Hi Neighbour,
This week, I’m in the mood for a brief personal memory. In this case, it’s fun to relive a moment in my family’s history, from the POV of a young mother. At that time, I probably knew more details than I can recall at this time, but it still amazes how it all happened.
When we bought our first home, it was very old and had been a rental property for quite a few years. We knew nothing about the neighbourhoods of North Van, and were a very busy young family. My first-born was not yet in Kindergarten. With the help of my retired father, a widower, who researched things from his home in Vancouver, we found a house in the Grand Boulevard area. It’s wonderful to look at the black and white photos taken at the time of our BIG LEAP into home ownership, home insurance, mortgage payments, city and school taxes and utility charges… We didn’t know WHAT we were getting into! So we trusted the system to be fair and welcomed my father’s help. It took a number of years, before we understood what all that meant. In fact, I was so distracted making ends meet and taking care of the family, that I didn’t even know where the North Van City Hall was—about one kilometre away from home!
As time has altered the true colours of the memory over the years, I draw a complete blank of the sequence of events: we took possession at the end of June; my husband drew up the detailed plans of the exterior and interior of the house; we got a permit from the City in August; and we hired a contractor to raise the whole house by two feet in September. I can only estimate the time and effort it took for my husband to complete the requirements, with advice from the contractor, for raising a very old 2-storey house by two feet, in order to convert a 5-foot, 6-inch basement to a functional height for a growing family.
Needless to say, I was oblivious of all that preparation. I estimate that I didn’t see much of my husband that summer, but I remember sitting in the backyard, in September, watching, as our ‘very first house’ was being hydraulically lifted on cribs at each corner, and one in the center (supporting the central east-west beam)—if I remember correctly. I have no memory of where our three kids were, but they weren’t there, for sure. It was quite an operation to observe, as one crib after another was being jacked up, a few inches at a time. The whole house had to remain ‘in the air’ for quite a few days (weeks?) until the masons had added two feet of concrete blocks on the foundation and under the front porch, and the carpenters had replaced parts of the foundation plate, extended the interior basement staircase and built a taller basement doorway and taller basement windows. What a job!
More to come next week…
Fiona