GREYSTONE RESTORED TO ITS VINTAGE GLORY
19th-century home features exposed brick, magnificent woodwork
Giovanni and Gemma are in their mid-60s, and they’ve always liked the vintage feel of “old houses.” The couple, who didn’t want their last names published, are both children of Italian immigrants who grew up in Quebec.
Giovanni is a school psychologist, while Gemma is a semiretired social worker. She retired four years ago but then found herself being rehired on a parttime basis to fill in for a colleague who had left.
Both love their jobs, but their real passion is restoring old homes. Over the years, they have lived in a number of neighbourhoods — Côte- St-Luc, Hampstead, Westmount and NotreDame-de- Grâce — and they love the creativity of being able to find a building, recognize its potential and restore it to its former glory.
Giovanni and Gemma’s latest project is a two-storey, 19thcentury greystone townhouse on a quiet street in Ville-Marie, not far from the Atwater Market. Their home — one in a row of similar vintage buildings on each side of the street — has three bedrooms (one serves as a den), a living room and dining room separated by pocket doors, two bathrooms (plus a powder room) and an enclosed patio garden (still a work in progress, according to Gemma).
The interior of the townhouse has architectural details typical of its era, such as 10-foot-high ceilings, plaster mouldings, dark wood trim, wide baseboards and a fireplace with beautiful tiling and a brass surround, bearing the date 1893. The couple moved in on April 20 this year, after months of renovations.
Q Did you want to live in this area or was it the house itself that appealed to you? Giovanni and Gemma The
house!
Q How long was it before you could move in?
Giovanni When we sold our last house, we gave ourselves six months to find another place, but by the time the renovations were done, it took about a year and a half.
Q Did you do everything yourselves?
Gemma: Quite a bit because of our experience with other buildings, but we had to contract out some things.
Q Such as?
Giovanni We contracted out the plumbing and the electricity. We needed an engineer to advise on installing a steel beam and the kitchen was custom fitted by a kitchen specialist.
Gemma We wanted a marble backsplash and a honed granite countertop — it has a matte finish — and white cabinets to offset some of the dark wood.
Q The exposed brick walls in the dining room and hallway are very attractive. Did you have professional help with those?
Giovanni Actually, no. We scraped off the drywall ourselves. It was a long, tedious process. First you have to use a wire brush, then vacuum the dust, then a wire brush, then vacuum the dust, then a wire brush, then vacuum the dust, on and on until it’s done. The big challenge is not to get the plaster wet. If you do, then it sticks back onto the wall.
Q What about the bricks? Did they have to be repointed or had they been protected under the drywall?
Giovanni I had to repoint a few, but they were in good condition.
Gemma We love the fact that they’re all kinds of different colours and textures. Texture is important.
Q Did you have to do any other major jobs?
Giovanni Plenty! I’m really proud of the woodwork. As you can see, there’s a lot of it here — around the windows, the doors, all over the place. The wood had been stained, like the front door, or painted over.
Q Oh no, what a shame!
Giovanni That’s what we thought. You can’t compare paint to the warmth of wood. I wanted to reclaim the woodwork and restore it to its original condition, so I stripped off all the layers of paint, sanded down the wood and then refinished it.
(He walks me over to the living room window to show me his handiwork. In front of the window, which is framed with wood and matching shutters, is a small table on top of which stands a marble sculpture of a mother and child.)
Q Did your sculpture come from Italy?
Gemma I don’t think so. We found it in the States, in a store in Gloucester, Massachusetts. We used to do a lot of antiquing.
Giovanni If we see something interesting when we’re on vacation, we pick it up and bring it back.
Q Is that what you did with your Jacobean-style dining set with the spiral legs? It really stands out against your white walls.
Giovanni That actually came from a fellow here in Montreal. He has a huge warehouse up on Park Ave. and Van Horne. We’ve bought a number of things from him, and he’s much cheaper than the antique stores on NotreDame. The round dining table — it pulls out — is apparently over 100 years old, and it has been featured in a number of movies.