The owner’s tour | A family bubble in the Mile End

Owners open the doors of their exceptional residence to us, offered on the resale market.

Valerie Simard
The Press

Few are the properties for sale in the coveted Mile End district and even rarer are those with more than three bedrooms. In this former duplex converted into a single-family home, a family has made its nest and remodeled it to their liking during the pandemic. But, an opportunity presented itself and here she is already on the verge of leaving him.

From the outside, with its red bricks, its projection on the facade and its carved wooden balcony, the house has the typical charm of the houses of Mile End and its borough, Le Plateau-Mont-Royal. Renovated and transformed into a single-family house by the previous owners, the one that the neighbors nicknamed “the red house” immediately appealed to Stéphanie Normandin and her husband, who then wanted to leave their loft for a house better suited to their desire to start a family. .

“From the outside, I saw the red house and I really felt something, recalls M^me Normandin. Then we visited it and I fell in love. My partner said: “You have to make a thoughtful purchase”, but for me, it was right away. There was something in the house, a family soul. That was in 2017. Within a year, the couple welcomed their first child. A second was added 16 months later.

Some works

There was no shortage of square footage, but from the start the owners had wanted to rearrange the space to suit their tastes and needs. “It was a bit partitioned and there was a lot of wasted space,” says M^me Normandin. But, we said to ourselves: we will live in it and see what we want to retype as we go along. “It was during her second maternity leave that they started.

Even if the interior of the house has been greatly transformed by designer Félix Schwimmer, of Atelier Schwimmer, to avoid waste, they wanted to keep certain elements such as the floors, the kitchen cabinets and one of the bathrooms, which had recently been replaced by the previous owners. The designer has reviewed the circulation areas by decompartmentalizing the ground floor, while delimiting the spaces. In many places throughout the house, wood and curves have been used to add warmth and coziness.

There is also an art gallery aspect to this house, the owners being collectors. The large wall that borders the entrance hall and the living room was designed as a support for exhibiting their paintings. “We wanted it to take up space, for it to speak, for it to be a discussion piece when we receive friends,” emphasizes Stéphanie Normandin.

Although it is located at the end of the ground floor, in the extension of the building, the kitchen is the starting point for the layout of the open area. From here, parents can keep an eye on the children, whether they are in the living room, dining room or outside on the terrace which occupies a relatively small part of the courtyard, but equipped with a parking.

“In summer, we leave the door open, it’s like an extension of the living room, notes the owner. It really is a room that is added to the house. »

Real rooms, the house has 14, including 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 1 exercise room, 1 storage room and 1 large boudoir. Forced to work from home during the pandemic, they dedicated the boudoir, one of the closed rooms on the ground floor, to their office. With its adjoining bathroom, the space could also serve as a guest bedroom or accommodate an aging parent.

Parents zone, children zone

The floor has been designed in two areas, that of adults and that of children. “In the master bedroom, we wanted something wow, an oasis space isolated from the rest of the house and the craziness of the children,” says Stéphanie Normandin. It had to be a relaxing place. » The bathroom, for the exclusive use of adults, has been designed with curves, which accentuates the spa effect.

The children are not left out either since they have two large bedrooms (another rarity in the central districts) and a vast playroom.

“It’s certainly not a house for all buyers, but we didn’t make it for all buyers,” she says. We made it for us. We will be happy when we know that another family fell in love with our house. If they left, barely two years after completing the work, it was because an opportunity presented itself and it was hard to refuse.

“The stars have aligned. We have the opportunity to return to my spouse’s childhood home [où ils ont brièvement habité pendant la rénovation de leur maison]. There is something in the other house where he lived his life with his mother who is no longer there. There is sentimental value. »

However, for this house too, in which they cradled their children and saw them take their first steps, they have feelings. “Will you mind leaving? “I think I’m going to cry.” »