Couple moving on up after complete teardown
Scott Meleskie and Sarah Lowden like their pristine, 7½-room second-floor corner unit from the 1920s so much that they bought the place upstairs. Now they’re selling their current home and literally moving on up, where they have plans to undertake a more ambitious renovation. This place looks like it’s in its original state – what was it like when you moved in?
Scott Meleskie: It apparently had been renovated but it looked like 1985 or something.
Sarah Lowden: Floral wallpaper and all the walls were painted really dark.
Meleskie: Dark blue, dark green, dark brown. We actually had a seashell sink in the bathroom. It sounds like it could be kind of kitsch, but it was just ugly. That was the first thing to go.
(The natural wood trim is exposed throughout the apartment, as are original features such as pressed hallway panelling.)
Meleskie: All the wood was exposed already so that was a big plus. But when we came in, the house was on the market for a year. So we walked in and it stunk, and it looked so bad, we were just sort of laughing, like, no way we’re getting this place. And then each room we got to ... My God, this is such a huge place.
Lowden: So it was on our shortlist and my parents were down visiting. Just to kill time we said OK let’s go look at a few places. They had a lot more experience than we did and so they definitely encouraged us. And said if you guys aren’t going to buy it, we’re going to buy it.
(Perhaps the most striking part of the condo is the corner double-room set up as a living and dining room, with a tiled art-deco fireplace stacked with evenly cut wood.)
Meleskie: This room’s awesome because we’re on the corner and you have two big windows on either side so it’s really bright. All the glass is original still so it’s kind of weird in that when you’re looking outside, people’s heads are all deformed, but it adds to the charm.
(The bathroom looks to be original from the 1920s, with a clawfoot tub and tiny tiles – but with the addition of a modern shower.)
Meleskie: This was a complete gut, tear down, like to the beams.
Lowden: It’s my favourite room. And this is the room I am probably the most proud of, because it was so, so, so ugly. But this was the hardest room to make the decisions on. I really wanted to keep with the 1920s style of the building, and wanted to keep the bathtub and Scott at the time wanted something more modern and sleek.
Meleskie: So we got a nice modern shower too. You seem to love this place. Why sell it?
Lowden: We bought the place upstairs about a year after we moved in here. Part of our condo agreement says the other owners have the first right of refusal, so we came to a price that we agreed on. And at the time, we thought, ‘Oh, we’ll turn it into a great 3,000 square foot two-storey apartment.’ Then realized that’s just too much real estate to have in the Plateau, and so we gave the landlord thing a shot. The first two years were great but this year it’s just been harder getting to the bank and that kind of thing. And we need a new project. How does the upstairs compare to this place?
Meleskie: Upstairs is pretty much identical but in a lot worse shape. It’s been lived in by pretty much students for the last 10 years. We’ll have more of a blank slate upstairs than we had downstairs.
Lowden: We really evaluated, do we sell upstairs or do we sell here … But if we sell upstairs we couldn’t get the value of the place in the condition that it’s in, so we decided to sell this one. But I’m going to be sad to leave. What else do you like about this building?
Lowden: We used to get a lot of (graffiti) tagging in this neighbourhood, so we came up with the solution of having a mural done on the garage that’s part of the condo downstairs. And so Omen, who’s a Montreal-based graffiti artist, did a really beautiful portrait on our garage, and knock on wood it’s been four years without being tagged or any vandalism, so that really solved the problem.