This century-old east Vancouver character home gets another hundred years

Painted cedar siding and shingles are paired with Hardie siding (colour: Deep Ocean) to give the exterior a more traditional look. "When we talk about the spirit of it — the colour, textures and the approach to the design — it was about combining the era it was built and where it is today," says TQ Construction's Henri Belisle. Photo by 360 HOME TOURS

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For one east Vancouver character home, “renovation” meant lifting the entire house off its foundation. Though the intervention was dramatic, the decision to retain rather than rebuild was much less so.

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Both homeowners had grown up in older houses and had experience with heritage and character projects, so when they found this 1912 home in Vancouver’s Grandview-Woodland neighbourhood, they saw an opportunity to make it their own without losing the sense of history that drew them to it.

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There were practical reasons to renovate, too. Qualifying the house through the city’s character merit assessment process allowed additional floor area that wouldn’t have been possible with a new build, while a comparable custom home would have cost substantially more. More importantly, the homeowners saw little reason to tear down a solid building simply because it needed work.

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The harder question was what, exactly, was left to retain.

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“Previous owners didn’t preserve its own history,” says TQ Construction president Henri Belisle. “It looked like a late 70s renovated house.” From the street, the house’s 1912 roots were hard to find, obscured by grey-green glass-dash stucco and a weathered front porch. Inside were decades of piecemeal and DIY alterations, including a poorly converted attic, unpermitted rear additions, mismatched flooring and sponge-painted mustard-yellow walls. And beneath it all sat a leaky, mouldy basement.

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In the kitchen, the team opted for dark grey Vicostone Tartufo quartz countertops to complement the deeper wood flooring. Off-white cabinetry and a glazed ceramic Centura tile backsplash complete the palette. Photo by 360 HOME TOURS

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Rather than preserving every surviving element, the design-build team focused on recovering the character the house had lost while adapting the 3,400-square-foot home for a growing, active family. “A lot of what this project was about was bringing this house to where it should have been,” says Belisle, “but then also naturally [incorporating] modern design, taste and technology.”

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On the facade, that meant stripping away what didn’t belong and restoring historic cues that had disappeared. A Douglas fir entry door and real cedar siding now frame the front, while the exterior was repainted a deep slate blue and the porch rewrapped with white cedar railing.

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“When you walk up to the house, it meets all those traditional ideas,” says Belisle. The team also added deep red oak hardwood flooring, wood-trim double-hung windows and wood door casings to anchor the interiors in a more traditional esthetic, while upgraded windows and insulation improve the home’s energy efficiency.

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“We did a bunch of work to air seal, add insulation to the interior [and] exterior of the building, put in better performing windows [and] do all these little details that we knew would be better than current code,” says Belisle, “and make sure this house would stand the test of time.”

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Tucked beside the pantry, a custom wine bar provides a home for 96 pieces of stemware. A built-in pull-out step ladder unfolds from the lower millwork, allowing the homeowners to access the top shelves while maximizing storage. Photo by 360 HOME TOURS

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The biggest upgrade happened below. Working with Zebiak House Raising, the team lifted the entire home and excavated deeper to pour a new insulated concrete foundation, raising the basement ceiling from seven to nine feet. The resulting recreational floor is tailored to the family’s active lifestyle, featuring a gym, workshop, guest suite and space for a two-person kayak — a far cry from the leaky basement they started with.