RUNDOWN TRIPLEX NOW A GEM
Jazz singer took time with reno work
Diane Hébert grew up in Quebec City but she came to Montreal to study music and to have a “big career” as a jazz artist. She ended up having a “small career,” getting gigs here and there, but she managed to keep body and soul together. For 17 years, she lived with a man who was “in the theatre” and who fathered her two children — a boy and a girl — who are now adults and living away from home.
Because the couple were both in the artistic milieu, there was never a lot of money, nonetheless, Hébert had an eye for a bargain. In 1985, she and two female friends bought a rundown 1920s triplex in the Plateau for a “low price,” with a view to modernizing it and whipping it into shape.
Hébert’s apartment ( she lives on the top storey) is 1,350 square feet and it has three bedrooms, two balconies and a rooftop terrace, the latter added only last year. According to Hébert, who now lives alone, upgrading her apartment is an ongoing process and, although she has been working on it for almost three decades, she is always coming up with new ideas.
Q: Tell me how you and your friends decided to take on such a challenging project? A: Well, when we found the building, we were young, beautiful ( laughs) and had loads of energy. You should have seen the place. It was a wreck! A film unit had been using the building before we bought it and they left it in an awful state. Nobody had been living here for quite a while.
Q: I imagine such an ambitious venture, such as renovating a triplex, must have resulted in a few tense moments? A: Actually, no. We never had any fights. We just had fun! The other women still live in the building.
Q: So what did you do to your own particular apartment? A: The renovations were done very gradually, as I could afford them. The priorities were rewiring the electrical system, fixing the plumbing and so on. I actually don’t use much electricity because nearly everything is run on gas — the hot water tank, the stove, the heating. When we began to tear down the walls, the gas pipes for the original lighting were still there!
Q: Did you take down many walls? A: I did. I opened everything up. I wanted space and light. In the winter, at 3 o’clock, the sun floods the inside.
Hébert walks me through the apartment saying, “This was closed. This was closed. This was closed.” We go into her bedroom — formerly a double living room with two doors — and she explains that she placed her bed facing the window because she likes to look outside.
Along one wall is a wooden chest of drawers with an ornate carved front — a sidewalk find, like much of Hébert’s furniture. She has also bought things at auctions and inherited other people’s castoffs — something she has always been happy to accept because she has become adept at repurposing the simplest objects, like two butter crates, which now serve as night tables, mounted on the wall of the second bedroom.
Hébert points out her kitchen walls — exposed brick, which had been hidden behind plasterboard. The open kitchen, which has a dining area, leads into the living room, at the end of which is a second sitting area and then a small bedroom with a wall of glass bricks — again to allow light to flow into the interior.
That was a big, big, big job because the bricks are very heavy. There’s a supporting ceiling beam on the second storey, downstairs, so my floor was able to bear the weight.
Hébert’s eye for harmony and colour is impressive. The walls in the living room are cappuccino and a dividing section has a stained- glass window, which Hébert had custom- made. The walls of the second sitting area are tomato red. Her bedroom is a pale grey and white and the guest bedroom is mustard. The floors are hardwood but Hébert has plans to do more upgrades.
Q: So the floors might be your next project? A: The original floors were covered in linoleum, so I stripped that off and sanded the wood underneath. At some point, I need to do them again. I enjoy doing things gradually.
Someone who had the budget could probably have renovated the apartment much quicker than I did. If I bought a new house now, I’d probably do things a little differently, but I love my place. When I saw it the first time, yes, it was a wreck! But I knew it could become a “palace” — my palace.