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Before we hired him, contractor Dave Rannala looked over our renovation drawings and asked some key questions. "Is there a reason why the windows in the family room are 7-foot 8-inches tall as opposed to 7-foot-6?" he wanted to know.

Here are some before and after shots of the house as it was and as it is under "destruction." Dumpster takes up almost the whole driveway, but ... ...

Some brave souls stay in their homes as walls come down and dust builds up. Fortunately, we had no choice but to move out. Friends who have seen where we're staying wonder if we're going to like it so much, we won't want to move back home.

The image here is a link to our floorplans. If you've never read one of these before, the dotted lines indicate existing parts of the house that will change. They are overlapped by solid lines that show what changes will be made.

After years working for the Homes section at the Times 91原创 (and at the Ottawa Citizen before that) and dragging my husband Brad to Homes shows,we had seen a lot of great work and talked to many architects and architectural designers.

Welcome to Angela, Bradley and Caitlin鈥檚 excellent renovation adventure. At least, we hope it turns out that way. We bought our home in Oak Bay in 2004.

Shane Hughes welcomed us to his family's new home as he simultaneously wiped up yogurt being trailed by one of his fast-moving children.