Hurricane Kent - The Calm Before the Storm | A Home Renovation Story

Before we broke ground for our renovation (also referred to as Hurricane Kent), I had all of these fantastic ideas that I would blog about it along the way. Then reality happened, and in the blink of an eye we were living in the midst of utter chaos. Although we are still in the thick of it, and will be for sometime, I figure if I'm going to share my experiences with you, it's now or never!

The Beginning

Six years ago we moved into our first home. At the time, it was a dream come true and the house was everything we could ask for: 3 small bedrooms, a bathroom, an eat-in kitchen in decent condition, a living room, an unfinished basement, and a sunroom. The main allure was the location, Flamborough, and the large private lot... 100 feet x 300 feet with neighbours on either side and tended farmer's fields both in front of the house and behind it.

We were content and a few years passed. I graduated university and then teacher's college, Nick worked hard and his business progressed, we got a dog, Nick proposed and in 2012 we got married. As for the house, we did some minor fixing up and Nick built us a walnut office unit in one of the bedrooms, a 'barn' shed, and we refinished our only bathroom (that's a story for another time!). During this time we hosted many parties and became known for our 'family dinners' that quickly turned from inviting a couple of friends over for a meal into having 20 or more dinner guests. We burned many bonfires, shared many beverages, and made memories to last a life time in our little house.

The Dreaming

From time to time, we would discuss our future plans for the house. Would we move? Would we renovate? If we renovated, would we add a second story? Did we want the house to remain a bungalow? How many bedrooms and bathrooms? What about the basement? I would sketch up rough plans, and we would dream. In the spring of 2014, we decided to take the leap and turn our dreams into a reality. This is when the real planning began.

The Planning

What did we want? The answer was a dining room, a bigger kitchen (for the foodie in me!), a master bedroom with an ensuite bathroom, a front porch, a deck, and a finished basement. What did we need? A new septic tank and water system (the joys of country living!), and to fix water issues in our basement by regrading and waterproofing the foundation. After much research, and of course Pintresting, we drew up a fairly accurate portrayal of what we were looking for in our dream home. The next step was to find an architect, and after meeting with Riju's Home and Design Ltd. things started to become real. Based on our plans, their design input, and many, many revisions, this was the end product:

Needless to say, we were extremely excited at this point, but our renovation story certainly doesn't end here. In fact, this blog post is like the foreward to a trilogy, and in real life we are just finishing up the first book. I would love to share our trials and tribulations, choices, and triumphs that we experience along the way... but for now, I need put my workboots on and go get 'er done!