Home’s restoration proves setting matters most
Two-foot-itis is a disorder that afflicts many boat owners — they start talking about needing a boat that’s just a little bit bigger.
It infects some homeowners, too.
Barbara and Bruce Scott caught a serious case when they moved into an older home on Portage Inlet in Victoria, but cured themselves with a renovation that added several feet to almost every room.
They bought their 1958 home 10 years ago from the original owners. A twophase makeover saw them popping out walls here, there and everywhere. When they couldn’t extend a wall, they used mirrors to expand the space visually.
“The house was structurally in very good shape, but it was unappealing,” Barbara recalling of their first viewing. “There had been no yard work done. It was very outdated and the rooms felt small. We wanted to modernize it and open up the views.”
They did a quick facelift before moving in, “to bring it up to our standards so we could live there for a while” — which involved removing old panelling and carpets. They added new maple floors and renovated a bathroom.
A few years later came a major reconstruction, popping out the master-bedroom windows three feet under the eaves, moving a wall several feet, pushing out the living-room windows three feet and adding a “carriage house” suite over the garage.
“We hired a contractor to do it properly, but we did a lot of the donkey work ourselves,” said Barbara, a realtor for 36 years. Her husband owned his own houseinspection firm — it’s how they met — and they now work as team realtors.
They were married in the house, which prompted a garden transformation that wrapped up recently with the completion of an inviting outdoor room. As an added feature, they created a two-foot roof extension and covered it with glass.
With five boys between them, the duo knew all about large houses, but this time they wanted a home just for two. “It is not a large house, just 2,000 square feet, plus 600 for the carriage house,” Barbara said. “But the setting is what matters most.”
She jokingly recalled that their friends thought they were nuts to buy the property, but she and Bruce loved the 1950s home — “it had a great feeling” — and couldn’t resist a third of an acre of waterfront.
“It was mainly the water exposure that appealed, and the fact the house was so well built,” Bruce said. Although, he adds, there were some odd elements, including a strange absence of access to the waterfront. No patio, no decks, nothing.
“And there wasn’t a shrub in the garden,” Barbara said.
“Friends … thought we’d flipped our lids because they couldn’t see our vision. All they saw was a hideous house with lots of dated wallpaper over panelling.
“Some people can’t see past the cosmetics.”
But the Scotts are the ones who are smiling now, as friends and visitors rave about what they have accomplished.
The house needed upgrading but “had excellent bones,” said the former inspector, who ran over it with a fine-tooth comb before they put in an offer.
Their front garden has a West Coast ambience with native plants and six large fish sculptures, while on the waterside, it’s all about a Mediterranean mood, complete with palms and banana trees.
“Having a 2,000-squarefoot home is so much easier to care for, and the garden keeps me fit, bending and stretching,” Barbara said. “And in how many major cities can you walk down to your dock at the bottom of the garden, hop in a boat and putt downtown for dinner? We can be in the Inner Harbour in just 45 minutes, travelling along the Gorge Waterway.
“We can never go away because nothing is better than this,” she said, only half jokingly.
“Every day we feel so lucky to be here, and every time we go on vacation, we’re disappointed.”