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    • The Wet Room

      March 08, 2024

      One emerging trend in home building is the growing popularity of wet room bathrooms — a space that's fully constructed using materials designed to get wet. They typically include a shower and freestanding tub together in their own glass enclosure. Everything in a wet room bathroom can withstand moisture, from the fixtures to the flooring and wall coverings. Wet room bathrooms can be a smart solution for small spaces, and a luxury compoent of an upscale bathroom in a high-end home.

      At one of our current jobs, a small renovation, the clients have decided a wet room bathroom would be perfect for their lifestyle and needs. And so we've been making it happen. As you can see in the photo below, the freestanding tub and shower are all in the same tiled enclosure. The bright and airy space will soon be behind a beautiful glass door, which is currently on order. The result is a super modern look that keeps the water in the area it belongs, while the rest of the bathroom remains high and dry.

      The clients wanted to utilize the modest space of the bathroom in the most efficient way possible, without sacrificing tub or shower. And they're not alone — many of our clients are very interested in having something similar. This renovation is nearing completion, and we'll bring you some more photos of the finished product when they're available.


    • Avalanche in the Highlands

      March 01, 2024

      When we get busy, as we are currently, we turn to our trusted sub-trades to get the job done. That's the case right now, as we get closer to finishing a new walkout rancher in the beautiful Shuswap Lake Estates Highlands subdivision.

      With our own staff working on numerous projects, we made a decision to bring in Avalanche Exteriors, a siding and exterior finishing contractor headquartered in Kelowna. The company's Salmon Arm-based crew is going full on at this home, taking care of the entire exterior envelope: siding, soffit and gutters all in one go. The photos below were taken this week. Their work is excellent, and we look forward to continuing our relationship with this outstanding company. You can learn more about them at https://www.avalancheexteriors.ca.

      Meanwhile, inside the home, all drywall has been completed. Priming will start this coming week, and our interior trim package will arrive onsite this coming Friday. We're making excellent progress and are looking forward to showing it off when our clients arrive this coming week for a site inspection. It's a timely visit, as they haven’t seen the home since the early framing stages, although we've been keeping in the loop with photos and FaceTime calls.

      In the weeks ahead, we'll post more photos of this stunning lakeview home as it moves ever closer to completion.


    • Radical Facelift!

      February 24, 2024

      Recently, we started a new project in Eagle Bay that's truly intriguing. It's a whole-home renovation, but one with a twist. Most of the dozens of large-scale renovations we've done over the years involve modernizing and enlarging an outdated, inefficient, older Shuswap home (think lake front cabin transformation). In this case, the home isn't that old, and it certainly isn't decrepit or small. But the style of the home, traditional timber frame, isn't doing it for the owner. She's asked us to transform it into a modern, contemporary open concept home.

      It was obvious that the first step needed to be gutting the interior of the house. That would allow us and our client to better envision exactly what we would do together. In the left photo below, you can see how the home looked prior to the beginning of the project. And in the right photo below, which is taken from a similar vantage point, you can see how it all looks stripped down to its bones, ready for the rebuilding process. Our thanks to Project Manager Heidi Friesen, who is leading this renovation, for the photos.

      At this point, we're all taking a pause so that we can have a full discussion about how to proceed. Possibilities include shifting the stairs over to provide more room for an enlarged modern kitchen, raising the beam in the kitchen (which runs across the entire house) to create a more spacious feeling underneath the lofted second floor area, and shrinking the banister to allow a lot more light into the kitchen from the living room.

      Needless to say, we love undertaking these types of challenging projects. They allow us to create something unique -- and possibly even acquire new knowledge and skills along the way. 

      We'll look forward to showing you more photos of this project as we move forward in the coming weeks and months!


    • Hidden Doors...

      February 10, 2024

      Over the years, we've worked with many clients who have wanted to include bold design choices and unique features into their Shuswap dream home. We greatly enjoy the challenge of achieving their visions. And we've found that two skillsets are vital to bring them to reality: having an imaginative and qualified designer who can express our clients' ideas in practical terms with excellent renderings and plans, and having exceptional tradespeople who are able to take those renderings and plans and ulimately build out a beautiful finished product.

      This is exactly what's been taking place at one of our most ambitious current projects, a beautiful West Coast home in Anglemont on the Shuswap's North Shore. Our clients envisioned an entertainment area on the top floor of the house that would feature custom built-in cabinetry. The focal point, however, is flanked by two doors -- one opening to a top floor laundry room, and the other to a bathroom. These doors, presented in a traditional way, could be very distracting on either side of the screen. Our clients' designer, Tanya Wassen of Kamloops-based Spot On Interior Design, was up to the challenge. Together, they decided to find a way of minimizing the visual impact of the two doors, which would help people in the finished home maintain their focus on the entertainment area.

      As you can see from Tanya's rendering at the top of the images below, the idea was to essentially hide the doors in the wall. In the bottom photos, you can see how our two exceptional finish carpenters, Chuck Beaton and Mark Orchard, are beginning to bring the design to life -- the shiplap on the walls runs into the two doors, with only the small seams of the door opening present to signal to anyone in the room that there are, in fact, rooms behind the wall. We can't wait to see the finished product with the built-in cabinetry in place, paint on the walls, and flooring in place!

      This is the first project we have worked on with Tanya and her company, and we're impressed. She loves to come to the job site, to meet with the trades and work through hurdles as a team. Her designs are unique but entirely attainable. Your can learn more at spotoninteriordesign.com.


    • House Swap!

      February 03, 2024

      What happens when you need a modern house, but have a beautiful old cabin on your property that's still in good repair and, more importantly, has a permanent place in your heart? You do as one of our new clients are doing: move the old cabin to a new location on your property, and build a new home on the original location.

      In a first for Copper Island Fine Homes, we're in the process of moving our clients' existing cabin to a new site on their Celista property, where it can be continue to be enjoyed as a casita or guest accommodation, and then commencing construction of a beautiful new and modern home on the orignal home site. In the left photo below, you can see the existing cabin as we ready it to be moved. And to the right below, you can see the front and rear elevations of the home being designed for our clients by Meyer Designs from Coldstream.

      The new home will be a beautiful 2,400 square foot rancher on one level, built on a crawlspace. It will featured a soaring vaulted ceiling in the centre, with nine-foot ceilings elsewhere. A huge deck/veranda will be located at the front of the home, and an oversize garage will provide plenty of storage and parking. The plan also features three spacious bedrooms, including a massive owner's suite at one end of the house, and an office and three bathrooms.

      This is an exciting project that we're greatly anticipating getting underway. Look for more photos and updates as we move forward.

    • Big Moves in Magna Bay

      January 27, 2024

      We're finally getting a reprieve from an icy January winter blast, and that's allowing us to put the pedal to the metal at one of our major projects underway -- a beautiful West Coast custom home close to Magna Bay on the North Shore of the Shuswap.

      This outstanding home features a wealth of exceptional custom spaces and finishes -- from a huge retractable window wall that allows the outside in during great weather, to elaborate natural stone masonry and soaring ceilings.

      We're now completely polished out with our drywall on this home. That's allowing us to move forward quickly with priming for painting, and preparation for the floor to ceiling fireplace stonework (you can see all of that underway in the right photo below). We're also now working on the beautiful shiplap installs on the vaulted ceilings, with red oak beams to follow (see the left photo below)

      On the outside, the warmer weather is perfect for getting started with the vertical siding. As you can see in the middle photo below, the material we're using for this is steel siding, which we've sourced from Quebec company MAC Metal Architecture. We're really liking how it’s turning out -- and we can't help but think it's such a smart choice in terms of fire resistancy in the wake of last summer's tragic wildfires.

      In the following weeks, we'll be continuing on the interior with tile, interior door installations, and window trims. We'll also be working with our clients to make final design approval for cabinets, stucco and interior hand rails. 

      This has been an exception project to work on, and we can hardly wait to see the final result later this year -- along with our clients, of course!

    • Out with the Old...

      January 20, 2024

      How to create a feeling of spaciousness in a smaller home? One effective way of achieving this when you can’t expand the square footage is to create more height. That’s exactly what we’re doing at one of our current projects, an ambitious renovation of an existing 1,100 square foot home in Eagle Bay that was built in 1974.

      Working with our clients for this makeover, we decided that the best way to achieve this was to change the flat ceiling to a vaulted ceiling. And that means taking the existing flat roof trusses off and replacing them with a very unique product called a scissor Warren truss, which is made up of parallel chords and vertical webs (the chords are the top and bottom beams of the truss, and the webs are the diagonal beams that connect the chords). These trusses create a vaulted ceiling inside the home, but unlike a standard scissor truss, they have a great deal of internal space for insulation and air gap.

      These trusses were built for the project by Kamloops Truss. This past week, the company’s crane operator was able to lift off the old trusses without breaking or wrecking them, and then land the new trusses in place for our framing crew to install. In the left photo below, you can see the old trusses being lifted off, and in the right photo, the new trusses are being lifted into place.

      In the week ahead, we’ll be moving quickly to get a new metal roof installed and the interior locked up so that we can proceed with insulation and drywall. Next up will be a major kitchen update, including all new appliances, cabinets, plumbing and lighting. We'll also be installing new white oak flooring, and giving the exterior a facelift with brickwork and cable deck railings.

      Copper Island Fine Homes specializes in whole home renovations and has completed dozens of these types of makeovers, including some that have won Canadian Home Builders Association awards. If you’d like to discuss a renovation project or idea, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

    • Top Priority: Energy Performance

      January 13, 2024

      Building a new home? Energy performance should be top of mind, as early in the planning process as possible.

      Gone are the days when you could simply make choices for your framing, HVAC, fireplace, air conditioning, insulation and even exterior finishing on the fly as construction proceeded. These days, you can’t even apply for a building permit without finalizing all of these choices.

      A home’s energy efficiency now has to be a known quantity before any construction can begin here in BC (and across Canada and even in many parts of the western world). This is one of several ongoing changes to the BC Building Code that will ultimately see all new buildings in BC, including single family homes, be net zero by the year 2032.

      What is net zero? According to the Canadian Home Builders Association (CHBA), a net zero home produces as much energy as it consumes and is up to 80 percent more energy efficient than a home built to conventional standards. Here in our province, the BC Energy Step Code has been created to guide our local governments, home builders, and home owners down a path that ultimately leads to full, mandatory net zero compliance by 2032. Municipalities and regional districts in BC, including the CSRD, are already incorporating the code's "steps" over time so that full, mandatory compliance is achieved through a series of manageable and realistic incremental changes.

      In late 2023, many municipalities and regional districts across BC (including the CSRD) adopted Step Three of the BC Energy Step Code. For single family homes, the requirement is to be 20 percent more energy efficient than was previously allowed. This improvement in energy efficiency can be achieved through many different ways, but regardless of the approach selected, it has to be clearly demonstrated prior to any issuance of a building permit can be applied for.

      In practical terms, this means that our new clients have to select and confirm their windows and exterior doors, exterior wall construction, insulation, water heater, furnace and heat recovery ventilation, air conditioning, fireplaces, in-floor heating, basement wall type, and exterior finishes—and submit this information with their building permit application.

      All of this information is needed so that mandatory energy performance modelling can be completed for any planned home.

      You might be reading this and thinking, “That sounds like a lot of difficult choices and a lot of work!” We won’t lie—these are all complex, inter-related choices that some new clients struggle with even when they were only required to make them throughout the construction process. But it’s important to remember that all these choices have always been required at some point during construction of your home.

      “Our experience tells us that moving these decisions into the pre-construction/pre-building permit planning process really doesn’t represent more work,” says Marcus Picton, CIFH President and CEO. “In fact, we find our clients are relieved to make these decisions prior to construction, and we also believe that the final product is often better due to this proactive planning. It’s also important to remember that, here at Copper Island Fine Homes, we’ve been leaders in energy efficiency since long before these changes became mandatory—we’ve got the knowledge and experience to help you make these decisions, and we’re committed to providing this assistance to you.”

      Picton also reminds potential clients that it’s in their best interests to consider going above and beyond the Step Three requirements for energy efficiency.

      “I think it’s safe to say that, when it comes to energy efficiency, we are the Shuswap’s leader,” he explains. “Through professional accreditation and experience, we’ve acquired a great deal of expertise in this area. Clients who we’ve helped take a highly energy-efficient approach are always extremely happy with their choices. With energy costs expected to continue rising, the payback time for investing in energy efficiency continues to be lowered. And so it’s making more economic sense with each passing year.”

      For more information, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

    • Now that's a chimney!

      January 06, 2024

      At one of our current new build projects taking place close to Magna Bay, our clients have gone to great lengths to maximize their home's outdoor living potential. One way they've done this is by including a huge living space with an entire glass wall that can be retracted to bring the outside in, and securely closed during cooler weather. Another outstanding feature of this space is a 42-inch woodburning fireplace that can provide comfort and warmth year-round, with the glass wall open or closed.

      Such an incredible fireplace required an equally impressive chimney structure that would complement the home's West Coast style. Our clients opted for a chimney finished in natural stone. For these types of projects, we usually bring in our of area's most accomplished stonemasons, Marcus Buhrig from Blind Bay. The weather was so mild during the Christmas holidays that Marcus decided to push through and work while he could. He spent a large part of the Christmas break onsite, finishing up this beautiful chimney. As you can see in the photos below, the finished product is simply and timelessly beautiful.

      With the weather flipping this coming week to cold temperatures, Marcus will be moving to indoors to stay warm and continue with the many other rock features in this home. Meanwhile, other interior finishing is also on the menu as we move toward completion of this challenging and rewarding project. Look for more photos and updates as we get closer to handing the home off to its new owners in the spring.

    • Season's Greetings!

      December 22, 2023

      We'd like to take this opportunity to wish everyone in the Copper Island Fine Homes family the absolute best of the holiday season! 

      To our amazing and dedicated staff, thank you for your incredible commitment to quality and work ethic -- you're the team that makes us the Shuswap's leading home builder and renovator. And to all of our exceptional sub-trades and suppliers -- we also think of you as members of our team, and we're grateful for your ongoing support and superior craftmanship. And to our valued clients, past and present, you're also members of the Copper Island family -- thank you from the bottom of our hearts for allowing us to build your Shuswap dream.

      While it's been yet another successful and satisfying year for Copper Island Fine Homes, we can't help but reflect on how difficult this year has been with the wildfires and tragic loss of so many of our neighbours' homes. So while we're grateful for what the year has brought us in terms of business, there's also a bittersweet aspect as we take time to reflect on 2023. As we look forward to 2024, we remain committed to playing any role we can to support the rebuilding of our North Shore communities.

      Speaking of the year ahead, we are pleased to see that our phone has been ringing steadily and our order book is filling up quickly. The wildfires, as devastating as they were, did not change what we all collectively know -- that the Shuswap is a wonderful place to call home. If you're wondering if we can help you build your Shuswap dream in 2024 or beyond, please don't hesitate to get in touch as soon as possible.

      Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

      Marcus and Sylvia Picton
      Owners, Copper Island Fine Homes