VANCOUVER — The irony about houses known as "Vancouver specials" is the fact that they're nothing special. They're as ubiquitous as they are bland, but that didn't stop Nenad Barjaktarovic from bidding more than $80,000 over the asking price for his own Vancouver special, just east of Oak Street near Douglas Park.
"We really liked the area, so we just started hunting," Mr. Barjaktarovic says. "It was pretty hard to find at first, then we stumbled upon this place and it turned out to be a bidding war."
The brick-and-stucco box was listed for just over $700,000 when it went on the market in the spring of 2005, and had been listed for a week when the bids started pouring in. Despite its less-than-stellar aesthetic, Mr. Barjaktarovic says there was a herd of people itching to buy the house.
"We came in quite a bit higher than everyone else, but we came in with no conditions because we knew we were going to fix up the place," says the young, bearded film student. "Someone bid more than me, about 10 or 12 grand, but they had conditions, so I guess they liked ours better."
A former roofer who got into holding and flipping real estate about five years ago, he knew the house needed work, although he started out with admittedly mild aspirations. On the inside, it was a plague of Barbie-doll pink — pink carpeting, pink toilets, pink sinks and off-pink tiles — but it was all to be replaced by a modern interior and a heritage revival exterior. To achieve the metamorphosis, Mr. Barjaktarovic enlisted architectural designer Eric Lee, a principal with the VictorEric Design Group, and interior designer Suzanne Doise with Sensitive Design.
"He'd been trying to find a place in this area for a long time, and this is a prime location because it's so close to the park," Mr. Lee says. "He sacrificed the look for the location, which is better because location you can't always get, but look you can always get the professionals in and get an overhaul."
But calling this project an overhaul is almost an understatement, because the project quickly exploded, leaving most of the house gutted after 20 months of planning and reconstruction.
Gathering inspiration from home shows, magazines and drives around the West End for cues from heritage homes in the area, Mr. Barjaktarovic and his girlfriend, Kelly Propp, laid a barrage of ideas on Mr. Lee, whose job was to tie them all together.
The basement, where the couple lived during construction and which now functions as a secondary suite, was the first area tackled. Originally very pink and very dingy, the carpets were replaced, half with laminate hardwood and half with textured slate tile, and cabinets and countertops were replaced.
The main floor was opened up by removing a section of wall from both the den area and the small kitchen; a metre-long protrusion that separated the kitchen from the living room became the new dining area. Kitchen countertops were replaced with thick granite, and a lengthy two-level island was installed with honed granite on top and marble slab on the bottom.
"We decided to do a grand kitchen because it's the thing right now," Mr. Lee says.
For flooring, they chose quarter-cut oak, finished in a dark, almost gun-metal stain, a stark but fitting contrast to the home's soft colour scheme.
The original upstairs had four bedrooms, although the master bedroom was tiny and was joined to a large walk-in closet, which was converted to a laundry room. Two bedrooms were amalgamated to make a new master suite, also with a walk-closet and large bathroom that shares a two-way fireplace with the suite.
Window openings and skylights were added to take advantage of the south-facing site, bringing in some much-needed light.
Mr. Lee was happy that the house had been rezoned, allowing him more space and leeway as a designer. "If he was in a different zone, it would be more restrictive to get that really high pitch that heritage revivals are typical for," Mr. Lee explains.
Gables accented by red shingles replaced the old roof, and the stucco-and-brick finish was traded for horizontal cedar siding; the house is eye-catching but not loud, nuanced with an octagonal window on the right and connected bay windows below a tarnished copper awning on the left. A curved paving-stone walkway leads to the front entry, flanked by short "pony walls" leading to the inviting arched doorway.
Beyond its heritage exterior and the eclectic mix of modern and Asian-influenced furniture inside, the house is also high-tech, with an audio system wired throughout and five strategically placed flat-screen televisions. "I needed a TV so I could sit and view it in the bathtub because that's important," Mr. Barjaktarovic says with a smile.
The design won a 2007 Georgie Award from the Canadian Home Builders' Association of British Columbia, for best residential renovation in the $200,000 to $399,000 category. But the final price tag, according to Mr. Barjaktarovic, was augmented by a lot of "sweat equity."
"It was definitely unique how it came together because it's such a drastic change from a Vancouver special," he adds.
In the end, he says, the couple wanted a West End-style home in the Douglas Park neighbourhood, but there were none to be found.
"It wasn't available, so we made it."
Special to The Globe and Mail
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