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Lakehouse living is both rural and romantic

Yvette and Charles travelled halfway around the world to achieve their retirement vision of a comfortable country retreat, and then totally redesigned and transformed a 60-year-old cottage on the eastern shore of Langford Lake.

Yvette and Charles travelled halfway around the world to achieve their retirement vision of a comfortable country retreat, and then totally redesigned and transformed a 60-year-old cottage on the eastern shore of Langford Lake.

The result is a warm and welcoming lake house that showcases nature outside and reveals a relaxed lack of pretension inside.

The couple met in Manitoba, where Yvette was born, but lived and worked in northern Canada, Europe and Latin America for many years before falling in love with Victoria’s Langford Lake district, said British-born mining engineer Charles, who prefers to keep their last name private. “Our property here is so beautiful and we have now created a home where we can live entirely on the main floor, although we do have a large rec room and bedroom suite downstairs.”

The couple grew accustomed to country living during several years in Ireland, where their home was a 250-year-old hunting lodge in County Meath, and their new home is both rural and romantic, with expansive views across the lake. The high-bank property soaks up all the afternoon warmth as well as the last rays of the setting sun, and is framed and softened by arching arbutus trees on the waterside, while on the driveway side, it is shaded by a forest of sentry-straight Douglas firs.

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Once a humble lakeside bungalow, hand-framed by a European craftsman in the 1950s, their new home has undergone several facelifts, including an addition four decades ago and extensive upgrades 20 years ago.

But nothing was as extensive as the current renovation that saw the structure stripped to the studs, inside and out, all the floors and the roof replaced and a large lakeside deck added.

“The original builder hadn’t taken advantage of the stunning lake views, so this became the focus of our redesign, along with the homeowners’ request to make it bright and airy,” said MAC Renovations owner Ed McDonald.

He noted the home presented numerous challenges because the floors weren’t level, the walls jogged in and out, and the house was not square to the foundation, but the biggest problem lay deep underground. After starting work on the upper deck, they learned it had been built on posts that rested on a concrete slab built over a dump.

“We discovered this when we tore off half the roof to create a vaulted ceiling in the living room and a parallel truss roof extending over the new deck,” said McDonald. “We began cutting into the slab for new footings and found bad ground … tin cans, old plates and other buried stuff.”

He had to come up with a creative solution quickly, and hired a company specializing in helical piers (also called screw piles). Using an augur bit, they drilled down seven metres to bearing soil and inserted slim steel pilings — cylinders about eight centimetres in diameter — which were then cut off at grade and capped. Concrete footings were poured around them and five posts installed on top.

“It was an interesting process that I’d heard about, but never used,” said the builder, and it was ideal because access down the sides of the lake house was limited and the terrain steep. “The machine they used was very small, almost like a Bobcat.”

The two-level Langford Lake home is about 30 metres from the water and the lot slopes steeply, so the owners can walk in on grade at both levels. An inside staircase was poorly positioned, however, right in the middle of the house, so they moved it to the side and also eliminated a wall separating the kitchen and dining areas, which completely opened up an interior great room.

The eight-month renovation also saw a massive fireplace on each level dismantled – something McDonald said is increasingly common in older houses as people switch to gas. The main-floor fireplace was “a monster” that took up 20 square feet in the centre of the house, and removing it not only saved space but allowed light to flood through. To lighten the interiors even more, since the property is heavily treed, they enlarged and replaced every window and added skylights.

In the kitchen, the couple drew upon their European experience when choosing high-gloss, lacquered Ikea cabinets, and added a chic touch with charcoal grey on one side, camouflaging the wall oven and microwave, and sparkling white on the other. The two colour schemes are stirred up in a delicious-looking slab of white and grey granite that tops the island. Designer Jennifer Pacheco said it can be difficult working with off-the-shelf cabinets in a reno, because standard sizes lack flexibility, but she solved that with custom stainless fillers and details.

In the ensuite, she jettisoned an old Jacuzzi that took up masses of space, and created a custom shower wrapped in pale Carrara marble, floored in pebbles. A small vanity was replaced by two handsome 42-inch-high vanities topped with dark brown marble, providing more storage and greater comfort for the tall owners.

All over the house, terracotta floor tiles were torn out and radiant heat now underlies new Brazilian mahogany flooring, coated in clear varnish to highlight the natural colour. The low-maintenance exterior features a metal “shingle” roof and metal-wrapped gutters and fascia, while the tired cedar siding was replaced by crack-resistant, water-shedding acrylic stucco.

The owners are delighted with the renovation, and Charles marvels at the transformation in the living room. “The main difference was creating a cathedral ceiling, as the previous one was barely eight-feet-high, installing big windows and expanding the deck. It had to be replaced anyway, as it was doing a slow dive into the lake,” he said with a chuckle.

Yvette loves her new lakeside home, too. “I am someone who cannot envision changes, but the results are amazing. And it’s much easier to hang pictures here than on stone walls in Ireland.”

Grania Litwin was a reporter, editor and feature writer at the Times Colonist for 35 years. With a passion for design and architecture, she continues to write about beautiful homes on Vancouver Island.