..For the CULTURE CRAWL!!! This is my favourite weekend of the year. Any year. For the last decade or so, every November i take a weekend off from chores and spend it touring artist studios with friends and family. It is a great kick off to Christmas shopping season and it is always inspirational. It is so cool to see all of the unique spaces and because i have been going … [Read more...] about Week 47: We interrupt our regular programming…
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That time Ashton Kutcher Stopped By
Let's face it. Our house has character and charm but looks like crap from outside. We know. We refinished floors and bathrooms and made the inside livable but left the outside pretty much the way it was until the front porch started to fall off. Or more accurately until we decided to do something about the porch falling off. But did you know that we actually made money and … [Read more...] about That time Ashton Kutcher Stopped By
Goodbye Gas Stove Dream?
Our first apartment had a 3/4 size gas stove that was likely an antique. My clearest memory of that stove was when we returned from a trip to Ontario and found our apartment (top floor of a house in Kits) was being rewired. A side effect of this was that the furnace was off so it was late September (or was it October?) and our place was cold. We would light the oven and open … [Read more...] about Goodbye Gas Stove Dream?
Character Merit Benefits
We got our response from the city this week telling us that our humble house has "Character Merit"! This is an important step for a number of reasons unrelated to our egos and love of old houses. The City of Vancouver has some planning policies in place to encourage the retention of houses deemed to have Character Merit that we now qualify for provided we don't remuddle the … [Read more...] about Character Merit Benefits
Unbuilding vs Demolition
The construction industry is responsible for one third of the waste in the Metro Vancouver region and the region is working very hard to reduce that with new bylaws. If your home is pre-1950 you need to recycle 75% to 90% of the material depending on whether your house has character designation. If your home is pre-1910 you need to salvage at least 3,000 kg of wood. This … [Read more...] about Unbuilding vs Demolition