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 Big. House. Red.
In a few words, it’s their ultimate dream house. So many people have a dream house in their mind’s eye, but only a fraction will ever actually get
around to building it in their lifetime.
Andrea Hossack and Eric Innanen are building their dream house off
Rockhurst Road in Wakefield, and they want to see more people realize this kind of dream too. That’s why they are setting up a Web site to help
others like them get the information, advice, and inspiration they will need to do it.
Whether it be a modest cabin or an elaborate multi-storied complex, they will show you the ins and outs
of accomplishing such a huge but fulfilling project. They only hope those deciding to build their home
create the design from their own imagination, making the house an extension of their personality. "It’s
more rewarding if your house reflects your history and who you are," says Andrea.
Their dream house comes in the shape of a three-storey, towering, majestic red barn. To put it simply,
you could put a large sailboat with a 32-foot mast in their ground-floor living room. Some 67 windows,
including two rows of windows lined up at the top of the cathedral ceilings allow the most magnificent natural light to shine through the house.
Every room, balcony, stairway and hallway has breathtaking views of the river, mountains, the village or
gorgeous rock faces. Though they have envisioned their house for a number of years , they actually
designed the house after they found the land, so that the architecture would complement the surrounding landscape.
A unique feature of the house is what they call their flying carpet: a separate platform or room suspended
from the ceiling by four steel suspension rods. It’s hard to picture how someone could relax knowing that
that the room is literally hanging from the ceiling with 30 feet of air below them. But for such free spirits, this is just a fun, playful chill out room.
Coming from southern Ontario, they have found it to be a bit of a challenge to work through the different
rules and building regulations in Quebec and in the municipality. They admit the different procedures and
building codes can all be a little intimidating for newcomers or first time builders and this again reiterates
why they felt their Web site would be such a welcome information tool.
This is their first house.The two married a year and a half ago and each of them had always wanted to
build their own home. To their delight they shared many of the same visions and ideas for building a
house. Andrea had been collecting magazine photos of houses over the years pasting them into a
collage, so when she hooked up with Eric, a lumber tradesman, many details and concepts were already clarified and they began planning last Christmas.
Eric built the first prototype out of Leggo blocks and before long they were tendering local trades people.
"We want to do this again," says Eric. "We want to eventually work as consultants for building projects.
Hopefully our Web site will introduce people to our team of tradesmen and will encourage and facilitate others to do this."
They are aiming to finish building in January 2003, but their Web site will be launched next month at www.bighousered.com (webmaster note: you are here)
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