Chris Paul, a Coast Salish artist from Brentwood Bay, carved the aptly named sculpture - Abundance - that hangs in the dining room of a new home on a quiet street in Oak Bay. The richly textured, sand-blasted piece of red cedar with a multiple salmon motif presents a perfect theme in the heart of a home that is being tagged with a string of prestigious building awards.

While they lived in a cosy log house in Calgary for 25 years, Evie and Al often visited Vancouver Island and planned to make it home once they retired.

"The log house was great," says Evie, "but coming to Victoria was a new chapter. We wanted something clean and bright and uncluttered."

Several years before moving to B.C., on one of their trips, they ran into a builder in front of a construction site in James Bay. "We chatted with Mike Miller in the street for about an hour and decided that we would use his company to build the house we had in mind," says Evie.

Evie and Al built three homes during their 40 years of marriage, and were clear about what they wanted. "Coming from Alberta, we needed sunshine," Al says. "Lots of windows and skylights and vaulted spaces.

"B.C. is a beautiful place but there are too many trees and too many rocks that get in the way of the view," he says with a wide grin. Al likes to see horizons, and definitely carries a Prairie-boy perspective.

High on Evie's wish list were three things: A chance to enjoy Victoria's year-round gardening therapy; a deluxe quilting space; and plentiful use of simple wood, steel, stone and glass.

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Look for House Beautiful every Saturday in the Times Colonist Homes section.

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"We started our planning with KB Design in March 2007 and we moved into the house in April 2009. The Abstract Development building crew became like family to us," says Evie, "even now, when we see them on different sites around town we stop to say hello. They do amazing work."

Evie describes Al as a "foodie" -and Al claims to "just know how to make a mess in the kitchen." Together they enjoy the large gourmet space in the open-concept home that they love to use for entertaining.

A large gas stove, steam tray, double ovens and warming drawer are just a few of the tools at hand. Two barbecues and a smoker on the private patio add to the versatility of cooking options. Al likes to smoke the fresh fish that is so accessible on the B.C. coast.

Evie also appreciates the freezer drawer being on the bottom of the unit after watching her tall husband stoop for decades while looking for something in the fridge.

When Chad Neufeld from CB Millworks was building the maple kitchen cabinetry, Evie mentioned that she didn't like chandelier-style lighting that hung over dining room tables. Neufeld thought about her comments and designed and built a slightly concave wood surface with imbedded lights, which is elegant and worked well for Evie.

Aspects of the dining room and living room and kitchen are tied together with Dijon-mustard -officially called 'Venetian gold' -accent walls. Even the cushions in the living room are a surprisingly perfect match. "I walk around with little paint chips in my purse," Evie says.

The mud room was designed with old family dogs in mind -plenty of feeding and sleeping and pet-food storage space.

The master bedroom has a builtin bed frame and built-in drawers in the transom-lit closet. Al refers to the extra large ensuite shower as the "car wash."

In the original design, the guest room was separated from the adjacent quilting room with a wall; but Evie decided to make it one large room instead. When they have guests, she puts her quilting things aside; but most of the time she has an expansive workspace. She installed two large banks of storage drawer units that are easily movable (on rollers) and serve as ideal work-surfaces for projects of any size.

After a career in medicine, Al enjoyed learning to work with wood. He made small decorative boxes at first, and then two very comfortable chairs for the living room and a desk for the foyer. All were made by hand -no electricity or sandpaper was used. When Al arrived in Victoria, he started carving one night a week with some local artists and appreciates the good company and great opportunity to learn.

Evie has a lot of fun volunteering with Heritage Productions -a group of local women who model vintage clothing at fashion shows in hospitals and senior lodges. They have as many as 500 outfits and will be holding a Vintage Fair at the Fairmont Empress hotel on March 29, from 5: 30 to 7: 30 p.m. Evie appreciates reminiscing about her college days when she studied fashion and design before going to work in a bank while Al went to medical school.

Pretty Québécois prints from Montreal, a camel saddle from Saudi Arabia and prominent pictures of Alberta grain elevators are just some of the rich reminders of homes past. Three grandsons aged three, six and nine enjoy sitting snugly in the camel saddle when they visit from the Prairies.

"We feel secure enough in ourselves that we don't need to identify a particular house as our root," Al says. "Our family knows that 'home' is wherever Mom and Dad are."

And for now, the abundance called 'home' for Evie and Al is nestled in Oak Bay.

CREDITS

Interior Design: Sandy Nygaard

Cabinetry: Chad Neufeld at CV Millworks, Cowichan

Flooring: Aaron Roworth at the Finishing Store

Electrical: Eddie Parker at Gorge Electrical Services

Plumbing: Tammy Rehman at Kitchen and Bath Classics

Painting: Nigel Morrison at We Paint Inc.

KB Design: Keith Baker and Keith Dewy

Abstract Development: Mike Miller and crew