This post really belongs more in 2025 than 2026, but let’s just say it’s both taken longer to complete the project and longer to write this post than it really should have. The overview is that we had heat pumps installed in our townhouse back in late October. As they had to cut open walls to run the power and plumbing, it seemed like a good time to do a fairly major renovation on the place. This is that story.

When we decided to do the reno, we figured we would do everything all at once. We had moved into our home in 2013 and have not really done anything significant to the place in all that time. It certainly needed a refresh. And since we had the great holes in quite a few walls and ceilings, it seemed the right time. Here’s the list that we were having done:

Drywall repairs (both from the heat pumps and from the damage that had appeared over the years)
Replace the carpets (they were getting very worn)
Repaint the whole place (we were getting some colour!)
Replace the sliding doors in my office and close it in properly, including a pocket door
Replace all the hardware and cabinet doors in the kitchen

It was a big list and the contractor we were using had budgeted about three weeks to do it all. It seemed fairly ambitious, but we were paying them to manage all the trades and the timelines. It was supposed to start the first week of December and be wrapped up in time for us to fly back to Toronto for Christmas on the 18th. I’m going to jump ahead - we didn’t make the deadlines….

As we were ripping out the carpets we had to move most of our stuff on the second floor out of the townhouse. And we had agreed to move out while all the work was going on to make life easier on everyone. So that meant that we had to find a temporary home for ourselves and for our stuff. The home for our stuff was easier - we rented a storage locker nearby and moved everything over there for the duration. We managed to make a 5’ x 10’ space work, and we did the move gradually over a few weeks in late November. It was also a great opportunity to purge. Which we did. A lot.

We did not need to move a lot of the “big” pieces of furniture out on the main floor, for which we were grateful. We just kind of shoved it all into the middle of the room and they were able to work around it. Similarly, we were able to leave the mattresses in the bedrooms, which was a big help.

We were able to slide most of the big stuff into the center of the room.

We covered it all up in plastic, and then they went through and covered it all again. That was a good sign.

The “Before” Photos

After getting everything packed up, moved out and covered we were ready to turn it over to them and let them work their magic.

The guest bathroom. There was not a lot to do in here, mostly just a fresh coat of paint.

The stairs up to the roof - no new carpets here.

The guest bedroom. There was a lot of damage from the heat pump installation.

The heat pump guys were good about leaving the drywall they had cut out to make it easier to do the repairs.

This was the sort of thing that needed a better fix with new drywall.

When they cut our holes to do the heat pump installation, they put these temporary plastic covers in place.

I was able to leave a couple of the bigger pieces of furniture in my office.

Soon, the damn glass doors would be gone!

Master bedroom. You can see us experimenting with colour on the walls.

Closet in the master bedroom.

Laundry room

Laundry room. You could see parts cut out of the baseboards where the heaters had been removed.

The place was ready to go, but we needed a temporary home. When we first thought about doing the reno, we figured we’d move over to Galiano for the duration. That was not really ideal, as we both needed to be in the office a few days a week, and we really wanted to keep an eye on the progress. Fate stepped in…

Our neighbor Rowan, two suites down, had a family emergency that meant she needed to be in Australia for a few months. She was very gracious in allowing us to stay in her place while the reno was going on! It was win-win - we had a place to stay close by and she had someone to keep her place looking lived in and we could look after things. It was a life saver for us and we really appreciate her being kind enough to help us out.

Construction Phase

In the early stages they were working on fixing all the drywall, building out boxes around the new plumbing and doing the removal and new build in my office. This phase felt like it moved fairly quickly, and we were able to pop into the unit in the evenings to see the progress.

After removing the sliding glass doors, they had to frame in new walls. This is the wall between the office and bedroom.

Here you can see the rough in for my new pocket door.

The new wall is all done and the drywall patched.

And here you can see it from the bedroom. So much better!

The heat pump plumbing and electrical had to run along the full width of the kitchen. They built a box with drywall to hide it all.

You can see where they had to put the drywall back in place and then remud it.

Here you can see the new head unit in the spare bedroom. Similarly to the kitchen they ran along the top of the wall, and so we had to build out a drywall box over it all.

This was the mess that needed to be hidden.

They needed to build up drywall mud over a few days, refilling then sanding it back.

I was shocked that in order to replace the bathroom fans, they had to cut out huge holes in the ceiling.

We did both the guest bathroom and the master bathroom.

The old ones had been in since the place was built, and one of them had basically been running non-stop for 13 years. That’s pretty impressive.

After it was all completed, you would never know.

Sadly, every time we checked on progress we found issues with the quality of the work. The good news is that our project manager was very quick to accept the issues and put a plan in place to fix them. But eventually we got into some issues that could not be resolved. The first was the cabinets. They were supposed to be done in December before we left, but then they discovered a “miscommunication issue” that meant that they would not be able to come and install the cabinets until the second week of January. OK that wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t the end of the world. That was fairly isolated, and would not prevent us from moving back in, when we returned from Christmas.

We were scheduled to fly out on Thursday evening and the cleaners were scheduled to come in all day on Friday the 19th. So we would not see the final work until we got back after Christmas.

And that’s when things really went a bit off the rails. We got home just before New Years and were excited to find the place all done, and spotlessly clean. After all, 8 hours of cleaning should product great results. So we were less than thrilled to find that while the place looked like it had been cleaned, it wasn’t clean. There was still dust that looked like it had come from more sanding and such during painting. And we were really not happy with the quality of the work that had been done. To our mind, it was not what we had expected. So we had our project manager come have a look when she got back in the New Year. She was even more harsh than we were! She marked twice the defects that we had!

So the good news was that she was having their people come back to basically do more drywall work and repaint the whole place. The bad news was that we really couldn’t fully move back in. Two rooms were in pretty good shape - my office and our bedroom. So at least we could get our bed set-up again and get that part sorted.

Our bedroom was in pretty good shape. So we at least got that set-up correctly.

My office was also pretty good. But after spending some time, it had become clear that the existing furntiure was going to be too big in the new layout I wanted to have. So I was going to have to get rid of this desk and get something a little bit smaller - off to Ikea!

After a full week of work, they had repainted and fixed all our issues. We also had a few issues with the cabinets after they installed them and sent 4 back to be be redone. By the end of January, 6 weeks after the original date, we were complete with the reno. It turned out really well. I really like the colours we had chosen and the new carpet was amazing!

So now we had to move back in. Over the course of a week or so we emptied the storage locker and slowly moved back in. We had piles of boxes everywhere, as we figured what we wanted to do differently, what we could live without, and what new things we needed to make the most of the changes. That has taken another few weeks, and we still need to go through and get art back up on the walls.

Success! An empty storage locker!

But the place was full of boxes as we figured out how to put everything back together.

The good news was that the pile of empty boxes was growing. I managed to sell them all when we were done, so that was good.

So after weeks of working at it, we got the place put back together. There were a series of interruptions that prevented us from getting it done sooner - trips and other things that you’ll see up here eventually.

But here’s the final reveal!

Entry Way

There’s not much to show, but the entry way was so banged up after years of use that it was really nice to get the walls fixed, fix some of the settling cracks and get a fresh coat of paint on everything. I switched up the photo in the landing to something smaller, which seems to fit well.

Kitchen

The changes to the kitchen were some of the most costly and least noticeable. We had all the cabinets replaced (new doors and hardware), but after the reno you really can’t tell. We decided to simplify and take down a lot of the photos we had up, and replaced with some of the tiles from the Netherlands.

The cabinets don’t actually look much different. You can tell the quality is better, but they are pretty much the same. We decided to put our tiles up above them. The center one I bought in Delft on our Netherlands trip last year; the one of the left also came from that trip, but it’s actually very old - I think the guy told me mid 1700s; the one on the right came from Tante Lummy in Holland.

Living Room

The changes to the living room were more about decor than major change. We picked a stronger, neutral colour that we used throughout most of the place, on the walls in the main room and in the hallways and stairwells. It complements the new carpets really well. We put back up some of our original art and made some changes to get some new pieces up.

We bought this print in Porto when we were there a couple of years back. It’s a great pen and ink drawing with some gold leaf embossed onto it. We can actually pick out the building where the flat was that we rented when we were there, so it was a great memento of the trip. It was nice to get it framed and finally hung.

Stairway and Upstairs Hallway

The new carpet was the biggest change on the stairs (and in the bedrooms upstairs). It was surprising how you don’t notice that something like carpeting can be so worn out when you live with it day-to-day. The new carpet is a huge upgrade and so nice underfoot. I also bought some new motion sensing lights that we added to the stairway, which are also a big improvement.

The two new lights make a huge difference in the stairway.

It really helps at the top of the stairs as well, especially in the mornings.

The new carpet is awesome. Did I mention that? We went back to the Brooklyn Bridge triptych, which is a perfect fit for this space.

Guest Bathroom

This was one room that we had done an update to a few years back, so it was generally in pretty good shape. So it basically got a coat of paint and I used the change as an excuse to redecorate. It’s now the “Japan” themed room. I had already had to very Japanese style painted ceramic tiles in the bathroom, and I added one new one that I had bought in Kamikochi when we were in Japan. So it seemed right to print out some photos from our favorite temple in Kyoto, and switch that up from some of the older photos I had on display previously.

I really like the colors we chose. It turned out well.

The new tile from Kamikochi adds a real pop of colour.

The original tiles got moved over by the sink.

And some photos from Kyoto rounded out the theme.

I think this turned out pretty well.

Guest Bedroom

There was a lot of work done in the guest bedroom because of the heat pump. So we got that all fixed up, and when we repainted we went with this nice green colour. I think it turned out well - all of our colour choices were surprisingly good. The room itself is mostly the same, with some new choices in art work and some serious purging to simplify things significantly!

All set-up and ready for guests!

There’s no real change to the layout, but it should be more comfortable for our guests.

Some of the old art work and some new pieces - it’s a very outdoorsy theme, which goes well with the new colour.

And the new heat pump should keep things cool come the summer.

My Office

Last, but not least is my office. This took the longest to get sorted, purge down and get artwork up on the walls. Which is why I’m posting this in June, rather than February. My procrastination knows no bounds.

I’m really happy with how this room turned out. While it’s still a bit cramped, it’s much more functional. Facing this other direction is better in the afternoon and the new blind makes it so I can work during that time.

The new furniture worked out well. Smaller desk and smaller chair and I was able to sell all the old stuff.

Overall, quite happy!