Peter Simpson
Sun

Examples include finishing a basement, renovating a kitchen or bathroom, building an addition, landscaping, flooring, windows, fencing, furnace, painting … Well, you get the drift. Routine repairs and maintenance such as house cleaning, lawn care and snow removal are not eligible. Also, the program won’t credit you a penny for furniture, appliances or the purchase of tools.

The attractiveness of this program is that you can do various jobs during the eligibility period, hold onto your applicable receipts, then add them all up when you complete your tax return. You might have refinished your hardwood flooring in March, replaced your cabinetry in April, paved your driveway in July, and plan to renovate your bathroom next month and paint just before Christmas.

Alas, my wife and I likely won’t be able to claim the maximum tax credit but we are about halfway there. I suspect many Canadian homeowners improving their homes are in the same boat. According to the feds, about 4.6 million families will reap the benefits. Not a bad deal at all.

The HRTC, with its requirement for receipts, helps to dissuade homeowners from engaging in the underground cash economy, thereby eroding business opportunities for tax-evading contractors.

However, the sad reality is under-the-table cash deals often trump written contracts which define the terms and conditions of a home-improvement project, including scope of work and payment schedules, permits and inspections, WorkSafeBC compliance, liability insurance and warranty.

If you are tempted by the lure of cash deals, give your head a shake. Nothing good will come of it, and you might pay a great deal more in the end. Just ask my buddies Mike Holmes and Shell Busey.

With time running out on HRTC eligibility, consider taking advantage of the advice and inspiration at the Vancouver Home and Interior Design Show, at BC Place Stadium. The show starts Thursday and closes four days later.

Headliners include Ty Pennington, star of ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and Colin and Justin from HGTV’s Home Heist, but there are a host of other entertaining personalities as well.

My bias exposed, if you are interested in sound renovation advice, a must-visit feature is the Greater Vancouver Home Builders’ Association Renovation Council’s 2,000-square-foot Renovation Gallery.

Renovations have become more complicated and multifaceted, so it is crucial that homeowners do their homework before embarking on any home-renovation project, regardless of size and cost.

Visitors to the gallery will be able to view many superb home makeovers and discuss their own renovation intentions with pros such as John Friswell, chair of the Canadian Renovators’ Council and winner of a record three straight Georgie Awards for best residential renovator in B.C.

All the renovators showcasing their fine work at the Gallery are members of RenoMark, a national program designed to help homeowners differentiate the pros from the schmoes. RenoMark contractors must abide by a 10-condition code of conduct, or risk expulsion from the program.

B.C. homeowners will spend about $7 billion on home improvement and renovation this year, with a similar expenditure expected next year.

Last week a contractor invited me to tour a renovation project his team was close to completing. This makeover will have no problem qualifying for the HRTC. The value of the renovation is a cool $6 million. I intend to take him up on his offer. Apparently the features in the home are phenomenal.

Visit vancouverhomeshows.com on the Internet for details on the show, and renomark.ca for information on the RenoMark program.

Peter Simpson is the chief executive officer of the Greater Vancouver Home Builders’ Association. E-mail: [email protected]

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

‘Commune’ reputation presents a barrier to partnership residency, advocates report, but environmental benefits present a new gateway

Kim Davis
Sun

‘Old-fashioned” neighbourhoods, the best of small-town communities, a new response to social, economic and environmental challenges, these are some of the ways people describe co-housing developments. The setting can be urban, suburban, or rural, and can involve building new homes or using existing structures. Regardless of the locale or form, though, the key premise of co-housing is to combine the privacy of self-contained dwellings with all the benefits of shared facilities. It is a process where a group of people works together to create and maintain a safe and friendly neighbourhood of their own design.

Co-housing is not a new phenomenon. It started in Denmark in the 1960s and migrated to North America in the ’80s. At least six co-housing partnerships exist in B.C.

It wasn’t until recently, however, that the concept really started to take off. In a paper published in Futures Journal, Jo Williams of the University of London’s Bartlett School of Planning says that, in the U.S., the number of households living in “partnership projects,” such as co-housing, has quadrupled in the last decade.

The number of people living in “retrofitted” neighbourhoods has also risen dramatically. Communities where residents form their own version of a co-housing by taking down fences, creating communal facilities and taking on the responsibility for general management and maintenance.

According to Williams, two of the key reasons behind this fairly recent and dramatic rise in interest are the concerns regarding carbon and energy reduction, and the emergence of new development models that are making co-housing more accessible.

“We only have to mention to somebody what we are doing and they are immediately engaged,” says Kevin Ryan of Blue Green Living Communities, in talking about the new co-housing model he and several partners launched a few months ago. “In our field, where I am talking to developers and people in the building industry, people’s eyes light up.”

Traditionally a resident-led process, the time, money and effort required to bring a co-housing development to fruition can be considerable. “Four to eight years of potlucks,” jokes Emmanuel Lavoie of BGLC. Drop-out rates tend to be high, and projects become rather expensive.

In an effort to make this process more reasonable, and a viable alternative to conventional development here in Canada, Blue Green Living Communities has created a hybrid model that combines the organization and framework of traditional, top-down development with the collaborative planning and design approach of co-housing.

“We offer the structure, the process, the facilitation, and the people who can deliver the development with the input of the residents,” says Megan Salhus of BGLC. From helping prospective residents attract other like-minded participants, all the way through to managing construction, BGLC has reduced and/or eliminated many of the challenges that typically thwart the co-housing process.

While BGLC has recrafted and streamlined the process, members say that people’s perception of co-housing does continue to be a bit of a barrier. “The reason we are ‘living communities,’ and not ‘co-housing,’ is because when you start to describe this to people they go ‘Co-ops?’ ‘Communes?'” says Ryan. “We found that with ‘co-housing’ we were always starting on the defensive,” he says. ‘When we mention ‘living communities’ people get excited.”

Co-housing and living communities can be as communal or independent as the residents desire. Everyone has his or her own private four walls, and no secret handshake, or particular political or religious orientation, is associated with participation.

Typically using a strata title ownership model, the community consists of individually owned homes clustered around a “common house” that is equipped with shared amenities such as a kitchen and dining area, children’s playroom, workshops, guest rooms, home office support, arts and crafts area, laundry, etc. The level of social interaction and shared resources can vary considerably among communities, as it is the residents who decide what they want their neighbourhood to look like and how it will be operated and maintained.

Dan Tatham of BGLC says his involvement has been a huge social learning experience for him. “It dawns on you that you can’t ask humans to care about the earth if they don’t care about themselves first.”

Ryan points out that it was from this social aspect that the group’s initial interest arose. While nearly all of the partners were already involved in the green building industry, Ryan says, “so much of green building is about how users interact with buildings. They are an integral part, and if they don’t buy into it, it doesn’t work. This is a beautiful opportunity to bring the user component and buildings together to create a genuine solution.”

While BGLC is focusing on Kelowna and the Interior, members see their living communities as a national initiative. Judging by the response they have received in their first few months, there is certainly no shortage of interest: from church groups looking for the best way to develop underused land to individuals seeking environmentally sensitive and socially interconnected neighbourhoods in which to live.

“The living communities we are creating right now are the seeds for change,” says Ryan. He says that people who like the idea, but until now have been turned off by the “four years of potlucks” will now have a way to get involved.

For more information or to get a tour of a co-housing project near you, visit livingcommunities.ca or co-housing.ca on the Internet.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Retailer creates sales aid for builder by fusing contemporary, traditional

Michelle Hopkins
Sun

The new home is from John Dean; its personality, from Huong Nguyen. ‘She personalized the whole home with these amazing finds — art work, lamps, furniture, sculptures, twigs, buckets and executed it bang on,’ he comments. Photograph by: Bill Keay, Vancouver Sun

When developer and builder John Dean decided to sell one of the four Stone Residences in Vancouver’s Kerrisdale neighbourhood he is building, he decided to engage the services of a home stager.

He wanted a fusion champion, someone who could imagine a modern interior enclosed by an architecturally traditional exterior.

And he wanted a “Buy B.C.” champion, someone whose interior additions, or insertions, would be sourced locally.

In Huong Nguyen of the Spotted Frog Furniture Co. he found his stager.

“What I really liked about Huong Nguyen is that all of her products and furniture are made here locally … that’s important to me,” Dean says.

“She’s also amazingly enthusiastic, she knows what she likes and knows how to put it together.”

A new-construction home in Kerrisdale is a home, inevitably, in which local history is a principal design influence: There is so much there, and for so many years.

“We built the house in keeping with the neighbourhood charm, but the inside is more modern, a mix of formal and casual, and Huong was able to put all those different elements together … when I saw what she did, I was amazed and thrilled.”

He went on to say that Nguyen seemed to have an innate ability to come into an environment, get a feel for the unique features that make it work and then find exactly what furnishings would best suit it.

“She personalized the whole home with these amazing finds — art work, lamps, furniture, sculptures, twigs, buckets and executed it bang on.

“She was able to marry elements of traditional design with the overall contemporary design.

The first order of business for Nguyen was to take time to get “a sense of the house and its natural surroundings.”

She spent time going through the home, looking at all its custom features, enhancing the best ones to catch potential buyers’ interest.

“When I went through the house, I envisioned our target market as being a young executive family with small children,” says Nguyen. “So, the furnishings had to be functional and able to grow with the family.”

Since the house was built with lots of windows — to allow for lots of natural light to come through — Nguyen opted not to put any window treatments on the windows.

“However, if someone wanted to put window dressings, I would suggest very sheer textiles, nothing heavy, to soften up the window treatment … it doesn’t go with a true West Coast home,” she says. “Most new homes being built in B.C. today are inspired by nature and the environment.

“Hence, most developers and builders are putting in huge, exaggerated windows.”

Nguyen went on to add: “Because of our temperate weather and all the natural light, homeowners don’t usually layer on huge drapes, rather they prefer sheer or real functional wood blinds to allow nature in.”

In the kitchen, Nguyen complemented the stunning millwork and Italian cabinetry, all illuminated by Halogen flush mount lighting, with a minimalist decor. For the table she chose a square table — not typically seen in many kitchens, she agrees.

“I chose a square bistro height table because it’s the perfect shape to encourage conversation,” says Nguyen. “I really envisioned catering to a lifestyle.

“Since the walls throughout the house are painted in a serene palette, I went with lots of greys, blues and greens which are cool, soothing tones throughout.”

Meanwhile, many developers are seeing the value of hiring home stagers to close sales.

“Huong is like an artist, she took a blank canvas and created art,” adds Dean. “I think staging allows prospective buyers to see themselves living there.”

Nguyen agrees.

“It’s about perfecting the art of creating a mood,” she says.

To see a video of the house Nguyen and her team staged, visit http://movietours.ca/1087KC_Larch/ on the Internet.

The listing agent is Ken Chong, an agent with MacDonald Realty, at 604-671-1025; the listing price, $2.75 million.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

It is also (well) located in Mount Pleasant and (well) priced against re-sale

Sun

New and old between Main and Scotia streets on East Seventh are shown in this District South Main elevation from the new-home project’s developer.

In the District South Main homes, engineered hardwood flooring will be underfoot except in the bedrooms (carpet) and bathrooms (porcelain tile). … Photograph by: Photos by Glenn Baglo, Vancouver Sun

Synthetic stone will top the counters. Laminate will face the cabinet doors. The single-basin apron sink will compete with a KitchenAid appliance package for stainless-steel ascendancy. The faucet is a pull-down model from Italy. A stone backsplash is an option in the kitchen design. Hardwood is offered as an option in the bedroom. Every home will have a washer and dryer.

Who would live here? Tara Wlls on Porico Design asked and answered that question while preparing the two District South Main show homes. She created the one-bedroom show home for a photographer and his spouse. She thought a shoe designer would feel right at home in the studio show home. ‘The key element for the room was the art piece used in lieu of a traditional headboard to command full attention,’ she explains. The piece started as a photograph of mannequins in a New Your street front and was re-imagined for District by a Vancouver artist, Brent Ray Fraser. Another Vancouver artist, Jill Pilon, was the creator of the artwork above the bed in the one bedroom. ‘The reason we were drawn to her work was we felt a “graffiti” flavour found in some of her previous work echoed the surrounding Main Street neighbourhood.’

Hardware. Synthetic stone will top the counters, as in the kitchens. The vitreous basins will be undermounted. Floor tile

In the District South Main bathrooms, developer and designer specified a faucet and hardware collection from Restoration Hardware. Synthetic stone will top the counters, as in the kitchens. The vitreous basins will be undermounted. Floor tile will be oversized. The sales office is an 85-year-old brewery garage, which will be re-habilitated as commercial space.

‘The key element for the room was the art piece used in lieu of a traditional headboard to command full attention,’ she explains.

The piece started as a photograph of mannequins in a New Your street front and was re-imagined for District by a Vancouver artist, Brent Ray Fraser

She thought a shoe designer would feel right at home in the studio show home

District: South Main

Project location: Mount Pleasant,

Vancouver

Project size: 103 apartments and townhouses, Building 1; 149, Building 2

Residence sizes: studios, 415 sq. ft. – 615 sq. ft.; 1 bed, 550 sq. ft. – 615 sq. ft.; 2 bed, 780 sq. ft. – 882 sq. ft.; townhouses, 686 sq. ft. – 885 sq. ft.

Prices: studios, from $223,900; 1 bed, from $279,900; 2 bed, from $384,900; townhouses, from $329,900

Developer: Amacon

Architect: IBI/HB

Interior design: Portico

Sales centre: 299 East Seventh,

between Main and Scotia

Hours: noon – 6 p.m. daily

Telephone: 604-879-2010

Website: southmaindistrict.com

Occupancy: July 2012

Competitively priced and conveniently located, the District buildings, and their homes, will assume a bigger-than-their-households role once up, permanent pointers to a predecessor industrial Vancouver and its artistic and artisanal successor.

The new-home project’s principal interior designer, Tara Wells of Portico Design, thinks the intimations of the old in the new that developer, architect and designer have organized for the Mount Pleasant property were an important part of their work.

“The colours used — old natural oak, natural walnut floors, for instance — are added touches of old with the new. You’ll feel part of the neighbourhood and not like you’ve been transported there,” Wells says.

“We wanted to create that Soho loft feeling where old is new. It’s in the spirit of Main Street that has new bars and businesses beside old buildings.”

District will incorporate an old building in its firmament. The building was originally a garage, constructed in the 1920s for the Doering and Marstrand Brewery.

A number of breweries and tanneries were located in the vicinity, the attraction a fresh-water creek, now largely covered over. Brewery Creek rose in the present-day Mountain View Cemetery and emptied into False Creek at Second and Main.

At city hall, the building ”is a rare example of Mission-Revival-style architecture and is one of the few surviving industrial heritage buildings in the city, where there has been a rapid loss of industrial structures and uses in recent years.”

In return for preserving the building, Amacon received an increase of almost 14 per cent in the density that city hall permits on the property.

Both buildings will have this common deck area to be outfitted with an outdoor fireplace, lounge area, barbecue, large table and chairs and a garden area.

Jensen says penthouses typically get the full benefit of rooftop decks but here everyone will have access. There are six penthouses on the top floor but only two will have a large, private roof deck. The other four will have terraces off the living area.

“The location is so close to downtown. We’re just five minutes away so people can just jump on a local transit route, bike or walk,” says Jensen.

“We’re finding a lot of first-time buyers are coming here as well as people from the downtown core and the suburbs. People who thought they could never afford Vancouver … This is an area with pent-up demand. People enjoy the shops, the restaurants, the mom and pop shops. The character of the neighbourhood. There’s not a lot of new product in the area.”

Jensen adds Amacon has priced the condos competitively by offering pre-construction home prices lower than resales in the neighbourhood.

The developer is also offering a promo that will leave one lucky person with one of the largest give-aways in the city’s history. The last time the District developer gave a home away, in 1997 in Yaletown, the value of the prize was $99,000.

The value of the District prize is $350,000: A one-bed-plus-den, 630-square-foot apartment; a $15,000 motorcycle; a $10,000 home-entertainment package; a $5,000 computer system, and a $4,000 barbecue.

“Amacon is doing the give-away because we really wanted a creative way of marketing that would have the entire city talking about our project,” says Jensen. “When we originally thought of giving away a condo, as we had done 12 years ago, the idea seemed very unlikely.

”However, the more we discussed it we realized that there was likely no better way to get people interested by offering this life changing opportunity.

“Since then, the idea has taken off and sure enough everyone is talking about it and coming to District to view the condo and register to win.”

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Developer of the Oriental Hotel aiming for $150,000 studios

Sun

Chris Le Fevre’s ambitions for the Oriental signal optimism. ‘I’ve got more residential … in the next six months than I have ever had in the past 20 years.’ Photograph by: Darren Stone, Cns, Canwest News Service

A long-time Victoria property manager and developer has announced plans to put homes in one of capital’s earliest hotels.

Developer Chris Le Fevre expects to start on the conversion of the 125-year-old Oriental Hotel this fall. He plans on installing 30 apartments and expects to charge about $150,000 for a bachelor apartment of about 400 square feet.

In Greater Victoria, one of the country’s most expensive housing markets, that kind of price is startling.

Close to 120 Greater Victoria residential properties were on the Multiple Listing Service last week priced at $150,000 or lower. Those that were not mobile homes were partial ownership propositions or located outside the metropolitan core.

Le Fevre is confident about the housing market as it recovers after the world wide financial shakeup that slammed into Victoria’s real estate market last year. Sales have rebounded strongly in recent months as once-wary buyers return to the market.

“I’ve got more residential housing coming under construction in the next six months than I have ever had in the past 20 years,” Le Fevre said.

“Generally, I think things have stabilized amazingly well. I think it is the reward for the slow and steady approach that has always prevailed on the Island.”

The strong and stable rental market indicates that the bottom end of the housing market — first-time buyers — is likely to be strong as well, he said. Continuing low interest rates are also helping the housing market.

Besides heritage conversion projects, Le Fevre develops contemporary-style housing such as the colourful Railyards in Vic West. The three-storey Oriental Hotel is considered an “excellent example” of what is called high Victorian Italianate design. Its architect was John Teague, who designed many local buildings, including Victoria City Hall, and who also served as mayor.

Construction started in 1883 and the building was expanded in 1888, states a city hall report on its heritage significance. It reflected the early grandeur of that area, the document notes

“The attention to detail of this hotel’s remarkably intact interior and exterior features reflects the fashionable standards of Victoria’s earliest first-rate hotels,” the document says.

Teague’s design featured extensive use of tall upper-storey windows and distinct ground-storey arches — made possible by the use of cast-iron columns — reflecting state-of-the-art architecture of the 1880s, it says.

The Oriental’s neighbour at 560 Yates will be incorporated in the new-home project. It was built by Tomas Pritchard, a Welsh mariner.

During its early life, it had a variety of occupants, such as offices for mining agents, wholesale provisions and for a fruit growers exchange.

Another of Le Fevre’s heritage housing-projects is almost sold out. Morley’s Soda Water Factory is being converted into nine residences. One remains for sale. “It’s like a beautiful antique,” Le Fevre says.

Site work has begun at another of the developer’s projects, called Railyards. The Bond’s Landing phase, when complete, will have 90 homes.

Targeting entry-level buyers, condos start at $225,000. Like other Le Fevre projects, Bond’s Landing features live-work units and lofts.

Le Fevre also expects to begin construction on Harbour Homes, a 46-unit townhouse project at the Railyards. They will be priced in the $400,000 range, he says.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Jay Bryan
Sun

Homes in Canada are near their most affordable in nearly four years, setting the stage for a continuation of today’s perky real-

estate market throughout the coming year.

At least, that’s the opinion of economist Pascal Gauthier at the Toronto-Dominion Bank, who calculates that the cost of paying off a typical Canadian home has fallen to less than 28 per cent of an average income, down from a peak of 32 per cent just before the market slumped last year.

At its cheapest early this year, the market offered even better bargains, with this carrying cost dipping as low as 26 per cent of incomes.

While this has edged up, Gauthier thinks future price gains will be moderate enough not to boost the cost of homeownership much more.

That’s because markets should keep from getting too far out of balance, with the rocket fuel of cheap mortgages offset by fading pent-up demand.

The pent-up demand was created when financial fears late last year scared about 50,000 would-be buyers out of the housing market, Gauthier estimates.

This happened after the collapse of New York investment bank Lehman Bros. and the near-failure of several other banks and insurers triggered fears of a global crisis in finance.

As such worries diminished, potential homebuyers were faced with what Gauthier calls “an incredible window of opportunity” where both home prices and mortgages were available at bargain rates.

In that environment, many of the same buyers who were frightened out of the market last autumn have come back to snap up homes at an accelerating rate, helping home values to recover earlier losses in many cities.

Montreal was “a pleasant surprise,” says Gauthier, and prices never fell at all.

They merely slowed their rise, which has since regained strength.

But pent-up demand from the dark days of last year is nearly exhausted, he believes, and won’t be propping up sales for more than another month or so.

Mortgage rates will remain low through much of the next year, of course, which should continue to buoy the market, but as time goes on there will be a couple more moderating factors.

First, prices, having rebounded, will begin to act as a brake on the attractiveness of buying.

Second, higher prices will make it increasingly attractive for existing homeowners to list properties for sale, making it harder for others to hold out for top dollar.

These factors should eventually rein in price gains to roughly the rate of inflation.

By 2011, Gauthier expects average values across Canada to be rising about two per cent.

The exception would be the lower-priced markets in eastern Canada, where Montreal, Ottawa and Halifax never had a red-hot runup in the cost of housing, so there’s more room for future increases.

Another outlier — in the opposite direction — could be Vancouver, which Gauthier calls “the most worrisome” market in the country.

It went into the past year’s recession with home prices close to bubble levels and its plunge in values has been almost entirely erased, lifting the average price back up to $608,000 by the end of this summer, more than double the level in Montreal.

While markets should remain stable in most parts of the country if rates begin rising late next year, as most expect, Vancouver’s nosebleed prices could be in for a new decline, Gauthier warns.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

When it’s time for a change, take the time to find the right people, materials and design

Mia Stainsby
Sun

Neighbours Nathan Clement (left), Kenny Clement and Maurina Clement enjoy cupcakes on the granite countertop in Mia Stainsby’s newly renovated kitchen. Photograph by: Ward Perrin, Vancouver Sun

The breathtaking view from the kitchen over Stanley Park and the ocean. Photograph by: Ward Perrin, Vancouver Sun

About a year ago, a sledgehammer smashed through our kitchen wall ending our renovation paralysis. We’d survived a largely DIY reno in the early ’90s but during that reno, vultures circled our marriage, hoping for reno-kill.

My partner’s a patient, detail-oriented guy; me, I’m more like the bulls in Pamplona. We’d need a referee with whistle and rule book at all times if we were to bring out the power tools again. At least this time, invisible elves would do the reno while we were at work.

Our kitchen was serviceable, but nothing special and quite cramped for space. My life as a restaurant critic meant I ate out a lot and at home, we were always in recovery mode — we tried to eat lean and mean and simple. But it was time for a makeover.

In these leaner economic times, I cut my reviews to one a week from two and I was eating out far less and enjoying cooking at home more. And I noticed how appliances were dated or on the brink of extinction. My birch floors had been attacked by a falling knife more than once and our dishwasher kind of threw up on it once, leaving it gap-seamed. The counter was cluttered with blender, espresso machine, coffee maker, food processor, knife rack, and stand mixer — eyesores all.

The best reason for a reno, though, was an unbelievably ignorant wall, blocking off a view of the water and Stanley Park. (Our house has a reverse plan with living space on the second floor.) In summer, cruise ships sail through our yard, or so it seems. The wall enclosed the kitchen from an otherwise open plan. There was also an area meant for a kitchen table when the dining area was just a few steps away.

We wanted to have the kitchen merge with adjacent hallway, family, dining and living rooms. There would be a clear view from everywhere. Light from the stairway skylight would flow into the kitchen, too.

If you’re rubbing your hands, anticipating roller coaster tales of contractors from hell, financial catastrophe, long delays, marital strife, tears and rage, so sorry — there were no psychos on this reno, no desperate calls to Mike Holmes, no disappeared trades people, no screaming matches. Eerily, it was smooth sailing. It helped that we went with a contractor and tradespeople who came recommended by friends.

Even when we totally expected damage, there was none. For example, when the granite was delivered, we expected to come home and find the stair rails ripped out and gaping holes in the wall. The granite for the kitchen island is nine feet by four (we went with Absolute Black) had to be delivered in one piece. The wall counter is just as long but half the width. Do you know how heavy granite is? I went to lift a 2-foot-by-2-foot piece of granite and I might as well have tried to lift a monster truck. Six men, like human mules, had lugged the granite up the stairs and both of the pieces were in place when we got home. There might have been one small nick on the wall but nothing else, except, perhaps for six hernias and burst blood vessels.

I had agonized over the counter surface, considering granite, engineered stone, Corian and marble. I lo-ove white Carrera marble but soon learned it’s a high-maintenance diva. Consumer sites on the web had unending debates as to whether granite, engineered stone or Corian was most dependable, but nothing definitive. In the end, granite seemed to be the toughest and I liked that it was real stone.

The biggest upset was our — correction, “my” — fault. During the reno, our pampered custom-made dining room table became the temporary kitchen with microwave, coffeemaker and countertop convection oven on it. I had put layers of protection and cork-based placemats under them but when the kitchen was done and we peeled back the tablecloth and underlay, I was shocked to see a large white map of the Soviet Union emblazoned on the black surface and another, that looked like Australia. It was from heat and steam from the appliances even though I had Pimpernel placemats under them and layers of thick fabric. In the furniture biz, it’s called clouding.

I tried something I’d heard about — rub mayonnaise on the “clouds” and the colour might return. (I didn’t, however, experiment with another “solution” to put a cloth over the clouding and go over it with a steam iron.) With the mayo, Australia sort of disappeared but still was a phantom ghost. The Soviet Union stayed so I went for broke and wiped some black stain over it, then semi-gloss urethane. In the end, of course it was a mess. We took it back to the furniture maker and had it refinished and it looks gorgeous again. Lesson learned: the more expensive the table, the wimpier it is. As I learned, it’s only happy with felt atop its surface like Kate Moss is happy with $200 face creams and nothing above a tepid temperature.

With the makeover, we have large charcoal tiles on the floor, charcoal glass tiles on the counter wall (although I’m thinking that’s where I should have put the Carrera marble), black granite counters and cherry-stained cabinets. When we have company, people still gravitate to the kitchen as I cook, but now, they stay on the other side of the island (previously they’d have been behind a wall standing there).

I learned that when it comes to design, expert advice is not the end all, be all. I declined a designer’s advice and am glad I did. I wanted lots and lots of storage but she didn’t want the pantry or cupboards over the counters. She suggested a smaller island across from the dining room. I wanted big. Another designer suggested a peninsula between the kitchen and family room as well as the island. My cabinet maker wanted to put handles on the six doors on the stair side of the island but I wanted it to look doorless with spring-loaded hardware where you just pushed the corners to open the doors. I did cave to his advice not to put a connecting shelf between cupboards over the sink and I’m sorry I did.

Since it’s totally an open plan now, I had to do something about the mess that accumulates during dinner parties. A large stainless steel trough sink swallows up all the pots and pans and could bathe all of Jon and Kate’s kids.

Now that our kitchen walls has been sundered, I feel discomfort. I have the uncomfortable feeling I hopped on the trend caboose, bringing up the rear, that style makers are ready to pronounce the death of open plan designs. Please say it ain’t so!

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun