The house

Ahhh, the house. The inevitable conversation about "the house". The price of real estate in Vancouver. The bidding wars for a $700k fixer-upper. The difficulty getting contractors to show up. Yeah, I did it. Bought a house. Didn't think it was possible, but it was time. So here we are, Sunday morning, coffee cup in hand, 10 months after, thinking about what to do next. While I was flipping through my old pics, I thought I'd take a few minutes to organise them on a web page.

May 6, 2005... no, scratch that. Rewind to April, and for some reason, started poking around on the websites, looking at some "coach houses" or detached townhouses. I went to peek in the window at one on Columbia at 14th, and it was pretty cool - ~1,200 sq. ft., 2 level, with private garage. Asking price was $659k. I got to chatting with my sister-in-law, as her and my brother just bought a house in the SW Marine area, and thought she'd know the market. She was the one that talked me up to a house... "for a hundred grand more, you could have a house". Hmmm.

Ok, so that is a bit of a stretch. Sure, you can get a house in Cambie for $750k (or could, at the time), but you were either in a bidding war for something that listed at $679k with no basement, no garage, and a lot of work, OR it was a complete disaster, that had been sitting on the market for many weeks, with no movement. I won't bore you with the details of the search, but I didn't want to be rushed into things, so went the latter route.

Maybe it wasn't a total piece of crap. It had a half-decent basement suite, which gave me a place to live while I demo'ed the main floor. The top floor, 2 bedrooms, is ok for now, and does just fine for a spare bedroom and my office. The links to the left show you some of the pics I took, before, during and after (links open in new window). Of particular note, is the massive use of cedar in the kitchen, living room, den, and bathroom (I called it "the sauna").


Nice eh?