there were a lot of deep sighs in the month of July. I was disappointed at the seemingly slow pace, the short work days - 8-1pm often, the dust, the mess, the missed, um flexible, deadlines. I knew it wouldn't be firm, neatly boxed dates when working with a beautiful old house, but things seemed to standstill even when they were moving.
things were stripped down and the light was beginning to flow into once dark corners, but we were now 2 weeks in, and changes seemed small...
so things became dusty and definitely got worse before better. With our home previously being a multi-family home we thought maybe we could live through some of the reno. the house was not plastic-ed at the beginning and so we had dust from top to bottom and escaped to the country/cottage for most of the summer. I came into town as needed for clinic work, and what I could do online, I did.
I was grateful that the summer timing worked out as I cannot imagine doing this in a Canadian winter, let alone during the school year with teenagers.
next phase was a lot of demolition, sourcing what was in stock and could be delivered thanks to pandemic supply issues. Making quick changes to the plans I designed was also par for the course as there were things hidden behind 122 year old walls and ceilings. I used my sketchbook, my phone, a free 3d planner, pinterest, webstores and bottles (ahem, glasses) of wine to manage. Our surly contractor questioned almost all of my choices...but I worked with the house and the things that couldn't be torn down, the things that needed to be repaired, and altered all of the plans as needed to bring light back into this old space.
so this phase we will call progress?! cabinets from Ikea, quartz from capital stone, appliances from costco, several items from amazon, tiles from home depot, re-used the hood fan (had the guys build a custom enclosure around it) and stove, found old maps with our house from ikea, stools from walmart and local shops, additional furniture from dufresne, repurposed a lot of furniture we already had (antique chairs, hutch and cabinet), artwork is all from the collection I have had for years.
the photos are a bit all over the place, so captions added.
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| can you feel the lack of light? this wall had a small opening into the kitchen with a door (as we used the old bedroom as a tv room), this was from day one - so many layers with old houses, lots of mess of plaster and wood! |
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| you can see how small the opening was into the kitchen, this image should be after the next one as the cabinet was torn down. the small pantry shelves had to go as well as pantry cabinets were to be added (and were in stock at Ikea) |
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| the ceiling in the tv room was not insulated - one of those old house discoveries as you move through a reno |
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| this wall originally also had the fridge. you can see my make shift solution to the complete absence of counter space, and note the wainscotting and wall mess as the layers were peeled away before this wall came down it took the better part of a week just for the initial demo... then once the wall dividing the kitchen and tv room, and the remnants of the closet frame (you know so that you got the sense you were moving from a closet through to the patio doors), a temporary support wall was added so a support beam could be placed between the two spaces. You can see the areas that will need to be patched on the floor to match all of the old flooring. And the last photo still shows the old bathroom opening (close to the garbage can is where the door would be relocated)    |
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| not bad, windows in old living room (earlier was a bedroom) |
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| wires and drafty |
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| before the patio doors, this blocked the view and access to the back garden |
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| ugly kitchen evidence - poor lighting |
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| closed off - the small opening on the left is the only access from the old dining room into the kitchen |
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| looks lovely on this side, but this door was locked, no doorknob, and completely drywalled, foyer was a tunnel of darkness with very little light |
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| this door led to access to a small closet and the basement door, but blocked one of the only windows that could provide light to the old dining room, cracks on this wall, just a mess |
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| tiling was done, but dark because of the drywalled door, this is on a super sunny day |
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| not the best solution to separate the office/treatment room from the rest of the space. was on the hunt for french doors! |
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| forgot to take a before pic of this wall (fridge was on the wall that is torn down here), but yes, that was the bathroom door in a small, closed off kitchen and all of the possible odours that went with it |
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| no matter what we did, this bathroom light never worked with 3 bulbs! |
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| this is the wall where we moved the door, opening by the patio door area instead of directly into the kitchen |
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| wooden toilet seat and this, enough said, next reno for the bath area |
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in keeping track...
the main floor
- kitchen was renovated...down to the studs and back again
- floors in kitchen and old living room were repaired and sanded to a matte finish (makes the old floors look new
- patio doors installed (2016)
- bathroom refresh for 2 of the 4 bathrooms, with the main floor bathroom getting the biggest change - no more bathroom door opening directly into the kitchen (ugh), and change out of toilet, vanity, lighting and mirror (I will be installing new tile when I get the chance, and re-doing the bathtub and surround will wait.
- opening between old dining room (now the living room), and the treatment room/office has been separated with old french doors
- old door that blocked a window has been replaced with a french door
- blocked and drywalled door to treatment room/office has been replaced with an old french door
- wallpapered feature walls into new living room (and covered up cracks), allowed us to not have to repaint the entire space
- wallpapered entire upper half of front entrance/foyer and up to the next floor
- tiled foyer (2019)
2nd floor
- painted and wallpapered older son's room
- wallpapered over very dark purple in bathroom - nice refresh as the rest of it was in good shape
3rd floor
tiny rooms knocked out to create one space (2019)
wallpaper (2019)
refurnished (2018 - now)
there is still a lot to do, inside and out to bring this beautiful, old, red brick into the state it should be in - loved, lived in and its best self!
we fell for unpainted staircases and tall baseboards, floors and ceiling medallions, clawfoot tub and crystal door knobs, and the charm and potential of this old house.
There were additions and changes made over the years which seemed thrown onto the place - roughly done electric, heating and plumbing; strange placement of bathrooms, including going through a bathroom to enter the second kitchen; flooring that was hideous and stunning in how appallingly bad it is; the scary basement with the even more frightful bathroom (my father-in-law has opted to use it in the past). So many things as the house was zoned for 3 units and we wanted it to be one home.
What we have started, and still have, is a warren of rooms that we are trying to make sense of, renos and refreshes that modernize, disguise past thoughtless work, but still honour the age and feel of the house.
This last reno and refresh (about 90% complete)...the house feels lighter, after 8 years together, this house is getting more home character than the piecemeal, thrown together, forgotten feel. It's a balance, budget and time, flow and feel.
We began very slowly when we first moved in, turning a main floor bedroom into a living room, adding patio doors (the only access to our back garden was by going upstairs then down the fire escape, or out the front door and walking around the house to the back). The light that created in a dark house, well it made it the one sun trap in this late Victorian/early Edwardian 2.5 storey house (3 floors of living space plus an almost full height basement).
I was unwilling to commit to bigger changes because I wanted to spend the money on travel, or was indecisive, or found time wrapped up in other things, in schedules, in life clutter.
The pandemic arrived and the focus shifted in...which included the house. We started back at it slowly: my husband and a neighbour took down a horrific deck add-on, and demo-ed a wall that turned the top floor into a series of tiny, separated spaces into an open one during the summer of 2019. I had retiled the foyer myself in late 2019 and was starting to write out the to do lists again,
It was easier to start sourcing the to do list in 2021, so we began with the sinking front steps...a cement and iron add on that screamed 1970s and just didn't fit with a house from 1905. It was a tripping hazard as it continued to sink, and given the winters we have, an accident waiting to happen. Seemed a natural place to start...
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| for context, this kid is now in his mid-teens |
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| after - but before we sealed and lightly stained, ready for winters! |
With my love of family history, it's really of no surprise to me that I should love older homes. My current home, when we purchased it, we were told it dated to somewhere in the early 20th century - likely 1910-1920.
After pouring through city directories yearly online, I found it - 1905. I managed to find some information on previous owners, including their births and deaths, and via the census of Canada for both 1911 and 1921, but also was able to trace the history of the area via some lovely maps from the 1880s through to the early 1900s.
Many original features of my current home were torn out over the years, but what attracted me and my husband to this house in need of some TLC was that the staircase and banister had never been painted. Simple as that. We have slowly been making changes to the home to try and both honour and update the space, and subsequent posts will be dedicated to that as a way of keeping it all in one space, and not scattered in file folders and photo albums across several platforms.
One of the earliest owners of this house died from falling off the caboose of a train, and his young wife and several children took in boarders, seemingly to survive financially. She had remarried by the 1921 census, and found her death record several decades later that showed she died here.
A few of those original features that remained intact:
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| front porch detail |
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| the "doorbell" on the front door |
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| the stairs and the wear of hands over the generations who lived here |
One of the non-people aspects of research I really enjoy is having a coffee and looking through old maps. The Library of Congress is one of those excellent resources that is searchable by location and time.
I like to see how others of the time saw their world, the shifts in understanding of the geography of the world. It all seems very exciting.
Here are a few gems I found over the summer:
