330 GLEN MANOR DR.
WHAT: A fully renovated detached home in Toronto's Beaches neighbourhood overlooking the Glen Stewart ravine. The two-storey house offers three bedrooms and three bathrooms over approximately 2,200 square feet of living space, above grade, on a 51 by-104 foot lot.
ASKING PRICE: $1.689-million
TAXES: $8,962.38 (2009)
AGENT: Re/Max Hallmark Realty (Mark Richards)
Some people get a toaster as a wedding present. Colleen Phelan got a house.
Her high school teacher husband had purchased it from his parents on the eve of their wedding three years ago.
The bigger gift was that the house came fully renovated, with a new kitchen, two new bathrooms and $250,000 worth of landscaping.
"It was in perfect move-in condition," says Ms. Phelan, a social worker who recently gave birth to the couple's first child, a baby boy.
"We didn't have to touch it."
Her in-laws - who now live just five houses down the street -- spent a year (and undoubtedly a fair chunk of change) in reconstructing the circa 1920 house into an efficient and attractive family home that they had lived in themselves for three years before handing over the keys to their son and his new bride.
While upgrading the electrical, plumbing and heating systems, essentially bringing the house up-to-date, the renovation was done with a mind to preserving much of the home's vintage Arts and Crafts character.
All the wainscoting in the dining room is original, for instance, and the windows, while new, retain the leaded glass look of old.
"It's got character," says Ms. Phelan. "The way his mom had the place done up, it looked right out a magazine."
Still, the changes introduced to the house are extensive, starting with am 1,100 square foot finished basement, created by lowering the floor a foot.
Ms. Phelan says her in-laws like to entertain -- "there are a lot of family dos, as they call them " -- and so the new basement was made to accommodate a large family room with a media centre and built-in cherry bar.
There's a new laundry room, bedroom and bathroom -- the only room that the younger Mr. and Mrs. Phelan did change themselves, replacing the former bath tub with a subway tile surround with a new walk-in shower and white granite-top vanity.
"We wanted to out our own stamp on things," she explains.
That urge didn't manifest itself anywhere else in the house, at least not in any significant way: "All we did upstairs was change the furnishings the art. We have contemporary taste. His mom is more traditional," Ms. Phelan says.
Of particular enjoyment is the backyard where extensive stone work, including a fenced in patio with a built-in gas barbecue, creates the feeling of what Ms. Phelan calls "an outdoor living room."
"This house has probably the nicest landscaped garden in the entire Beaches. It's beautiful and maintenance free.
There's nothing to mow and it's irrigated, meaning it's completely self-sustainable. I like nature - you should see the perennials in the front garden - but I don't have a green thumb."
The home is now for sale, but Ms. Phelan says she'll be reluctant to say good-bye.
"I'm definitely going to miss this house."