Baffling basement biffies

I’m not often surprised anymore by what I’ll encounter when asked to update a basement bathroom. However, a recent flooring upgrade did catch me off-guard slightly.

Basement bathrooms present hurdles because their layouts are usually predetermined by the rough plumbing set within the concrete floor at the time the house was originally built. And short of spending a fortune to rearrange the sub-concrete services, adapting an upgrade to the existing layout quickly minimizes options.

This particular bathroom had been upgraded prior to the current homeowners’ purchase of the house. And although it remained functional, there were a few aspects leaving much to be desired, primarily the carpeted flooring. Although I understand the intention to keep a basement bathroom floor warm to the feet, wall-to-wall carpet does not belong in a bathroom, for what seem to me obvious reasons. No matter, the carpet was now coming out and new vinyl-plank flooring was to be installed.

Beyond the carpet, the bathroom floor in its entirety had been built up, with a sort of platform throughout for one reason or another. I suspect this could have also been to buffer the coldness of the concrete below from the space above, or maybe there were a few water leaks along the floor that are concealed by the framework. The homeowners decided to keep the platform and simply re-sheathe it with vinyl once the carpet and underlayment were removed.

Solid affordability

Young families with a modest home-buying budget have never struggled so hard to find a solid, affordable starter house.

It’s easy to see why. These days, starter homes in the $250,000-$300,000 price range — whether they need work or not — tend to sell fast, with bidding wars the norm in sought-after neighbourhoods.

That being the case, it’s all too easy for young couples to experience multiple bidding battles without a sniff of success.

In many instances, missing out on a dwelling might turn out to be a blessing in disguise. Why?

Creative touches set mood

It can take a deft touch to balance creativity and practicality when it comes to home design.

That’s why it’s so important for a home builder to think critically about how to infuse a residence with creative design touches without impeding livability.

That’s exactly the approach the design team at Hearth Homes took with their Astoria II model, focusing first on the dwelling’s livability then implementing creative design touches in a logical yet imaginative way, says Hearth’s design and marketing co-ordinator, Ryan Miller.

“People really liked the previous (Astoria) model,” he says. “But we had some ideas on what we wanted to do to make it better. The first thing we did was tweak the layout to make it more user-friendly.”

Open the door on a new look

Sometimes a main-floor update can be as simple as a fresh coat of paint on the walls. Other times, it may take a little more effort to create the desired look. An interior door upgrade can often change an entire esthetic — without hitting the wallet so hard.

However, swapping out old interior doors for new can be tricky, unless you go a little further, and replace the door jambs as well.

Homeowners often make the mistake of assuming installing new doors will be as simple as removing the old from their hinges and fastening on the new. Unfortunately, not all doors are tooled in the same locations. As such, this can affect hinge placement and striker locations — and if these don’t line up with the new doors, things can get ugly in a hurry.

Although it is possible to source new doors that happen to meet the location specifications of the existing hinges on the jamb, the hinges themselves may be of a different size and shape. As such, it may be best to then purchase doors slabs, un-tooled interior doors that can be fitted on site.

Great ideas for the gardeners on your list

Just as gardening leads to endless topics to discuss or dream about, there is no shortage of useful, creative and pleasurable gift ideas for gardeners.

Smartly designed two-storey crafted to maximize functionality

Ideally, a new home’s design should be distinctive both outside and inside.

And while both qualities are important, it’s a home’s exterior that — for better or worse — sets the tone.

Get it right, and the home will catch the eye of prospective home buyers. That in turn usually prompts them to wander inside to see if its interior is as special as its exterior.

Signature Homes’ new spec home at 35 Chimney Swift Way in St. Adolphe’s Tourond Creek has been a hit on both fronts, says Cindi Burak, Signature’s sales manager.

Smartly updated bungalow condo modern and move-in ready

When a home is 25 years old, it’s neither old nor young in terms of its design and relative age.

That said, there’s a chance it could reflect the era in which it was built. Which is to say it could be, well, somewhat dated.

Val Miller of Royal LePage Dynamic Real Estate says her new listing — a 1,450-sq.-ft. bungalow condominium found in a tidy, well-designed complex at 12-123 Victor Lewis Dr. in Linden Woods — definitely does not fall into that category.

“Pride of ownership shines in this beautifully maintained unit,” she says. “Not only have the original owners kept it in wonderful condition, but they’ve also updated it tastefully over the years.”

Value-packed Sanford bungalow a refuge for empty-nesters

These days, affordability is a huge issue for empty-nest couples with budgets that fall short of the magical $400,000 mark.

Next to affordability, the two most important issues are condition and livability.

Which is to say a home should ideally be in move-in-ready condition, as absolutely no one — especially buyers on a modest budget — wants to sink another $20,000 to $30,000 into renovations just after purchasing a property.

Meanwhile, the home must also be functional, offering a user-friendly layout.

Daylilies star in documentary

If filmmaking is a visual art form and nature is a powerful inspiration for art, then why aren’t there more films about plants and the people who are passionate about them?

PlantPop is one of those rarest of things — a horticultural film studio that seeks out interesting stories about plants and how they inspire and improve people’s lives. PlantPop, based in Suffolk, Va., is the brainchild of Arthur Parkerson who owns Lancaster Farms, a major plant producer in Virginia.

In the past 11 years, PlantPop has produced over 400 short documentary films that explore the relationship between people and plants. Many of the films are under 10 minutes in length, some are 30 minutes long.

Daylily is PlantPop’s first feature-length documentary film (72 minutes in length). Directed by Maria Morris, this refreshingly beautiful and informative film captures the stories of growers, gardeners, breeders and plant enthusiasts who share a common love for daylilies.

Vibrant flourishes, deft floorplan set Yvonne II model apart

As a home builder, it can become all too easy to become complacent.

The reason for that is simple: after you find a formula that works, the tendency is to keep repeating it because buyers seem to like it.

Oftentimes, that formula involves employing soft earth tones — variations on taupe, beige, brown and white — to create a feeling of warmth. Or grey, white and even black tones are used to endow a home with a more modern feel.

The result is show homes can morph together in buyers’ minds because — as beautiful as they are — their finishes weren’t distinct enough.

Like a puzzle, fireplace surround comes together piece by piece

Amidst a very hectic end-of-year work schedule, I was able to eke out a few hours over a couple of days to address a lingering upgrade in my very own step-down dining room, the main level of the addition to the house completed in 2018.

From the outset, the gap between the windows on the far wall had been fitted with an early-generation, wall-mount electric fireplace. Unfortunately, the brand did not offer many features, and always seemed bulky. So the space was about to change, for the better.

In recent years, electric wall-mount fireplaces have come a long way. Not only has pricing come way down and the range of sizes expanded, but the plethora of options on newer brands and models put my old bulky beast to shame. Moreover, the old fireplace had been mounted directly to the wall, without being encased (the vent for the heating on this particular unit pointed upward, ruling out an inset application). As such, we lived with it simply mounted to the wall as a stand-alone for the years that ensued after completion of the addition.

The upgrade design would feature a 66-inch-high build-out structure decorated in cultured stone, capped with a stained wooden mantle and a slightly bigger hearth below. After careful measurements, I decided to frame the main structure to a finished width (including drywall) of 66 inches, at a four-inch depth. The height of the hearth would match the five-inch height of the existing baseboards throughout, with a one-and-a-quarter-inch-high quartz slab at 74-inches wide and eight-inches deep, to serve as the hearth’s top.

MHBA Parade show homes open to visit all winter

Manitoba’s spring and fall Parade of Homes events are a spectacular showcase for Manitoba’s residential construction industry.

The parades showcase the Manitoba Home Builders’ Association’s home-building members, offering new-home buyers a chance to see cutting-edge home technology, and visitors also get a great opportunity for an up-close look at the latest trends in residential style and design.

These three-week events take place in March and September each year.

Most people aren’t aware Manitoba’s Parade of Homes events are the largest organized anywhere in Canada. Over 32,000 people visited the new show homes on display during the MHBA’s 2025 Spring Parade of Homes earlier this year.

Century-old Wolseley home overhauled with young families in mind

Consider for a moment a home built over 100 years ago in Winnipeg.

In most instances, people tend to visualize the same thing: a quaint-looking home with an interior that falls short of living up to modern standards for one reason or another. One of those reasons may be that dwellings a century or more older can often be quite spartan in their overall design.

For some reason, home designers of the era showed an oft-shocking indifference to comfort, and hence, overall functionality. Consequently, such houses tended to lack flow and be somewhat dull inside, design-wise.

Individual spaces — from living rooms to kitchens, bedrooms to bathrooms — tended to be small in size. Moreover, storage space was in short supply. As a result, when families looking for a move-up home often cross older homes off their list due to an overall lack of space and versatility.

Two-storey Prairie Pointe home makes most of every square foot

Designing a single-family detached home to fit a 26-foot-wide lot is no easy task.

That being the case, it’s critically important for designers to use their imagination to come up with a plan that maximizes every square inch of space in the home. In short, they must possess a mindset that’s at once practical and creative to design a home that deftly balances function and flair.

The design team at A & S Homes walked that line smartly with the Belmont, says Adam Virgilio, of Royal LePage Dynamic Real Estate, sales representative for A & S’s new show home at 481 Ken Oblik Dr. in Prairie Pointe.

“This home is a must-see to appreciate its design — the quality and detail throughout is impressive, as it its overall livability,” he says. “I think a key to its livability is the fact our design team managed to squeeze out some extra square footage. The home is 1,517 sq. ft. and the difference between that square footage and a home that’s 1,400 sq. ft. is quite noticeable.”

While renovating on top of irregularly built substructures can frustrate, patience pays off

A good number of my recent job sites have involved a flooring upgrade, at least to some degree.

Working at a house last month, the first phase of several separate renovations was just that — the renewal of the existing kitchen flooring.

Apparently, during the main kitchen renovation completed years ago (and before my involvement), a glue-down style of vinyl flooring had been selected and over time, the sections separated, revealing inconsistent gaps at every seam. The homeowner made it very clear this could no longer be tolerated.

As such, click-style vinyl planking with underpadding was selected to rejuvenate the look of the kitchen, and would also extend towards the back-door entrance and continue along the stairs to the basement. Although the square footage of flooring was minimal, the intricacies involved with such tasks would prove to be quite challenging.