Tuesday, December 4, 2012

My neighbourhood

I live in a very eclectic community.  The architecture is very diverse from old homes to new modern styles, as well as floathomes in the Westbay Harbour.  Every day I take Grand Duchess Roo out for her puppy burn off some energy walk and usually carry my phone or camera -  Enjoy!

Loved the Christmas ornaments.
This used to be one of the funkiest houses in Esquimalt and was decorated with a sea motif, but alas in the name of progress and high density housing it is being torn down.  Progress sucks.

This is called a Monkey tree. 
This is WestBay Harbour where our old floathome was moored, the picture is looking up towards Victoria's Inner Harbour.


This is the floathome called the Pink Dishrack, the story behind the name is that when the marina was just new and there wasn't much infrastructure mail was sorted and put in a pink dish rack for the live aboards to come and collect.  This house was moored directly in front of us and it was a funky little house.  Our house was called the 'Resting Cloud'.  I miss floathome living and am still digging around in my pictures to find some to post.  I have to say though with the storms we have been having and the wind I am actually pretty happy I am a land lubber and happily warmly ensconced in  my dry, non-moving home. 

Times have certainly changed in the marina, now the little funky floathomes have been replaced by 'Monster' floathomes.  They are cool, but they are not as individual or as funky as the ones that used to be moored in the marina.  

7 comments:

Deb said...

Float homes are like "house boats", right?

Neato!

I loved that movie "Houseboat" with Cary Grant and Sophia Loren.

How's the Roo girl?

Pam said...

Love your hood, especially the float homes. Always wanted to try living on one, maybe a vaycay. In the bucket list it goes.

Trobairitz said...

It amazes me how floating homes have gone from small quaint inexpensive homes to the monster two and three storied ones you can see today. Thanks for sharing.

And Deb - I loved 'Houseboat' too, one of my favorite movies.

Dar said...

Deb - Roo is doing great, she is growing like a weed. We are having a little problem with itchy skin, so I have switched out her food for something a little plainer and done a flea treatment just to be on the safe side.

These aren't really 'houseboats' because they can't go anywhere and they are on a different floation system. They are pretty cool. The Sleepless in Seattle one was my favorite.

Pam - I think it may be on my bucket list again, I really miss the lifestyle and who know maybe I will go back to it.

Trobairitz - Floathomes used to be a lovely lifestyle and not as pretentious as it is now. Most regular folks can't afford it because the monster homes are around $300,000+ to build and then you do a water lease for X number of years and there is also a monthly moorage fee on top. So you are paying for the water lease - usually up front and then your mortgage (if you can get one) and then a monthly fee which is generally over $1500+. Things have certainly changed since I moved off 14 years ago.

Rakel - Welcome to Scooterpie Blog! Your blog is pretty snazzy too!

Martha said...

Since I'm never around "floathomes" I never think about them. I never thought of McFloaties, but looks like they do indeed exist. Too bad.

RichardM said...

Float homes still seems to be a popular topic. Sleepless in Seattle brought them to the everyone's attention. (Including me!).

Eilish said...

Lovely photos Dar! a slice of life on Vancouver Island. Hopefully the monster homes will not take over. :)