Jim and Kristy Miller’s little yellow house arrived at Duncan Bay Terminal in Campbell River via barge last Wednesday morning.
The 1940s house, which was scooped out of Oak Bay, was then moved to their property in Black Creek early yesterday morning.
Altogether, Jim said it will cost them 40 per cent of what it would to build a new house on the property.
“The biggest stickler in all of these things was to find an institution that would lend you money to do it,” he said.
It was tough, because the house doesn’t have any value until it is on the property, according to Jim, but they made it happen.
The Millers worked with Nickel Bros., who move houses and industrial equipment.
According to the Nickel Bros. website, they started moving houses in the late 80s when they saw people buying property for the value of the land and not necessarily the house. The Nickel Bros save the house, remove it from the property and place it somewhere else. It saves contractors the demolition costs and spares the landfill tons of waste.
The Millers travelled to Oak Bay as well as Surrey and Aldergrove to see the houses that the Nickel Bros. had available.
Though their original plan was to sell their house and have another moved to their property by the end of August, they were delayed because people were still living in the house that they eventually chose.
“This house here is probably, of all the houses we looked at, the nicest of the Nickel Bros. houses that we looked at,” Jim said.
Their timeline hit a stumbling block when the house that they originally chose couldn’t be moved because the city wouldn’t allow the Nickle Bros. to trim any trees around the building. Instead it was demolished and the Millers had to choose a different house.
“It was originally built as a bungalow and then raised, they put a basement under it and then they chopped it off again (to move it here),” he said.
At the moment the yellow, English-style cottage, is six feet above the ground. The next step in the process is to build a foundation. When that is done they will be able to lower the house and move from the camping trailer they are currently living in on their property into their new home.
“I do a fair amount of the work myself on things, so that helps…but being patient, that has been the biggest challenge for us,” Jim said.
@CRmirror_JDoll
jocelyn.doll@campbellrivermirror.com
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.