I hinted in some earlier posts that I might have some fun news to share, and now seems like the right time. Justine and I have bought a cottage, and all things going well, will have it installed on our property on Wednesday March 3rd!
At that time I will have more to share, but for now I thought I’d share a few early photos and give a bit of background on how we got here. I’m sure you’ll have lots of questions…
A first look at our finished cottage in the shop where it was built.
For the past year, we’ve been investigating different options for getting a cottage for the island. With COVID, having a place to escape to for a change of scenery has been more important, and has accelerated our timelines over what we had originally planned. Camping was working fine in the summer, but outside the few months, we weren’t really getting the use we’d like.
We explored lots of different options - pre-fab, stick builds and everything in between. With the skyrocketing cost of building materials, everything we considered was looking outside of our budgets. In the fall last year, we came across a builder on Vancouver Island that was building high-end “trailers” - technically Park model Trailers (think mobile homes), and we caught them in a really good point in their evolution as they had a demo model that they were finishing, that they were willing to sell. With this type of building we got a completed, fully finished unit that also had minimal requirements for permits and fundations. As it’s a trailer, they can deliver it, set it up, we can run power water and septic and be done within a few days. And the price was something that we thought was reasonable and within our budget. As with most things, it seemed too good to be true.
The one challenge was how to get it to Galiano. Al, our builder had worked with another company on the island to do the delivery and set-up, but they had not done the Gulf Islands before. The unit itself is 41’ long, 14’ wide and 14 1/2’ tall. Unfortunately, the ferry dock at Sturdies Bay is only 10’ wide. Which meant that we could not bring it over on a ferry. The next drama in this saga was determining that there are no commercial landing sites on Galiano. Not a single one. There’s a boat ramp in the Provincial Park, but they will not allow commercial use (and yes I tried…). So it was looking like this option was going to evaporate, with no way to get the unit onto the island.
At the 11th hour, the owner of Galiano Contracting came through with another option - landing it on a beach on First Nations lands at the north end of the island. Apparently he’d done that in the past, and he was kind enough to reach out to the appropriate people in the First Nations to obtain their approval to do the landing. Our transport team went and had a look at the landing site and the route to our property, and believed that they would be able to make the delivery work.
So on Wednesday morning, March 3rd at high tide, we’ll attempt a beach landing and drive the truck and trailer off a barge, onto a beach and over to our property. As you can imagine, we’re a little bit nervous!
So what I’ll do on this post is provide a few photos of the work we’ve done to date and the unit in the shop where it’s being finished. And then hopefully not to much later, will be able to post some pictures of the finished unit, delivered and installed on our property.
On Wednesday February 24th, we took the day off work and headed over to Vancouver Island to do our final inspection on the unit. We were super-excited to see it with all the extras we had done to the base unit.
The builder, Al from Nexus, has been absolutely amazing to work with. I would highly recommend them, if you need something like this. His attention to detail is first rate - all the little touches, and ensuring top-of-the-line finishes have resulted in an amazing end product. Even the little things like his design touches in installing the tile under the wood stove were beyond expectations. He’s been great to work with and delivered everything promised and then some. You can find Al’s company on their website. He’s also got a lot of additional photos of the unit in progress. I’m adding my own below, but if you want to see more, here’s the link.
We took the ferry from Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo, then drove down to the shop in Chemainus to see the final results!
A view of the outside front of the cottage. It’s already on the trailer for delivery. They did an amazing job with the exterior - an interesting combination of corrugated steel and hardy board siding. We’ve got a full metal roof that will last forever!
Side view of one end. They’ve installed a ductless heating/air conditioning unit. Way more than we’ll ever need. Fully wirelessly controlled, so we’ll be able to turn up the heat before we get there. :-)
A view of the back of the cottage. The two small square windows are in the “office” (bunk room - still to be determined). The high window is over the shower in the bathroom.
And the other side. These windows are in our bedroom.
A slightly different angle of the front of the cottage. We have a nice big front window in our bedroom.
The main room is quite small, but the kitchen is amazing. Beautiful counters, top end appliances, the whole works. And a surprising amount of storage space, for such a small design.
Looking the other way, the wood stove was an addition we made that will be amazing all winter.
Al also had someone come in and do a virtual walk through of the cottage. It’s better than the photos, as it gives you a sense of walking through the space.
There will likely be much more to come. We’ll try and document more of the process of delivery and set-up, and eventually get some final pics of it on location. Wish us luck!