From dream to reality | Dare to turn everything upside down

Any renovation requires a good deal of planning and crowns a long-term process. Once a month, we will discover projects of various sizes, which could give ideas.

Danielle Bonneau
The Press

Seven years ago, Marjolaine Arcand and Simon Bergeron fell in love with a house located close to everything, in Trois-Rivières. They knew that one day they would redo the kitchen, but they wondered how to take advantage of the wasted space. A friend suggested a radical solution: reverse almost all the rooms on the ground floor and fit out the kitchen instead of the playroom. The idea caught on. The couple had plans made and expected to complete the work this fall. Fate has decided otherwise.

At the beginning of the year, Simon had reserved six weeks of respite before starting a new job. His father, Viateur Bergeron, who had undertaken the construction of his own house, at the age of 72, unexpectedly found himself with free time, due to unforeseen delays. He urged his son to get to work.

“My father is not a man who likes to do nothing, explains Simon Bergeron. Everyone we had contacted could meet the new deadline. We were lucky, we were able to advance the project. The first 21 days, we worked non-stop. »

Viateur Bergeron took charge, putting his experience in construction to good use.

The function of almost all parts has changed. Only the living room, with a fireplace, has retained its vocation to the left of the entrance. The games room, which had direct access to the courtyard through a French window, and the second living room (with the TV) became the kitchen and the dining room. The entrance, on the right side of the house, has been refurbished and the old kitchen is now used as a cloakroom. The playroom of the two children aged 5 and 7, moved to the basement during the work, has remained there.

Walls have fallen. The slats of the old parquet floors on the ground floor have all been torn out and replaced with new ones. There was lots and lots of dust. “I was thinking of doing the renovations one room at a time, but we did everything at the same time, recalls Simon Bergeron. Every evening I cleaned up so that my father would arrive the next morning and that it would be impeccable, to start afresh. It had been long days. »

The family continued to live in the house during the works. Marjolaine Arcand, who telecommuted in her office upstairs, dusted the onions before preparing meals. “Luckily, we were able to continue using the old kitchen until the very end,” she says. When Simon started his new job, he spent his weekends doing renovations with my stepfather. We put our family life on hold. I left with the children to do activities and get out of the construction site. »

They refinanced their mortgage to boost their budget, which they kept under $90,000. The fees for the electrician, who redid all the electricity in the house, built in 1946, and the new kitchen cost the most.

The work would surely have cost $150,000 without the precious help of her father-in-law, she estimates. “He is very generous. He gave us what he does best. »

“When we work together, we complement each other well,” adds her partner. It allows me to get closer to my father and get to know him better. He has always been a workaholic. He didn’t have time to play with me when I was little. Today, I have the impression that we are catching up on that time. I make the most of it. »