The old adage about a man’s home being his castle certainly works for Chris Webb, who recently wrapped up 14 years of hands-on renovations.
The Saanich do-it-yourselfer has fulfilled his dream of building a mansion, just as his dad did. And he did it much as his father did — with frugality, loads of elbow grease, oodles of talent and an optical illusion.
“When I saw this house and this lot, I knew it was perfect,” Chris said. He wanted a house that looks beautiful and expensive, but isn’t really expensive. “The trick is width and detail” — a mantra he learned from his dad.
The house is 70 feet wide and sited across a broad quarter-acre lot. “By adding a new garage with a second storey over it, I made the house look a lot bigger,” Chris said.
“My wife Sandy and I always wanted a wide lot with a south-facing backyard, and lots of room outside. I didn’t care about the inside of the house. We knew we’d change all that,” said the mechanical insulation contractor, a penny-pinching polymath. (He also builds boats, restores hot rods, does drywalling, framing and roofing, lays tile and does his own electrical and plumbing, as well as painting, landscaping and cabinet-making.)
“That’s what you do when you don’t have the money,” he said with a chuckle. “When I saw this house, I knew it could look grand. We bought it and started ripping it apart, taking down walls, putting in new windows.
“I hand-formed and faux-painted all of these stones myself,” he said of the 40-hour job to create the “rock” bases for pillars at his front door. “I’m an artist, too, and I do watercolours. Now I do rock,” he said with a hearty laugh. “My dad taught me to believe you can make anything yourself.”
Chris was born in Victoria and his father, Tom Webb, was a roofer. “From a young age, I appreciated what he did. He built a beautiful wide home on a wide lot, with little garden ponds and a swimming pool.
“He was the original recycle man. We were poor. We had springs coming out of the sofa, so it was actually an illusion, a façade. But that taught me a lot about doing things yourself and how to make things looks visually better.”
Chris painted his entire house, did three kitchen renovations before he got it right, reused all the cabinets and bought new ones at Home Depot. He added 800 square feet to the original 2,000, plus a pool and cabana.
“The cabana is great for parties, with a little kitchen area and bathroom so people don’t need to traipse through the house. It’s a place for the kids to go, have sleepovers, and we use it as a greenhouse in the winter.”
He bought an $11,000 kit and built the pool himself, with a buddy.
One of the things he liked about the property the minute he saw it was a huge hedge in the back, into which he cut a hole to access the adjacent Bow Park.
“The only thing in the backyard when we bought the place was one tree and a little hut. Nothing but a crappy lawn where a big dog had been chained, and dug a huge circle by running round and round. It was a trough two feet deep.”
Chris admits he had to be a bit canny about the renos so he wouldn’t drive his wife around the bend with continual projects. (When they moved in, their daughters were ages six and one month.)
At one point, he decided the house needed a new roof, and he told his wife that if they were adding a roof, he might as well tear down the old carport and add a garage with a large room above. And if he was going to do that, he might as well repave the driveway.
“I told her for about $50,000 we’d get a new garage, a master suite and a new driveway. Well, about $110,000 later …”
The day she left to visit relatives in Newfoundland, he brought in an excavator. He had it all wrapped up when she returned in three weeks, except for the Hardie board siding.
“I once built a house in 2 1/2 months, by doing lots of work myself and organizing for when guys were not that busy. You just have to schedule very, very tight.
“And I’ve always liked the idea of two storeys, because you’ve got to build the foundation and roof anyway. You might as well get two floors out of it.”
Chris said he spent six months taking off all the exterior boards — beautiful 1 1/4-inch clear cedar — doing it after work. “I set up lights at night. The neighbours used to call me Mr. Midnight, although I did try to be quiet after 10 p.m.
A self-described cheapskate, he reused all the boards for trim around the windows, fascia and gables.
“I thought the twin gables were a nice touch — good detail — and added the small deck out front for esthetics. We don’t need it, or use it, but it looks good from outside.”
The frugal factor came in handy in the garden, too. He looked in the newspaper one day and saw a commercial landscaper was going out of business, with 70 per cent off. He bought $800 worth of shrubs and 20 yards of manure, stripped out the old sod, got a rototiller and the rest is horticultural history.
When he decided to use interlocking brick for the driveway, he built boxes for the kids’ skateboards and had them roll around, delivering bricks to him while he worked.
The self-taught carpenter installed a wall of cabinets between the family room and kitchen, because his wife wanted a noise separation and more storage, and created a spiffy new laundry room. “Gotta give her something out of the deal.”
Sandy, who works for the government, said she has been through some dusty days, “but Chris always contains the mess well and I trust his judgment. When he takes on a project, he is very fast. He did the new den, laundry, mudroom and bathroom in six weeks and he can do just about anything. I better not make any suggestions or he’s on it. There’s no thinking out loud around here,” she joked.
The house was appraised at $283,000 when the Webbs bought it 14 years ago, and is now valued at more than $1 million, thanks to Chris’s workaholism, but he learned a harsh lesson after developing polymyalgia rheumatica.
“I got it just before I turned 50, a few years ago, and was paralyzed for six months. I never took a pill in my life and I tried everything from chiropractic to massage and acupuncture. I saw a Chinese doctor who gave me a horrible mess of scorpions, centipedes, worms and dried herbs to boil up and drink. It stank so much I boiled it outside, but in two weeks my muscles started to get better.
“That’s when I really appreciated the pool. If I lay down three hours, I would seize up, so I’d get up every two and sit in the hot water for 20 minutes, then have a cold shower for 10 and go back to bed. I kinda invented that myself.
“You gotta be proactive, do things for yourself.”