Picking up stakes and moving can be daunting for most homeowners but not for Cleo and Ryan Thompson, who enjoy moves since they bring with them the challenge of renovating a new space.
Their last move brought them from Ottawa to Victoria in 2019, where they have renovated a home quite different from ones they’ve done for their family in the past.
The couple, and their daughter Tyler, now 18, and son Brody, 16, were living in a classic heritage house built in 1925 in Ottawa — the fourth home they had completely renovated for their family back east.
“We loved it, but I also love moving,” says Cleo. “We thought we’d retire out here (Victoria) but decided life is too short so let’s go now.”
They also wanted to get their children settled in a new province while they were young enough to make friends easily.
By August, 2019 the couple found the “quintessential West Coast” home they were looking for and in September relocated their design, renovation and carpentry business, called Birch + West here as well.
“We get to experience a different part of the country. Part of the fun of moving is getting a new place to design,” says Cleo.
Their new home was nothing like their previous Ottawa residences. Instead of a classic heritage house from the early 19th century, they bought a post and beam, mid-century house in the Broadmead neighbourhood.
Broadmead is known for its many mid-century modern homes, from the last 1960s to the 1980s, its larger than average lot sizes, and mature, heavily treed landscaping. The development, started in 1966 on 290 hectares, is considered one of the first in Victoria to take a sustainable approach to neighbourhood design.
The Thompson home was designed by architect Gordon Rolston, now deceased, but well-known B.C. architect Micheal Nixon, who still lives in Broadmead, was the draftsman on the project.
“A lot of the credit for how Broadmead is today goes to Gordon Rolston,” says Nixon, who estimates he was the architect in about 400 of the Broadmead single residential homes, and all of its multi-family homes.
“Back then [Rolston] cared about sustainability, so you saved a tree, didn’t blast and were sensitive to the grade, sensitive to light, the views and your neighbours,” says Nixon, adding the same covenants to protect the beauty of the properties that were made in the neighbourhood in the 1960s are still in effect today.
Nixon says the mid-century modern homes “stand the test of time” and are hard to replicate with today’s new builds.
“Nowadays to do a pure post and beam would be cost prohibitive because of those wood beams and decking,” says Nixon. “From a design point of view it’s hard to beat.”
Although the Thompson family had been looking for a house closer to downtown, they fell in love with their mid-century house, this one built in the early 1970s, after seeing the third picture of it in the real estate listing.
“We called our Realtor right away and she was looking at the same house for us. We went that night and it had five offers,” says Cleo, adding they had to act fast since it was obvious it was going to sell after only one day on the market.
They made an inspection-free offer, knowing renovations would be needed to bring it up to today’s standards.
While many of the obvious changes needed were cosmetic, like removing popcorn ceilings, pink and green shag carpeting, wood panelled walls, a glass block pony wall, red and orange painted walls and a purple bathtub, they also needed to update the home’s electrical and heating systems and replace the roof.
The single pane windows would also need to be upgraded and the outdoor deck that had rotted over the years had to go as well.
While the negatives of the house were many, the positives still outnumbered them. The house is set back from the road on a large lot with an ocean view, and all the rooms flowed nicely, with some exceptions — the wall that closed off the kitchen had to be removed to improve the home’s open concept on the main floor.
Nixon agreed renovation choices to further open up these mid-century homes makes sense for today’s lifestyle.
“I promote open concept. Up until 1990 most houses were one living room, a dining room, a kitchen, and family nook. Now it’s one great room and everything all open floor plans. There’s no walls and that’s what modern design is all about — an open space,” he says.
When it came to updating their house, the Thompsons kept the dining room open to the living room, just steps below but use the space as a billiards room and expanded the kitchen nook on the other side to be used as their dining space.
Another big positive of the house was the amount of natural light it gets, thanks to its many windows. The living room still had the original floor to ceiling glass windows, which flood the home with light on a sunny day.
The home also has its original fireplaces. Besides the living room fireplace there’s a second fireplace in a second sitting room downstairs in the 2,900 sq. ft. home.
While others might have torn out the dark stone to modernize the fireplaces the couple knew the stone colour could be updated with “sweat equity.”
“We wanted to modernize it but have it still look natural so it took three days of a non-stop, dab-on, dab-off grey white wash,” she says.
“I was going for a ‘70s California beach house post and beam. We really wanted to lighten the house up and give it a very relaxed feel,” says Cleo, who is an interior designer.
Prior to starting the business with her husband, she worked as an interior design professor at a college in Ottawa.
Ryan is an experienced carpenter so he was able to customize many of their cabinets, including taking an Ikea prefab cabinet and adding attractive oak inserts into them and a display shelf along one side of the 3.5 metre (11-foot) long kitchen island cabinet.
“You can do some really magical things with Ikea,” says Cleo.
Ryan also did all of the tiling work in the kitchen, with three shades of light grey picket fence tiles from Tile Town.
Other savings came by finding kitchen gold hardware from Lowes, and modern lights and wallpaper from Wayfair. The downstairs sitting room has a graphic wallpaper that harkens back to the 1970s, and the powder room has an interesting jellyfish design wallpaper they first saw at a local restaurant.
Some of their splurges include solid wood interior doors, many with glass inserts to help bring more light into the space and wide plank oak flooring throughout the home.
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