Kelwood Drive, Part II
by Colin Campbell
As mentioned last month, I purchased this home in December of 1979 and have had so many great memories over the years living in Glendale. Fast forward 27 years to the spring of 2006, it was time to do some major renovations to this old 1955 bungalow. It started off slow, but the idea was to make the home more energy efficient by adding updated insulation to the exterior walls. We removed the old plaster and added insulation and vapour barriers, at the same time moving and shortening some interior walls.
Some mid-50s building codes no longer apply today; for example, it was required to have a door at each end of the kitchen, likely due to fire codes. These were taken out. This house was a two bedroom with what was called at the time a country kitchen, so there was no dining room. The kitchen was considered large back then.
When our work got to the living area, the plaster near the front door was removed and the black R7 value old insulation was also removed. To our surprise, there were dozens of invoices hanging on nails on what would be the exterior wood wall boards. These invoices provide an interesting story. They were invoiced to Kelwood Corporation for all sorts of construction materials with different dates all around 1955/56. It’s possible this house may have been used as a staging lot for building materials being delivered for homes being built in the area.
Something that really surprised us was the address on the invoices were all listed as 1930 Kelwood Drive. It was unlikely a typo as there were several invoices listed that way. Today there is no 1930 Kelwood Drive. We can only deduce that at some point the houses were renumbered. There may be other homes in Glendale that were renovated that have similar stories. It would be great to hear what was found in them.
Editor’s Note: Thank you for sharing Colin, and agreed! It’s always interesting to hear the stories our homes can tell. Feel free to share what you’ve learned about Glendale history at [email protected].
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