We purchased this 2½ storey brick house in March of 2012, with the intent of it to be our “Forever Home”. With 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and a full basement apartment with separate entrance, could you blame us?
The house was a good price, in a quiet neighbourhood, a short distance from downtown and highways and was “move in ready” at the time of purchase. But we wanted to make it “ours”. We wanted to put our touch on this century home and really be able to enjoy it. Also, this being Canada, we kinda wanted a house with things like insulation. So started the room-by-room full renovation.
And was I experienced in renovations?
Well, I did once try to put up a ceiling fan in our previous apartment and knocked out power for half our unit. So I had that going for me.
With a lot of help from my Father and Father-in-Law on weekends, things got going and we had a couple rooms gutted and a new bathroom. By this point I’d actually come to enjoy renovations so much I got a job doing just that. (Which meant I learned I did a lot wrong up to that point).
We removed the old lathe and plaster, reframed walls, updated electrical, insulated the walls and installed functional windows. We moved the laundry machines out of the master bedroom (seriously?) and turned it into an ensuite (with heated tile floors!), updated the kitchen, exposed brick and beams, redid the basement… the list goes on. More than time and money, we invested our lives into the Canadian Dream.
But after years of weekends and evenings, it started feeling hollow. We we trying to make the perfect house but sacrificed what makes a home: spending time with the ones you love.
After demo, looking to the back of the house
After the reno, looking to the front
After the full attic reno, I stopped working on the house during the week, and cut back on weekends too. The kids were 5 and 2 by this point, but it already felt like they would be moving out any day. I was stressed out from all the work, and stressed out from not spending time with the family.
So we hit pause. We still had work to do on the house, but it was no longer on the forefront. Instead of turning the house into our dream home, we’re planning on using the house to complete our dreams.