PLATEAU HOME HAS PERSONALITY
Globetrotters add style to abode
Alexandra Buskie hails from Aberdeenshire in Scotland and her husband, Hugo Picher, is a Montrealer. They found their Plateau apartment last fall, but this isn’t the first time the expat Scot has lived in this city. While attending Glasgow University, Buskie came to Montreal as an exchange student — and that’s when she met Picher.
Before moving here, the couple lived for a while in London. Eventually, they gave up their “good jobs” in Britain, travelled around the world for four months, then settled back in Montreal in October 2016.
Here, too, they found good jobs. Buskie is an international policy consultant who works for Universalia, a management consulting firm with offices in 120 countries. Her position involves some travel. Picher works in the financial world.
Buskie admits that so far they haven’t done a great deal to decorate their home. Their furnishings, purchased within their modest budget, is fairly basic but the space itself is interesting. It’s a vintage Plateau apartment — probably built in the early 1900s — with two bedrooms and two balconies.
Right now, one of the bedrooms is used only for storage.
Q: You said you were lucky enough to find the apartment fairly soon after you come back?
A: We were. We researched online and came up with this one on Kijiji. We saw three or four flats on the same day and just chose the best one.
Q: What made this one the best?
A: It had nice characteristics. The interior was kind of quirky and it had interesting architectural details, like a couple of archways in the hall, hardwood floors, old-school column radiators and contrasting panels along the walls. The ceiling had — what’s that posh word you use? — er, cornicing.
Q: What about the colours? Did you have to paint the place? A: No, it was painted from before. The colours were a bit different from the average (she indicates an olive-green wall in the living room) but not in your face.
Q: I know what you mean. I’ve heard some horror stories about bright purple walls and hideous yellow shag carpets. A: (Laughs.)
Q: Now what about your furniture? Given that you’d lived in Montreal before, had you put things in storage? A: A few bits and pieces and the dining table. That was stored in Hugo’s dad’s attic, so it was a “leftover” piece but all the other furniture we bought in one day in IKEA. One day was quite enough!
Q: You mean because it was so crowded? A: Yes. (Laughs.) It’s where relationships go to die! We had one whole day in IKEA then the next day we had a “make-yourown-furniture” day. I’m quite proud that I was able to put the sofa together.
(The sofa in question is in the living/dining room. Upholstered in blue-grey fabric, it stands against the olive-green wall. Above it hangs a large poster of one of Andy Warhol’s famous pictures of Marilyn Monroe. Across from the sofa is the aforementioned dining table that had been in storage when the couple were in Britain.)
(The living/dining area is open to the kitchen — a functional space with a charcoal-coloured ceramic floor and wood-grained cabinets, installed by the landlord during a recent renovation. The kitchen is big enough to store a washer/dryer and a narrow partition separates it from the living/dining room.)
Q: I like your poster of Marilyn Monroe. Did you get that at IKEA, as well? A: No. That was something my husband found in the street, somewhere in the Plateau. He had that before I met him.
(From the living room we wander past the tiny bathroom, where Buskie points out the claw foot bathtub.)
That was another thing I loved about this apartment. A bath with feet!
(Wandering into the couple’s bedroom, I am struck by the crescent-shaped stained-glass panels over a couple of windows, in the middle of which is a door with a glass panel. The windows and doors are framed by an attractive wood trim.)
Q: More of those interesting architectural details? A: Indeed. The door leads to the wee balcony at the front. We’ve got another balcony at the back.
Q: And what are those large photos hanging above your bed? A: They were from the fourmonth trip that my husband and I took before coming back to Montreal. They’re from all over the place.
Q : Such as? A: The one in the desert was taken at Wadi Rum in Jordan. That was an amazing trip. The shot of the temples is Bagan in Burma (also known as Myanmar). This one is of another desert. (She indicates a shot with a backdrop of towering mountains.) It was taken in Mongolia.
Shelter is a weekly series featuring a conversation with tenants or condo owners. If you would like your home to be considered for Shelter, please contact hloverseed@sympatico.ca