First a little background

Before I go much further describing the boat project, let me give a little background. I grew up constantly tinkering with things, but with a lawyer father whose only mechanical advice was, "It's Greek to me," I was left largely to my own devices. So I built a lot of things badly. Flash forward to my early 20s. I became a constant viewer of This Old House and rediscovered my childhood interest in building. But beyond that, I became fascinated with the almost Zen-like satisfaction to be found in restoring things that have been neglected or forgotten. When it comes to residential architecture and numerous other things that matter to me, like movies for instance, I believe that the past has greater riches to offer than the present.

So when it was time to buy a house, I set out to find one that had tremendous potential but had gone to seed. Fortunately, my wife and I found just that: an 1880 two storey yellow brick Victorian. It had been in the same family for seventy years and had not undergone any renovation since immediately after the Second World War. But because they hadn't done anything, the owners also hadn't thrown anything out. In the top floor of the old coach house garage I found three beautiful French doors used as shelving. From them, I found the color of red mahogany stain original to the house, and was able to use that to restore every entry door (I believe there were six).

I should note that when I say "I," I'm generally referring to my father-in-law, who is retired and has done the vast majority of work over the past seven years.

The renovation of the house began in the fall of 1997 with the complete gutting of the second floor bathroom. It was in a dismal state. A leaky toilet had gone ignore for many years, except for the effort required to empty a bucket hidden in the drop ceiling in the kitchen. After several weeks of showering in the basement, the bathroom was done.


Retiring the infamous leaking toilet bucket 

On Labour Day weekend 2002, we began the final major interior project, the gutting and complete rebuilding of the kitchen. I suppose I could devote an entire blog to that project, but suffice it to say, it was a great deal of work and we're very please with and proud of the result. I designed the kitchen myself, laying it out on the same graph paper that I use for all my projects. I also built the cabinets (using 3/4 inch maple plywood) and the harvest table (using reclaimed century pine barnboard). We had Christmas dinner in the kitchen that year, though without the luxury of cabinet doors.


Kitchen 1 

We entered this project in a contest run by Canadian House and Home magazine and won a $1000 gift certificate for a high-end fabric and furniture store in Toronto. Also, we got a nice spread in the April 2004 issue.


Kitchen 2 


Kitchen 3 

Before we took on the kitchen, I strayed over to another project: restoring a 1979 Vespa Primavera ET3 scooter. I bought it right off the boat from Italy. It was covered in the most beautiful, golden Tuscan mud I've ever seen. I wish I could have saved some. It was also in pretty bad shape.


The scoot straight off the boat and in my basement 

As with all my projects, I tried to restore the scoot to as close to the original condition as possible. I have no interest in motorcycles whatsoever, but I find the smallframe Vespa to be one of the most beautiful man-made objects I've ever seen. It is incredibly fun to ride, which I do every day it isn't snowing or the scoot isn't broken, which it happens to be right now. I'm hoping to have it back on the road for October.

The restoration was far from show quality, but I'm pleased with it. A photographer used it in a photo shoot. I used the small fee he paid me to buy a new seat. You may notice the original one is in tatters, despite the best Photoshop work.

(Photo to come)

Which brings me to the boat, and the conversation my wife and I had this spring. With the house complete, I was thinking about taking on another project, under the usual conditions:
- it would have to add to our lifestyle in a significant way, and be something we use frequently, if not every day
- it would have to be something we could not afford without the sweat equity
- it would have to be something classically beautiful and lost to the world were it not for our efforts

My wife had tried to talk me into buying a boat a year earlier, when she happened to be about three weeks away from giving birth. I suggested it wasn't a great time. But a year later our son was growing and slightly less of a handful. Also, my late mother's small estate had finally cleared, and I was thinking about ways to spend my inheritance that would have driven her nuts. So I looked up the boat we had thought about a year earlier. It was long sold, but I found another by accident of Google. A few weeks later, we drove to Trenton, Ontario, about four hours away from our home in London.


The boat as we first saw it on the Bay of Quinte 

Coming next: the boat as it is today and the plan for restoring it