Uxbridge Home Renovations, from Brock Street Century Houses to Moraine Lots

Uxbridge's oldest houses have usually been renovated several times, and each owner left a layer: drywall over plaster, a dropped ceiling, a bathroom carved out of a bedroom, one floor laid over another. Some still stand on fieldstone foundations, as the 1888 Patterson House on Dominion Street does, and where that stone is damp or its mortar loose we have a mason repoint it before a new room is framed against it. Under carpet or vinyl, many still have their original pine plank floors, which can often be sanded and refinished rather than replaced. If you stay in the house, we close one area before opening the next, so the kitchen and the only bathroom are never out of use together.

Once the old panelling comes off in a Quaker Village or Testa Heights basement, the usual obstacles appear: a trunk duct crossing the middle of the room and a laundry or furnace room in the way of a sensible layout. We set rigid foam against the foundation, frame in front of it, and run bulkheads at one consistent height so the ceiling reads as a single plane. Wherever a bedroom is planned, we allow for a window big enough to climb out of in an emergency. If the space will become a separate unit for a relative or tenant, it needs a building permit first, and the finished suite then has to be registered on the Township's form for two-unit houses.

Close to downtown, the kitchen of a nineteenth-century house is usually small and cut up by doorways, to the hall, the back door and often the cellar stair, so the plan is about wall space more than floor area: closing or moving one door can free a full run of cabinets, and walls that are rarely straight get scribed fillers rather than forced boxes. In the yellow-brick houses the outer walls are often solid masonry, so a range hood duct means coring through brick, with the exterior cap placed where it will not streak the face. Where the floor drops toward an outside wall, we shim the cabinet bases level rather than tilt the counter with it. The sink, dishwasher and circuits go to a licensed plumber and electrician.

Bathrooms in storey-and-a-half houses were usually fitted in long after the house was built, often under a sloping ceiling, so a walk-in shower needs enough headroom at the end where you stand, and a tub tucked under the slope is common for good reason. The floor below sets the other limit. Joists in these houses often run across the path a new toilet drain wants to take, and they can only be notched or drilled so far, so the plumber may drop the drain into a closet or a boxed chase in the room underneath; we plan that chase with whatever cabinets or trim will hide it. Once the rough-in passes inspection, we build the floor slope, membrane and tile.

On May 21, 2022, an EF2 tornado embedded in the derecho crossing southern Ontario struck Uxbridge, and the Township declared a local state of emergency; at the Uxbridge Historical Centre it destroyed the 1856 Victoria Corners lodge hall. Mature trees on older lots are part of the town's character and also its storm risk. After a roofer has made the house watertight and a drying company has finished, we rebuild framing, insulation, drywall, trim and floors, matching old mouldings where a profile can still be milled, and give your adjuster a room-by-room scope. Out in the country a power cut also stops the sump pump and the well pump, so a flooded basement can follow the wind.

Heat escapes a storey-and-a-half house through the parts nobody sees: the short knee walls upstairs, the floor behind them and the sloped ceiling, where there may be only a few inches between drywall and roof boards. When those rooms are opened we insulate and air-seal the knee walls and the floor of the space behind them, and talk through whether a spray foam installer should handle the sloped section. The slope matters for another reason: if warm air reaches the underside of the roof, snow melts and refreezes at the eaves, which shows up as ice dams and stained ceilings, so we keep a vent channel above the insulation wherever the roof is meant to breathe.

Uxbridge was named Trail Capital of Canada in 2009, and plenty of yards in town back onto a path or open green, so owners want a deck that faces the trees rather than a neighbour's fence. On moraine and rural properties the ground often drops away, which means taller posts, deeper footings set to frost depth at each one and stairs that land on a solid pad. The Township's permit list includes decks attached to a building and even the complete replacement of an existing deck on the same footprint, while it lists low decks under 24 inches off the ground as exempt; we confirm which rule applies before lumber is ordered. Composite, cedar and pressure-treated boards all suit the setting.