What started out as a trip for home renovation ideas turned into a windfall for the Aulines last year. Now their whole home renovation continues and the couple looks forward to this year’s show.
Newlyweds Dave and Susan Auline had already completed a large part of the exterior home renovations, painting the stucco, installing a new roof and changing out old leaky windows for new energy efficient ones, when they got a bit of help—$5,000 worth, actually.
The couple won last year’s grand prize at the Powell River Home and Garden Show. They won $1,000 from five local home-related businesses including, Tempco, Personal Touch, Valley Building Supplies, WB Contracting and Relish Interiors.
They spent the summer and fall replacing the old oil furnace, choosing window coverings and installing 14 more inches of insulation in the attic.
Dave said that changing out the old furnace was actually quite reasonable because not only did he have the gift from Tempco, but also was eligible for another $1,000 in rebates from FortisBC.
“It was a pretty good deal,” said Dave.
He had considered switching out his wood-burning fireplace for a gas one, but said that he was not ready to give up wood heat.
The Aulines chose blinds from Personal Touch for their windows, ones which are adjustable from both the top and the bottom.
“There’s some really amazing things out there now,” said Susan.
Waiting for the summer heat to cool down some, Dave had Wes Brown of WB Contracting install 14 more inches of insulation in his attic.
Though Dave said he and Susan do not like their home too warm, the new insulation and the windows hold the home’s heat quite well.
“It’s amazing,” he said. “We’ve got the furnace set at 19° Celsius and in the morning when we get up after the furnace has been off all night, it’s still 16.5° in the house.”
Dave has owned the house for the past 30 years and thinks that it was built sometime in the early 1970s, but Susan has only lived there for the past two years since the couple married. Theirs is something of a sweet story: both Susan and Dave lost their spouses in 2010, only three weeks apart. “Her husband died and then three weeks later my wife died,” Dave explained. At first they lived together in Victoria, where Susan continued her job in seniors’ home support and before Dave convinced her to retire and move up to Powell River.
“I’ve been retired for a few years now,” said Dave. “I got out early.”
Dave spent the first eight years of his career in the building trades constructing houses then went on to spend the next 34 working for the City of Powell River, first as a carpenter and then as a maintenance foreman, overseeing the city’s painters, carpenters, electricians and janitors. He also learned how to be a locksmith and took care of the more than 250 locks at Powell River Recreation Complex and the more than 400 padlocks on gates around the city. “I did all the locks. It kept me busy,” he said.
With the first part of the interior renovations complete, Dave and Susan are moving on to part two: taking down wallpaper and deciding what colour they want to paint, choosing kitchen cabinets and installing a new bathtub and shower as well as flooring. The last thing they will install is the new carpets or whatever they decide to use.
“We’re fixing it up so we can stay in it as long as we can,” said Dave. “If the stairs get to be too much, we’ll consider selling, but I’ve got too many toys to move.”
Though their home renovation project is now nearly complete, the Aulines said they will return to the Home and Garden Show this year for more ideas.
“We got a lot of good information there,” said Dave.
Powell River Home and Garden Show almost did not happen last year.
Evergreen Exhibitions, a Vancouver Island-based company, decided that they were not going to continue with the show, which had been a regular occurrence for two decades. The company cited too few exhibitors and people were attending, said Leah Rourke, owner of Relish Interiors and principal organizer of last year’s show.
Rourke had been an exhibitor for the past couple of years since she had returned to Powell River to set up her interior design company.
With its future unclear, “I started wondering how difficult it would be organize a show,” Rourke said. So, with a very late start, she started to pull details together and was happy that it was well-received.
“Things went well and we had a good number of exhibitors—certainly not what you would expect at a home show though, but it was 99 per cent local,” she said.
During the summer she created a non-profit society to run the show and Powell River Home and Garden Association (PRHGA) was established. Members formed a board and found a charity to support. Rourke said that the local charitable housing organization Lifecycle Housing will be receiving proceeds from the door at this year’s show, fitting for a home show.
The show will be a help for new businesses and also well-established ones, she said.
“People don’t necessarily know that you’re there or know what you offer and they don’t know what’s new,” she said. “It’s a no-pressure atmosphere where people can go with the whole family and walk around and window shop, talk to experts and get all this information without the pressure of feeling like you have to buy something or sign up for something. It’s a casual one-stop shop.”
Rourke said the board started organizing the show this fall and decided to move the date of the show so that it would happen earlier to be more timely for gardeners who already have their gardens in by the time the show would happen on Mothers’ Day. This year’s show will happen on Friday, April 24, and Saturday, April 25, in the main rink at the recreation complex. Entry at the door will be for a suggested donation of $2. This year’s grand prize is a complete bedroom renovation.
“We wanted to have this show for local businesses and consumers,” said Rourke, “and now it’s actually really going to benefit Powell River.”
For more information about this year’s show, readers can visit the non-profit’s Facebook page.
