The B.C. father and son behind tiny library models of Vancouver's charming architecture

Ray Young and his father Bing with one of the miniature lending libraries they have built together in Kitsilano. Photo by NICK PROCAYLO /10112538A

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On weekday mornings, Ray Young, 64, drives his father, Ding Young, to his workshop in Victoria, where they spend the next few hours working side by side.

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The routine started about a decade ago, when Ding, 94, moved to Victoria after living for three decades in the Lower Mainland. Ray was looking for a way to spend more time with his father and noticed that although Ding’s afternoons and evenings were filled with friends and activities, his mornings were wide open.

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“Why don’t you come over here? We can do something together,” Ray remembers suggesting.

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At the time, Ray didn’t own any woodworking tools or even a table saw at his Saanich home. But his father did.

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Woodworking had been Ding’s hobby, and the tools he had accumulated over the years became the starting point for a father-and-son ritual.

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Now, Ding comes to Ray’s shop about five mornings a week. Together, they have built more than 800 creations, turning recycled wood and lumber into things like garden boxes, furniture, and seasonal decorations through their business, I Used to Be A Pallet.

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Their latest creation may be their most ambitious yet.

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Installed last month outside a heritage home on West Fifth Avenue in Vancouver’s Kitsilano neighbourhood, a tiny yellow-trimmed house mirrors the full-sized one behind it — right down to the red front door, yellow railings, glass windows and second-floor balcony.

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Behind the tiny facade of the house, is a miniature library, stocked with books for the neighbourhood.

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Ray Young with a library he created with his dad for Hannah Leyland in Kitsilano. Photo by NICK PROCAYLO /10112538A

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Commissioned by Hannah Leyland, an architect born in Kitsilano, the lending library was her way of celebrating the kind of architecture that gives her neighbourhood its old-school charm.

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But the project carried a more personal meaning, too.

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“I have learning disabilities, and reading has never come easily to me,” she said. “So, creating something that encourages people to share and enjoy books felt particularly meaningful.”

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Leyland said she happily watches neighbours stop to look at the miniature house, open its door and browse the shelves inside.

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For Ray and Ding, the Kitsilano model was the product of 140 hours of painstaking work.

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“I had to make around 4,000 individual slits on the sides of the house, just to get them to line up,” Ray said of the process of replicating the home’s shingles.

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The duo’s first model library was modelled in 2018 after the University of B.C.’s Press Building, when the university asked them to create one that mimicked its offices.

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Ray and Ding Young’s lending library model of the University of B.C.’s Press Building. Photo by Young Family /handout

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The Youngs have built about 40 model libraries, including a North Vancouver firehall, a Vancouver church and other contemporary buildings. Requests have continued to pour in.

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Ray and Ding Young’s lending library model of a North Vancouver firehall. Photo by Young Family /Handout

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They visit the building, take photos and notes. Ray sketches out a draft plan for the model, then measures, cuts and assembles each little library.