This Old Vancouver House » Uncategorized http://www.thisoldvancouverhouse.com Home renovation to restore this old house back to the 30s Sat, 17 Oct 2009 01:07:54 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Permit Plans http://www.thisoldvancouverhouse.com/2008/10/17/permit-plans/ http://www.thisoldvancouverhouse.com/2008/10/17/permit-plans/#comments Sat, 18 Oct 2008 00:36:18 +0000 john http://www.thisoldvancouverhouse.com/?p=174 Just in case anyone is interested in seeing the kinds of plans the City needs to see in order to get a building permit, here they are (it took me about 3 days of solid work to understand the requirements, survey the property and use CorelDraw to create the plans):

]]> http://www.thisoldvancouverhouse.com/2008/10/17/permit-plans/feed/ 0 Why People Don’t Get City Permits http://www.thisoldvancouverhouse.com/2008/10/17/why-people-dont-get-city-permits/ http://www.thisoldvancouverhouse.com/2008/10/17/why-people-dont-get-city-permits/#comments Fri, 17 Oct 2008 21:53:12 +0000 john http://www.thisoldvancouverhouse.com/?p=172 A question that I keep getting asked is will I be getting a permit for Job XYZ.  I always thought that was odd.  Why wouldn’t I get a permit?

Well, now I know. 

I applied to City Hall a few weeks back for a building permit to replace my badly weather damaged carport roof.  Today I got the permit.  And it cost me about 20% of the entire job cost.  That’s right people, $2500 to rebuild the roof and $500 for the permit.

City Hall gets $500, BC gets $175 in sales tax and Ottawa gets $125.  So I have to pay government 1/3 the cost of the carport roof just to be allowed to rebuild the thing.

Now I know why people avoid permits.

]]> http://www.thisoldvancouverhouse.com/2008/10/17/why-people-dont-get-city-permits/feed/ 4 Selling Our Gastown Condo http://www.thisoldvancouverhouse.com/2008/10/10/selling-our-gastown-condo/ http://www.thisoldvancouverhouse.com/2008/10/10/selling-our-gastown-condo/#comments Fri, 10 Oct 2008 23:40:32 +0000 john http://www.thisoldvancouverhouse.com/?p=150 We had the world’s greatest tenant in our Gastown condo for the past year and a half.  But now she’s moving on.  So we were faced with the decision to rent it again or sell it.  After a lot talking, we decided that it would be better to sell it.  We don’t really have the time or attention to be landlords, and we were just lucky to have found a really great tenant this time.

So, if you know anyone who wants to living in a great, virtually maintenance free, gastown condo, please pass the word. 

You can find all the details at http://www.thisoldvancouverhouse.com/condo4sale.  And just for convenience sake, here are the photos and video:

view4 fireplace2 bath couch mountains bath2 view3 closet loft_down2 upstairs fireplace view view2 ammen_building_01 kitchen3 ammen_gym_01 ammen_gym_02 ammen_gym_03 ammen_metal_shop ammen_meeting_01 ammen_wood_shop balcony_01 balcony_02 balcony_03 bathroom_01 bathroom_02 bathroom_03 bedroom_01 bedroom_02 bedroom_closet_01 chalk_door_01 closet_01 entrance_03 entrance_01 entrance_02 hood_2_chefs_02 hood_2_chefs_04 hood_alexander_01 hood_alexander_02 hood_gore_01 hood_gore_02 hood_gore_03 hood_railway_01 hood_rice_world_02 hood_rice_world_01 hood_sunrise_01 kitchen_01 livingroom_high_01 loft_01 loft_02 stairs_01 outisde stairs_02 stairs_03 stairs_04 stairs_05

]]> http://www.thisoldvancouverhouse.com/2008/10/10/selling-our-gastown-condo/feed/ 0 Let’s get this party started http://www.thisoldvancouverhouse.com/2008/08/11/lets-get-this-party-started/ http://www.thisoldvancouverhouse.com/2008/08/11/lets-get-this-party-started/#comments Tue, 12 Aug 2008 04:50:24 +0000 john http://www.thisoldvancouverhouse.com/?p=6 I’ve been trying to get this party started for a very long time now. The story is simply that we felt a bit cramped in our edge-of-downtown concrete condo, and started looking around for something a little bigger and a little closer to the centre.

We ended up finding a house a bit further away from downtown, but it was a whole house, with land, had good bones, and had been largely unmodified since it was built in the 30s. Sure it looked like a complete mess on the surface. But just beneath, there was something worth bringing back to life.

Renovating this old vancouver house was going to be a lot of work, and I wanted to capture it.  Unfortunately this all started over a year ago, so I’m way behind.  Fortunately we haven’t accomplished much in that year, so I’m really not that far behind. 

So let’s get this party started…

Really old house

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