want 8 steps up to the front door. They are not allowed to put a full basement into the bank and that moves our one story design with a walkout basement into a 2 story design. We need to keep my 92 year old mother in mind when we design this beach house. We need to keep all the living/kitchen area along with her bedroom and bath on the main floor. The city wants us to make the home a split level design--not at all handicap accessible. (Not to mention that it's hardly keeping within our Nantucket beach house look we're attempting to emulate. So, it’s back to the drawing board. I spend hours drawing and re-drawing designs. I need to keep within the old footprint of the other design- but now we need to move into a two story to fit in all our bedrooms and the extra loft-media room. I fax per my drawings to our draftsman, who is turning my graph paper sketches into blueprints, and then we spend the next 6 weeks emailing design changes between us. Per doesn’t really get the “New England “ farmhouse look- but I am turning him around. He keeps trying to make this look like a mountain lodge, a look popular in Whistler, but not the look we want for our beach home. I have to change his choice of window shapes and finally I get the final design to what I want. Per can draw the blueprints now. Oh yeah- just as I get the final design- Jim ( my brother-in-law, decides he needs 5 extra feet on the property side to get a small tractor down the bank- back to the drawing board, we can shrink the house down 5 feet along the side lines. No problem, what room do we want to live without....kitchen, bathroom??? Not as easy as it sounds--5 feet off an entire blueprint can pose a BIG problem. Between Per and myself we figure it out--the blueprints are finalized and printed!

March 2006

The weather has been a big factor with the beach house. The winter was a bad one, constant rain with some snow. Kevin Peters with the city of Parksville has not been helpful at all. Every time we need his help- he denies our permit or gives us additional requirements that we must we comply with- (READ: Jump Through More Hoops!!!!!) We are wondering will this house ever get built. Every phone call seems to bring more bad news. When will our luck change?

November 2005

November 22, 2005 It is Thanksgiving morning here in the US but the phone call from Canada gives us nothing that we can give thanks for today. As the surveyors were putting in the stakes for the property survey--they found Indian bones. In fact, his stake went right through a skull! This is the absolutely worst thing that can happen to a property owner in Canada--especially in British Columbia. Ray is bound by law to report this find to the BC government- all work must stop and we are referred to an archaeologist in Victoria . We talk to him and he thinks that he will be able to go through the property in the next 4-5 months. We are stunned. the archaeologists essentially go through the entire building site with a sifter and work the property inch by inch. Construction can’t even begin until at least May. We are stunned at the costs as well. We not only have to pay the archaeologists, but we also must make a payment to the affected Indian tribes. In our case we have two tribes that might make a claim, the Nanoose tribe as well as the Qualicum tribe. Our heads our spinning with this disastrous news. Our budget is being destroyed and with the delay in the actual building we can’t believe we will lose another summer.

September 2005

September 2005- After two months of negotiations with the insurance company, Ray is allowed to demolish the burned out beach house, and tear out the fire damaged foundation. This is a big coup for us--if the insurance had not paid for the foundation to be removed it would have been a huge expense to be paid out of the insurance money. While Ray is in there with the heavy equipment, excavating out the old foundation, he feels that he should continue and dig out for our new foundation, --However the city has not given the final OK on the permit for the new beach house and Ray is required to fill back in the bluff where the old beach house stood. Needless to say- we are flabbergasted that the city would stop our rebuilding progress. It makes absolutely no sense that the new foundation can't be dug out at the same time the old foundation is removed---but the city of Parksville is calling the shots---and we are shot down!

August 2005

August 2005- We have lost one entire summer due to the fire and now We found out that we would need some new plans for the beach house. The city would no longer allow us to keep the beach house on the bluff --- That makes us sad, we were always so proud that our house was the only house on the banks of the Parksville Bay. Now, because of the new regulations, we would need to move it up the bank a bit. We went back to Per, our draftsperson who helped us, by turning my ideas into the first set of plans and asked him to redraw the beach house design since it had to be moved up the bank. We met with different builders and finally picked Ray, from Eagle view Construction in Qualicum Beach. He is a well respected builder in the area, and we need someone we can trust, since we are building this house from 1500 miles away. He knows the area, has great knowlege of the Parksville building codes and we feel confident that he will build Harbour Lights back --better than ever.

June 3, 2005

June 3, 2005----MY day started with a phone call from my mom at 6:30 am--”you won’t believe this, but the beach house has burned down!” We were all in shock, we knew the house was old and we had been planning to do a remodel--but we were stunned that the summer home we had lived at for years on end- was gone. We flew up to Seattle, rented a car and drove to Canada, took a 2 hour ferry ride to Vancouver Island and then finally drove North to Parksville. We’re pretty sure the basement was ransacked before the fire. We didn’t find a lot of our containers-- and there was not a lot of ash in the locked room--so we felt that our belongings had been taken out before the fire. We spent the morning meeting with Kelly Eisler the Coast claims rep and also met with the RMCP. It was so sad to see the remains of the beach house. It was a complete ruin. We were stunned to view the charred remains of the house. The only thing we found amid the ruins of the fire, was an old pottery bean pot--that had been my grandmothers. Somehow, this pot had survived the fire that had wiped out an entire home. We wrapped it in our jacket and brought it back home with us--it would become a symbol for us--Harbour Lights would be rebuilt! We were tough, kind of like that old bean pot!

The pictures at the top of the blog show how the house looked for the last 47 years we have owned the house. Of course, over the years past tenant's (who rented it from Sept thru May), had put their own mark on the house in the form of odd paint colors (i.e. bright orange). the house was very old and in need of an overhaul. It was too small for 3 families and 6 grandkids along with assorted friends who tagged along on vacation. We had been mulling over ideas to make the house a little larger, but we never knew that it would be a fire that would push us full steam ahead into building a new beach house.

Diary of a Remodel

Since we first heard the news of the fire, that destroyed our family's beach home, I started keeping an online diary, chronicaling the entire re-building process. Now, that I have this blog I am attempting to share with you, my readers, the trials of rebuilding a house in another country, within a set time frame! (we wanted the house rebuilt in one year---it took two!)

Each day, I will copy and paste a journal entry from my journal--here's hoping you enjoy the journey.... as much as I did!

Let's begin!