A client of mine recently sent me some “before and after” pictures of her kitchen renovation and I was absolutely amazed!

Not only was I amazed at how great the new kitchen was, but also at how ugly the old one looked in the photos!

Maybe the ugly kitchen was the reason for this condo not selling in multiple offers, but based on recent comparable sales, she got a steal – ugly kitchen or not…

One of the best “deals” I secured for a client of mine in the first half of 2009 came in the form of a fantastic condominium unit with a god-awful kitchen.

Ironic that the topic of conversation shall return back to Noble Street after the absolute lambasting I took last month for my comments about a little-known, artists-run building just down the road from one of my favorite buildings in the West Queen West area.  Flattered as I was that these artists took my “opinion” as “fact,” they relentlessly posted comments on my blog, ripping me both professionally and personally.

Rather than get into a war of words with them, I decided not to respond.  I’ve posted all their comments for the world to see in my post here.  It’s worth reading!

So the following storey takes place on Noble Street, which I have learned is a special blend of starving artists and yuppie 20-somethings…

Candice was a repeat-client who was looking to purchase her first “home” but wanted that certain je-ne-sais-quoi to make it worthwhile. 

While we looked at our fair share of cookie-cutter condos, she never really jumped at anything we saw and in actual fact she seemed to get so accustomed to looking at “boring” properties that when I met her for each successive tour, her attitude took the form of “So, what are we seeing today?”

Over time, we became more like property-viewers rather than property-buyers.

I find that many buyers often know exactly what they want to the extent that when they find it, the decision happens in about 1.8 seconds flat.  The door opens, the buyer takes one look and says, “Yep!  This is it!”

That’s what happened with Candice, except maybe it took 1.8 minutes…”

But despite knowing this was “the one,” Candice wasn’t sure if she could afford the property and afford the changes she wanted to make.

We searched high and far all across the city for six weeks, and we were positive that this was, indeed, the one.

When Candice first told me she wanted to buy a condo, I asked her to describe her “dream” home.  She said she wanted a loft-style condo, preferably a hard loft because she loved the features that come with it.  Unlike many buyers who simply think they know what a hard loft is all about, Candice knew it down pat.

She wanted, more than anything in the world, to have exposed brick walls in her condo.  She hated the “cookie-cutter” condos that we’d been looking at because they all looked the same to her.  She also wanted windows, windows, and more windows.  The taller, the better!  She wanted as much natural night to shine through as possible, and wall-to-wall or floor-to-ceiling windows was very important.  Finally, she wanted to see wood everywhere.  Wooden beams on the ceiling, wooden pillars to support the ceilings, and hardwood flooring throughout the unit.

Of course, Candice knew she’d be getting at least ten-foot-ceilings along with the hard-loft, and probably some unique features like original stained-glass, maybe some sort of mosaic, or whatever came with the conversion from a hundred-year-old building.

This unit at 24 Noble was “the one,” as it had all the features Candice was looking for.

And as is usually the case, just as Candice was about to give up her search since she thought she simply couldn’t find what she was looking for in her price range, along came this unit on Noble Street:

Check out the large picture-windows; there are seven of these in total and the natural sunlight fills the room to the point where you barely need to turn on a lamp!  Also note the beautiful yellow brick that comprises about 3/4 of all the walls in the condo.

However, also note the photo of the kitchen below:

It was, to be brutally honest, one of the ugliest kitchens I have ever seen in a condo before!

Look at the ceramic backsplash as close as you can.  This photo does it no justice, but I’ll try to explain it through a running joke that Candice and I had…

We assumed that a husband and a wife got very angry one night, and had a physical altercation whereby they threw a multitude of different collectable ceramics at eachother, making a clay mess all over the condo.  The next day, when they came to their senses, they picked up the pieces (no pun intended), and then glued them to the kitchen wall.

Seriously -that’s what it looked like!  See all those colors – yellow, blue, green.  Those pieces of clay stick out of the wall as much as an inch as there is no rhyme or reason to their placement.

I have never seen anything like it.  Maybe some would call it “original” or “unique,” but Candice called it “the one and only reason not to buy this condo.”

Although the photo doesn’t show it, the cabinetry was disgusting as well.  It may look like a nice chocolate brown in the pictures, but the cabinets seemed to have some sort of humid wear-and-tear to the point where they were almost slimy in feel.

The oven and the cooktop were both about 15-20 years old, and of course, there was no dishwasher.

Candice is a young girl and is certainly lucky to be buying a gorgeous loft like this.

But she knew she wouldn’t be happy living with that kitchen, so she moved heaven and earth to be able to afford the condo AND the kitchen renovation.

Long story, short (easier said than done on my blog….), she turned this:

Into this:

Candice is an accountant so she’s very good with numbers and budgeting!

She figured out exactly how much she could afford, right to the last dollar, and she didn’t go over budget at all.

She hired a contractor to do the work, but she picked out and picked up all the materials herself, thus cutting down costs immensely.

Let’s see that horrific backsplash again one more time:

Ah yes, how could I forget?

I much prefer the subtle, white subway-tile that she went with instead.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say “no expense was spared,” but the style and integrity of the kitchen surely wasn’t compromised.  Candice didn’t cheap out and order a linoleum countertop instead of beautiful, rich granite, and she even put in stainless-steel appliances.  She didn’t blow out her brains and her budget, but rather she did all the legwork herself and spent HALF of what it would have cost to throw caution to the wind and call your good-ole local contractor.

The renovation took longer than it should have (it always does), but in the end, Candice has as close to a “perfect” home as I have ever witnessed one of my clients obtain.

The best part: the market in this neighborhood has gone berserk since Candice bought her condo back in April.

Candice paid $290,000 for her condo, and a very similar-sized unit at 27 Brock Street just sold for $360,000.  This condo happened to have a beautiful, new kitchen with designer finishes, but so too now does Candice’s…

I suspect that part of the reason that Candice’s condo took a whopping nineteen days to sell back in the spring was because of the horrific kitchen.

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

Candice transformed the trashy kitchen in this otherwise gorgeous unit, and I can’t wait until the day when she asks for a valuation of her condo so I can see the combined look of shock and excitement on her face…