Couple’s home rebuild a labour of love
Pair found project to expand their family’s living space brought them closer together
Building a new home can be one of the biggest tests on a marriage, but for Meera Malik and her husband, Dave Cassan, the process actually brought them closer.
Instead of arguing over budgets and design decisions, the couple truly bonded over the massive undertaking, knowing the end result would be an idyllic home in which to raise their son Andrew, 8, and daughter Maya, 6.
“You’re working towards a shared goal — and we’re doing it for our family,” says Malik, 41, adding people are often shocked when they hear she and her husband really enjoyed the home-building experience.
For years, Cassan and Malik had lived comfortably in the two bedroom south Sunnylea home they purchased pre-kids in 2007, until their family expanded and their children started asking for separate bedrooms.
“We were outgrowing the space,” Malik says. “We knew we wanted more of a modern style.”
They had been reluctant to sell and move to a bigger home because they love their neighbours and their rare ravine property which overlooks the Mimico Creek.
Instead, they decided to keep the old foundation, two of the exterior walls and a recently renovated bathroom on the main floor, and then build a new four-bedroom, four-bathroom house in its place. They began planning and getting permits long before construction finally began in 2014.
For an entire year, the couple would put the kids to bed and then dive into the creative process, throwing various concepts back and forth, brainstorming ideas about what their dream house would look like.
“We changed a lot on the paper phase,” says Cassan, 41, an electrical engineer, who also designs semiconductor integrated circuits. “We went through 20 different designs back and forth, but once we settled on the design, we had very few changes.”
“In the end, it was better,” says Malik, who works in human resources at St. Joseph’s Health Centre in Toronto. She adds they saved money in the long run by making sure all the details were finalized well in advance.
Malik says while she and her husband were responsible for the design, they also sought advice from his uncle, architect Michael Spaziani, and worked with architectural technologist Antonella Ferrone-Wild to bring the design to a point where it was ready for a builder.
They hired Dave Leprevo, owner of Leprevo Design-Build, for the ninemonth project, which came in right on schedule. Malik joked that’s because Leprevo lives a few houses down and she warned him in advance: “You’ll have to do a good job, otherwise you’ll have to see an upset neighbour every day!”
“He understood our vision,” she adds. “It was never a situation where there were competing visions. All the ideas made the end result better.”
The family rented a nearby house for eight months and also spent a month living with Cassan’s parents. The price tag totalled $360,000, including the cost of the rental, but not including landscaping, a new concrete driveway and a retaining wall, which happened a year later.
All the hard work and patience certainly paid off — and the result is a breathtaking first impression as you walk into the open-concept modern home, which is almost 3,000 square feet, including the basement.
Malik says when her son first saw it, he exclaimed, “Whoa!” and then ran upstairs with his sister to see their new bedrooms.
“It was very cute to see how excited they were,” she says.
The ceiling height reaches a whopping 20 feet in the heart of the main floor, where a spectacular wall of windows beckons you to the tiered ravine lot out back, which faces west and gets the afternoon sun.
Since the yard backs onto a conservation area, the family has seen plenty of wildlife over the years, including rabbits, possums, snakes, raccoons and even a deer.
The couple picked the biggest sliding glass door they could get their hands on —10 feet wide and nine feet tall — so the backyard would feel like an extension of their living space.
They opted for crisp, white walls, grey engineered hardwood floors and a floating staircase with glass balustrade which helps complete the modern vibe.
“We figured if we played with the light and played with the height and kept the design very clean, then we’d maximize the space,” Malik says.
The family’s favourite place to hang out is on the main floor in a cosy sitting area by the fireplace, where they spend hours doing puzzles, reading and playing board games together in the winter.
They decided to keep the kitchen as a separate room at the front of the house, where a large window above the sink overlooks their leafy, deadend street.
Upstairs, the kids finally have their own bedrooms and there is a guest suite for visiting grandparents. The master bedroom boasts a large en suite and his-and-her closets with a skylight.
In the basement, they made the most of the space with a kids’ playroom, hockey room, music room, bathroom and plenty of storage areas.
The family absolutely loves their community and its proximity to restaurants and shops in the Kingsway, High Park, Junction and Roncesvalles areas. Downtown is easily accessed from local transit or a short drive away from the nearby Gardiner Expressway.