The Plan

Welcome to our modern home renovation blog. Mel and I (brad) recently bought a house in what we hope is the next up and coming area of Ottawa, ON, Canada. We were pretty lucky that we found a place with great potential. I think that most people were scared away by the fact that the previous owners had built a freestanding bedroom into the current living room, which really gave you the impression that the place needed an awful lot of work.

Mel and I have an ultra modern taste when it comes to the style of home we want. This house has the potential with a lot of sweat and hopefully a little bit of money to become the place we'd like. It should be quite interesting as we both have experience in building as she is an architect and I was a carpenter, the biggest challenges will be finding the time as we both have day jobs and living through the mess.

First Floor

The first floor has so much potential. We plan on opening up the main floor by removing several walls and exposing the staircase to the second floor. By removing the walls we will turn our place into more of a loft and a very open concept. We are also planning on installing Bamboo flooring everywhere but the foyer and the kitchen.

See below for some photos and more details.

2nd Floor

Lots of work to do up here, we debated about removing a bedroom and creating two ensuite bathrooms but decided against it because of resale issues in the future. We plan on making the master bedroom into a fairly good sized bedroom (15' x 13') by removing a wall. The master bedroom will also feature Bamboo hardwood flooring as will the hallway.

We are also planning on borrowing room from the other two bedrooms in order to make the bathroom a little bigger.

See below for more details and some photos.

Check back often

We will hopefully be updating this blog weekly or bi-weekly during the renovations. Feel free to let us hear your opinions all good suggestions are welcome but I can't guarantee we will undertake every suggestion we get.


Our Floor Plans and some photos of the house

This drawing shows the layout of the ground floor. The door on the far left is the main entrance to the house (facing east) while the room to the far right is the kitchen (facing west). The plan so far is to remove the wall separating the kitchen from the dinning room. We will also be opening up the stairwell and removing the little foyer and closet at the entrance.


This drawing shows the second floor and is aligned the same as the ground floor drawing above. We are planning on tearing out the wall in the master bedroom (East end of drawing) and remvoing the small closet as well. A new closet will be built along the shared wall (South or top). We are also looking at expanding the bathroom by stealing 1 foot from each of the other two bedrooms.

Ground Floor photos

This photo shows the living room as seen from the stairwell. Say goodbye to the separating wall between the living room and the foyer.

Here is a photo from next to the TV set in the living room showing the stairwell as well as the temporary room the previous owners built.


As you can see this is a photo of our kitchen (taken from door way to the dining/living room. It will be gone soon and replaced likely with high gloss red cabinetry from Ikea. I have to admit it is hard to beat their prices and the kitchens are of excellent quality.




This photo is looking back at the wall separating the kitchen from the dining/living room. We are ripping it out entirely and even exposing the stairwell to the basement (far right of photo). We will leave a small column on the far left for the houses 2nd floor mechanical.

The view from the top of the stairwell looking to the front of the house and the master bedroom. The bathroom is immediately to the left as is the 2nd bedroom.







The bathroom as seen from the doorway. As you can see it is relatively small, in order to make it bigger we will steal a foot from each of the two adjacent bedrooms. In the near future we will be removing the old clawfoot tub and replacing it with a new modern one that can more easily accommodate a shower. So if you're looking for a clawfoot tub in good shape, drop us a line.



The master bedroom as seen from the doorway and aiming east towards the front of the house. To the right of the computer desk is a wall that creates a hall way where a door to our front balcony is. This wall is going, giving us a new large master bedroom of 15'x13'.



The Outside Views

Coming soon, the front of the house...I forgot to take a photo.

As you can see this is the back of the house. The small vestibule entrance on the left will be removed and replace with an deck. The deck will then lower onto another back deck.