My Inspiring Views

I splurged on a wonderful camera over a year ago but never got around to trying it out until I moved here. The scenery and views from the house are so stunning, I am constantly running to grab the camera to try and capture what I am seeing. I have a lot to learn, but here are some of my favourite shots so far. The first set are various sunrises and sunsets.

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The following pictures were taken around 4:30 am. I played around with the camera settings to let in more light with longer exposures and various ISO settings to capture the beautiful night skies.

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The lights on the left are from a train passing by.
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I don't think I will ever get bored of this view!  Which one is your favorite?


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Project Number Two- Doors

Well as busy as Dave has been building floats and ramps, he still found time to surprise me by installing some doors for me while I was at work. I absolutely love the new doors. The front door had been added in the last few years and didn't match the look of the house at all. Here is the before picture, blech!!

 

Here is the new door, yeah! The style and colour suit the house much better and the window is a godsend. This was another Craigslist find. I kind of like the natural wear and tear marks on it as it makes it look like it has been on the house for years.

 

 

It adds so much more light in the kitchen now and greatly improves the view.

 

I found this screen door in an alley and was so excited. I have always wanted a wooden screen door, complete with squeaky hinges, and now I have one!

 

The biggest surprise of all though was when I came home to find the stain glass patio doors installed.

The large sliding door that was there is just pushed open and the patio doors framed in the opening. We can still close the sliding door for extra protection if needed.

 

 

 

 

 

How pretty is that! Can you believe I got these for free on Craigslist? I love them to pieces. Someday we will find some cedar tongue and groove to finish off the edges on the outside so it matches the rest of the house. Right now I am just so grateful for the extra light in the living room.

 

 

 

 

At some point we plan to repaint the trim on the house, when we do, the white doors will get painted to match

I wrote a post last year about some different doors that inspired me. Here are a few more doors in my house that I like.


This is the door to my bedroom

This is one of two doors that I refurbished to fit the doorways in the kitchen. I love these doors so much. Again, I got them for free on Craigslist. They were originally a set of sliding doors that I changed to take a regular door handle.

This is one of two sliding doors that were installed in the bathroom. This one opens into the room on the other side which someday will be a massage room.

I saved the oval door that lead to the bathroom on my old boat.

One of these days that door will be installed in this opening which I had cut into the wall to provide another doorway into the other upstairs bedroom\

Well I am loving all my new- to- me doors. I don't know where Dave finds all the time to get all this stuff done but it is so great to finally get moving forward on the Reno's!

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Project Number One- A New Ramp

It seems that one of the issues that has plagued us most while living on the water is safe access. This is what we were dealing with at the last location. The large boom sticks in this picture were attached to the shore and were holding in the marina just to the left of the house. As we couldn't just run a dock straight from the land to the house, we had to have many  disjointed sections to cross over the sticks. Every single time the tide changed, these sections would float around and change shape, often falling apart. Dave had to rearrange things every single day, so that we could have passage to shore.

 

 

Note the board in the middle is about 2 feet above the dock in front of it. At low tide we had to step on one end of the board, walk to the middle of it and wait for gravity to lower the far end like a teeter-totter so we could continue on. I work nights, usually getting home around 10-11 pm.Trying to navigate this in the rain and in the dark was always terrifying.

 



 

One day the river took the main dock and twisted it so hard that even Super Dave couldn't get me out.

Needless to say,we are so happy to be finished with that place.

 

So after our experience on Mitchell Island, this setup looked positively awesome, although in reality it left a lot to be desired as well.

 

 

 

The boards are laying across an extremely old rotted dock that shivers and quakes as you pass over it.

 

 

 

The landlord had purchased these old crane sections.

 

 

Dave spent several days cutting all the cross bars off the top end of them.

 

Here is some of his hard work, these bars will be recycled by bending them into U shapes which will then be fitted around the pilings and used to attach the docks more securely.

 

With the upper bars cut out, these will now make a nice walkway for us with good high railings.

 

The sections were all pinned together and lifted into place with a crane.

 

We are just waiting for the landlord to purchase some expanded metal mesh like this so Dave can finish decking the ramp

 

 

Here is a good shot showing the new ramp next to the old one. Believe it or not, the water was as high as the new ramp last spring when there was much flooding in the area during the freshet.

 

 

All that hard work paid off, Dave is a happy camper now!
How lucky am I to have such a handy boyfriend!!

Dave also built the float that the ramp is resting on. It's not quite finished yet in this picture. There are still rails to be bolted in place around the edges and steel rails for the ramp wheels to rest in that have to be installed.

The float was built from an existing dock, which was cut in half, joined together to make it wider and new sides and decking put on. The decking came from this old dock. Dave had to go and pry off the boards he needed and cut them to size and install them.

 

The result: a beautiful new float for the ramp!

With winter nipping at our heels, it will be great to have the new ramp to use. The expanded metal will give us lots of traction without holding snow. Dave just spent this morning nailing down a roll of gritty tar paper on the long dock beside the house, so we should be very safe and comfortable getting on and off the water. Now that this job is done, hopefully the next item will be bringing in some power! That will be the happiest day of my life!

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The Ark Gets an Olive Branch

Well it's been a long, hard journey but the Ark has finally found permanent moorage ! I am still pinching myself with disbelief that not only have I found a safe haven for my home but it is everything I have ever dreamt of.

                                                      The Ark in her new location
 

My entire life has been a quest for a sanctuary that I could retreat to at the end of the day, a place that would nourish me, protect me, inspire me.

Don't get me wrong,  I have had an awesome, interesting life. Ive lived all over the world, in all kinds of circumstances. I wouldn't take any of it back ( well maybe a few parts...) but the piece that was always missing for me, was having a home of my own. Acquiring the Ark was the first part of realising my dream, finding somewhere to moor it was the second.

I knew in my heart that the marina where I had the Ark wasn't ideal in so many ways, but at the time it was easy and reasonably close to work. I had hoped to stay there for five years so I could finish all the renovations and then I would look around to see if I could find a prettier location to moor it.

Unfortunately, the powers-that-be, decided that I had to move much sooner than that. The Port Authority pressured the landlord to get rid of his liveabords. He in turn, cut off my power and water, hired a thug to terrorise us, and made false accusations to the police in an effort to get rid of us. It was  not that I didn`t want to go, just that I couldn't find anywhere to go. One of the biggest obstacles was the size of the Ark. Most float home communities have fairly small berth sizes like 20x20 or 20x30 for example while the Ark measures in at a colossal 28x66 feet.

I thought I had solved the problem when I entered into a discussion with the City of Richmond to donate the Ark ( a historic net shed) to their maritime museum in return for being able to stay in it as a caretaker. Things were looking good and I really thought I was going to be moving to Steveston. However, after six months of city hall meetings, they came back to me and said,`` they liked the house and wanted to add it to their collection but did not want anyone living in it and had no money to buy it from me``.  That left me back at square one.

I was heart broken as, at the time, I really believed that was the best place for me. My business, which is thriving, is in Steveston and I love the village. I love that it is on the oceans`edge, that there are lots of places to exercise and that it is quaint and historically preserved. I couldn't imagine a better place. I was wrong!

I spent months door-knocking on my days off. We spent many days driving up and down the Fraser River asking people if we could dock in their back yard. Finally we were offered an olive branch. We met a wonderful couple who sympathised with our plight and decided to let us moor at their dock.

Their place was about 60 km up river from where we had been moored. We entered into an agreement in June but because of the freshet, ( the swelling of the river from winter snow melt) we had to wait until September before it was safe to move the house.

Finally moving day was upon us. I have to say, this was the easiest move of my life. Usually there are weeks of packing involved but this time all I had to do was take down a few breakables and place them on the floor in case we hit big wake.

 Sadly for me, I had dislocated a rib a few days before and so stayed behind in Vancouver to go to a Chiropractor appointment, run some errands and drive the car to the new location. I missed getting towed 60 km up river on a beautiful summer day. From the photos that Dave and a friend Rick took, the trip was absolutely gorgeous. The most important thing for me though, was that all went smoothly and safely which thankfully it did.

We have been here for about a month now and I couldn't be happier. The river is very wide here, almost two km which makes it feel more like a lake than a river. We went from having hundreds of condos staring at us from a few hundred feet to feeling like we live in the middle of the wilderness. The views are beautiful and inspiring and I doubt I will ever tire of them. The countryside is picture perfect cuteness and a joy to explore. Fields of horses graze contentedly, babbling brooks meander through forest and fields and the nearest town looks like a movie set.

                                          The view from my bedroom before

 

 

 

                                                         The view from my bedroom after

 

The view across the river before

 

 

                                              
                                                          The view across the river after

 

The view from the back of the house before ( not so bad really), but compared to....

 

                      
                           The view of from the back of the house after ... no contest :)

I have come to terms with the two hour commute for work. I love where I live and I love where I work. Arriving at either end brings me much joy, the commute is a small price to pay for being a part of two of BCs most historic and beautiful towns.

Now that the drama of finding a place to live has been dealt with, we will be getting on with the renovations. We still don't have power or water, but that is coming all in good time. We haved lived without them for a year and a half now so a few more weeks is tolerable. We have gotten a lot accomplished already, so stayed tuned for more posts as we get on with creating our dream home.

The Ark in her element, at one with nature and continuing to be a part of the history of the mighty Fraser River! I thank the universe for providing such an oasis and for letting me live my dream.xoxo

 

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