Etobicoke Home Renovations That Start With What to Keep

Thorncrest Village, north of Rathburn Road, was established in 1946 to a plan by Eugene Faludi: 208 houses on half-acre to one-acre lots, with one-storey ranch plans preferred. Eatonville, once a farm that supplied Eaton's with milk, was built up in the 1950s east of Highway 427 and in the 1960s and 1970s west of it. Whole-house work in the bungalows of both areas tends to centre on a long one-storey plan: a kitchen shut off from a living room facing the garden, bedrooms strung along one hallway, and wide windows in long outside walls. We work out the new layout, frame to the engineer's beam where a bearing wall goes, then run floors, drywall and trim throughout while licensed trades update wiring, plumbing and heating.

South-central Mimico gained many foursquares before it became a town in 1917: two and a half storeys with four boxy rooms to a floor. In the usual plan, the living and dining rooms run down one side and the front hall, stair and kitchen down the other. Because the kitchen sits behind the staircase, joining it to the dining room usually means cutting into the wall at the middle of the house, which often holds up the floor above, so an engineer specifies the beam and the City issues a permit first. The upstairs bathroom was often placed over the kitchen to share one drain stack, so we find that stack before deciding where a sink or island can go, and the plumber reroutes it if needed.

Much of Alderwood was built around the end of the Second World War, when one-storey houses also filled most of the gaps in northern and western Mimico. A house from those years typically has one bathroom off the bedroom hall, often just long enough for a tub across the far wall, and sometimes with a window above it. That window needs a decision early, because shower water rots a wooden sill: either we return the tile and membrane into the opening over a sloped sill, or a window installer fits a smaller unit higher on the wall. Where the basement ceiling below is unfinished, the plumber can reroute the drain from underneath.

The lot shapes the basement plan here. In October 1954, Hurricane Hazel flooded the mouth of Etobicoke Creek and more than forty Long Branch homes were lost; the floodplain became Marie Curtis Park. Houses near the creek in Long Branch and Alderwood can still sit inside TRCA's regulated area, so before a walkout or larger window well is drawn, we check the lot on the authority's online Regulated Area Search. Farther north, the old Lake Iroquois shoreline runs along Dundas Street, and a house on that slope can have a lower level partly above ground at the back, with room for full-size windows. There, the family room and any bedroom go along the bright back wall, with storage and the furnace in the darker front.

Long Branch began in the 1880s as a summer resort called Long Branch Park. Between 1910 and 1920 other developers opened seven more cottage-style subdivisions on both sides of Lakeshore Road, and as owners winterized the larger cottages, the resort became a year-round community. Where one of those cottages survives, the walls can be anything from panelling on bare studs to old board nailed over framing that was never straight, with ceilings that follow the roof slope. Before any board goes up, we shim or strap the walls true, add blocking where trim and cabinets will be fastened, and insulate the open cavities. Sheets are then hung, taped and finished in several coats, and the sloped ceilings get the same smooth finish as the flat walls.

Outside, the older houses near the Humber mix their materials. Robert Home Smith, who developed Kingsway Park, had his architects approve every house, allowed only stone, stucco or brick on exterior walls and favoured sandstone quarried along the Humber and Credit rivers. In Humber Valley Village, Tudor and English Cottage houses often pair brick or stucco with half-timbering. Our painters look after the wood: timbers, fascia, soffits, window frames and doors. Those boards take weather on every face, so we scrape, fill and spot-prime bare wood before two finish coats, and swap a rotted length for new wood instead of painting over it. Unpainted stone and brick are left as they are, because a coating can trap moisture in masonry, and repointing belongs to a mason.

Thorncrest Village's ranch houses sit close to the ground on lots of half an acre or more, so the deck off a patio door there can stay low. Markland Wood's two-storeys, on good-sized lots of their own, more often need a raised deck. A deck whose surface sits more than 60 centimetres above the adjacent ground needs a Toronto building permit, so a low platform often needs none, though it still has to meet zoning, while one off an upper door usually does. We set the footings, frame the beams and joists, lay pressure-treated or composite boards and build the stairs and railings. A gas line for a barbecue or patio heater goes to a licensed gas fitter, and any outdoor wiring to a licensed electrician.