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A Renovation Story

Kevin Durkee and Tom Douangmixay share the story of their massive home renovation—turning a tiny bungalow into the big and beautiful two-story home of their dreams.
The unfinished basement

Never Really Finished: Future house projects

The biggest piece of our new home that we have left unfinished is our basement. During construction we discovered that we needed to dig the area out and replace our footings. While that gave us another foot or so of much needed headroom, it left us w...

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Engaged!

Party Time! Showing off our new home and a special surprise

We had already cancelled one party due to some unexpected delays, but we were absolutely committed to sticking to this one. No ifs ands or buts about it!Sure, the exterior of the house was still a mess – no siding and a chewed up lawn – but the inter...

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DIY - art installation project

D.I.Y.: Finishing touches

Throughout our entire renovation we always aimed to introduce unique elements into the space. We focused on both structural and design features – but once the work was done, even though we had great colours on the walls that spoke volumes about us, o...

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Not-quite-perfect paint job

Close But No Cigar: A few fixes remain

Our suggestion to anyone considering a renovation that requires you to move out is not to move back in until it’s done – ALL DONE. Even if it adds a couple weeks at friends or in a hotel, save yourself the grief and the disappointment by trying to ge...

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Back home, but not quite settled in.

Coming Home: Moving back in

Our contractor told us that we would be back in the house by mid-January. Tom and I added four more weeks to the move in date, just to be safe and took the leap of faith to plan a housewarming party so our friends and family could come over and hel...

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Taylor's Bedroom

Kiddie Corner: Taylor's bed and bath

The ultimate motivating factor for our renovation was to build a home in which we could comfortably raise our daughter (and perhaps more children some day). It was important for us to give Taylor her own space in the house, an area that she would fee...

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Master Bedroom: Berry Cheesecake

Colour Chronicles: Choosing our colours

Many people are overwhelmed when they visit a paint store and see the plethora of paint chips. I, on the other hand, revert to my childhood and imagine I’ve just been given the biggest box of Crayola crayons EVER.From the beginning we knew that colou...

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The Kitchen: Before the reno

Kitchen Quickies: A fresh coat of paint goes a long way

The main intention that we had for our renovation was to give our family more space and, specifically, to add a full second floor. While we were at it we made some additional structural changes to the first floor. We removed some walls to create...

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Our finished railing

The Railing Rip Off: Borrowing style from Kelloggs?

Not unlike our window seat, the railing for our new staircase was another project we wanted to make extra special. I’m not sure whether if it was my own childhood desire to be an architect or I had just seen too many ad agencies and swanky hotel...

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Room wtih a view

Room with a View: Kevin's dream window seat becomes a reality

This renovation was an incredible chance for us to put some personal touches and dreams into our new house. One must-have was a window seat in the master bedroom. All along I had hoped for a quiet “nook” in the house where I could read the paper, sur...

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Shopping for deals

Shop Talk: Fixtures, Flooring and Furniture

When we first met with our contractor he said that part of his job was to “shop for all the fixtures, tiles, etc,” based on our drawings and plans. We immediately asked if we could do the shopping while he did the paying (from the bank funds) because...

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The stairs are finally in!

Stairway to Heaven: We have a second floor!

With each passing day, and every new beam added, we watched the skeleton of our house grow. Every night after work we’d pop over to the house to get our mail and the trip would also allow us a glimpse of what the day’s work had accomplished. Sometime...

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DO keep a design notebook

Decorating Dos and Don'ts: Getting started with design

Designing our own home from scratch was the determining factor in choosing to renovate rather than buy a new cookie-cutter house or a resale property. Tom and I chatted for hours about what we wanted for the look and feel of our new space. We discuss...

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Tom surveys the dug out basement

Uh Oh! Road Block: Finding money in a panic

With the roof off and the walls exposed we figured the worst was over and that the repair and renovation was on its way. Not exactly.Not more than two weeks into our renovation, we had a problem. While the contractors were digging holes for new suppo...

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Demolition begins

Demolition: The construction begins

It was only a matter of days after we moved out of the house that we saw the first signs that it would never be the same.The front yard was torn up by a massive garbage skip, building permits plastered in the windows and much of the backyard was ripp...

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Packing up the house

Moving Out: Packing up and shipping out

The funny thing about a renovation that includes adding a second floor is they literally peel off your roof. And with no roof it gets a bit cold and wet. Okay, so maybe “funny” isn’t exactly the right word.One of the biggest challenges we faced with ...

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Architect's sketch

The Blueprints: Working with the architects

From the start – we knew what we wanted. What our architects did brilliantly was tell us what was actually do-able. From our very first meeting – armed with our design bible and our dreams – they listened and wanted us to verbally describe the h...

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The usual suspects: contractors and architects

The Usual Suspects: Contractors and architects

From the start we knew our house reno would be a custom job. We weren’t interested in a pre-fab solution and had the luxury of meeting our architects because their kids went to the same daycare as Taylor. This seemed great on the surface – a casual i...

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The design bible

Keep It Together: Organization is key!

Design details and organization went hand in hand on this project.  Tom and I had lots of ideas and for months had been tearing out pages from magazines and collecting images that reflected what we wanted for our future home. One of the best thi...

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Getting financing is not always easy

The Money Pit: Financial and legal considerations

Since I’d just spent tens of thousands of dollars to start a family through surrogacy, had a few missteps with employment, and was left with a very minimal savings account, we didn’t have enough to bank roll this major renovation on our own.The ...

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The planning gets underway

Planning and Preparing: So what do we do now?

Yikes – now what? How can we possibly do this? Should we do this? Are we doing this? Oh, my God, we’re doing this.Planning usually comes naturally to me but this process was a complete unknown. What do we do? Where do we go? Who do we call? I kn...

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Our little bungalow before the reno

Wish List: But we'll need to have a...

Tom and I agreed! “When else are we going to have the chance to design the house of our dreams in Toronto? Let’s renovate!” I personally had fond memories of when my family built our home in Smiths Falls and the trips to the site over the summer...

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Tom Douangmixay and Kevin Durkee

Meet the Parents: An Introduction

We came together from two completely different worlds.I had just finished the most challenging, stressful, rewarding and disappointing year of my life. I’d survived a bad break-up, a job lay-off and parent illness—all the while working to buy a new c...

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DIY & Small Projects
Summer Home
House of Bryan
Deck Wars