Becky Medina teems with creative decorating ideas for her newly renovated home in Maple Bay. And strangely enough, the fulfilment of her brainwaves tends to coincide with trips her husband Tony makes out of town.
“When he’s away, I get lots of projects done,” acknowledged Becky, adding when he went on a recent trip she had the entry gates on their 1.5-hectare wooded property electrified, to open and close automatically.
She also had more cedar siding put on their 100-year-old barn. “He agreed to just do the front, but I arranged to do more while he was away,” and at the time of this interview she was drywalling the basement — as a surprise. “He doesn’t have a clue about the studio I’m planning to put in the barn,” she said with a conspiratorial chuckle.
Another time, she had a hankering for a fireplace insert and bookshelves in the living room. “Tony had told me we couldn’t do it because we had overspent,” but about a year later she had saved enough — and the rest is decorating history.
Her daughter jokes that every time her father’s car turns out of the drive, the workmen start arriving.
Is Becky’s husband, a social worker, afraid to go away now? “Not while I’m still working and saving the money,” he said.
He looks forward to the changes; besides, these stealth-renos have been going on for 30 years. They started when Tony was travelling as athletics director and rugby coach at Brentwood College for 18 years.
“It’s always a pleasant surprise when I return home,” said Tony, who added their original plan was to downsize. “We could have lived in the original 40-by-40-foot house, but Becky wanted a larger ensuite and a walk-in closet in the main bedroom. We ended up with a 4,000-square-foot extension, so the total now is around 5,500.”
They both love to entertain, and the formal dining room is great for small gatherings, while the expanded kitchen and entertainment area accommodate larger groups.
“My favourite room would have to be the family room with the large-screen TV for watching sports, mostly rugby.”
He said the reno presented no major challenges and the crew from Somenos Construction “did a tremendous job of blending the old with the new.”
The Medinas bought their century-old home in the summer of 2010 and moved out that October for six months, while work was underway.
The house was very rundown.
“It had been on the market for a long time, on and off a few times, and among other things the whole foundation needed to be redone,” recalled Becky. The basement was musty; there was some knob-and-tube wiring in the walls; and everything had to be brought up to code.
“We gutted the home but left the original hardwood floors, banisters and stairs, and we added new insulation in the attic and blew it into the walls of the original house.”
They tore out and redid every bathroom, and Thermo Proof Windows of Chemainus replaced every window to make it energy-efficient. The former windows were large, so they replaced them with the same dimensions.
An addition that had been put onto the original house in the early 1970s was in bad repair, so their builder advised them to take it off and they did, taking the home back to its historic 40-by-40-foot dimensions.
They then built a new two-storey addition, which included a family room, laundry, bathroom and expanded kitchen. A double garage was also added, with a suite upstairs.
When they bought the house, they weren’t sure how old it was, but several members of a family that once lived there, children and grandchildren, came back to see the renos and offer information. A man whose father helped build the house in 1911 contacted them, too.
“He said his father had been on long leave from the Indian army, visiting his parents at Quamichan, and he took a job as a carpenter’s helper here. He was paid $2 a day, apparently.”
Most people would likely have bulldozed the house rather than try to restore and add to it, but Becky loves its character and has tried to keep to the original style.
She wanted a house that was open to the family room where they live most of the time.
“It’s less formal than the living and dining rooms, with French doors and transom windows so we can look out over the wonderful old maple trees. “
Martha Stewart and Houzz.com were the inspiration for her kitchen. “I had a vision of a large granite countertop with sink, positioned to look out a window at an oval garden with lots of lavender and an Italian fountain, with the forest in the distance.”
And that too has become reality.
The room has lots of counter space and a high-end, six-burner stove that Tony, who is Australian, loves to cook curry on.
She said their renovation went over budget by almost 100 per cent. “Things came up that we didn’t expect. Like needing two heat pumps because of the size of the house. That was $10,000 right there. And we wanted stainless appliances and granite.”
The old barn, “which was derelict and falling apart,” needed a new roof and structural upgrades to make it sound. They also added a sliding barn door and cedar siding.
The Medinas raise poultry and lambs, have created a kitchen garden and recently added a greenhouse made from the sliding glass doors and trusses recycled from the old addition.
Becky adores every room in the house, but especially the powder room that used to be a big old closet. She did the floor in black and white octagonal tiles and found an old mahogany, marble-topped dresser for $320. Matrix Marble honed the top to a matte finish and drilled a hole in it for a vessel sink.
Becky has done renovations before — “It’s something I really enjoy, it fulfils my artistic side” — and always dreamed of living in an old house with an acreage.
Her dream came true and has been a positive experience.
“I never had a problem with any of the trades. Everyone was amazing, especially our kitchen guy, Jeff Brown, who is a treasure. All the people we hired took such pride in their work.”
Brown, 29, who is self-employed and has done more than a dozen kitchens, said this project was great.
“It was interesting making a new kitchen in such an old house. There were challenges where the walls or floors were not level. It took a little more time to fit, but I like projects where you can be a little more creative.”
Becky concluded: “My friends thought my husband and I had gone crazy. But when it was done, they wanted to know how we envisioned this.”
