Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, everyone.
Thanks for tuning in to this latest segment of my, probably one of my favorite
series that I started back when the pandemic was in and we literally could not
meet for coffee if we wanted to.
So I started this series called the Meet Your Neighbors Podcast and it just
gives me a chance to share some stories with people that A, some that I've met, some that I know,
and then some like today that I've just connected with on Facebook,
and we just decided to do this literally in the last few days.
So I wanted to welcome to the show Andrew.
Thanks for joining me for this sort of a different way of meeting the neighbors
versus going next door and bringing an apple pie, which is still nice to do if you like it.
But this is sort of the next level of that, turning it into a podcast.
So welcome to the series, Andrew.
Thank you. Thank you, Paul. Yeah. Thanks for joining me. So again,
I'll let the people know who are listening, what this all is.
This particular podcast that we're doing is sort of Danforth focused because
of the fact that we're both in this Danforth community group.
And I'm trying to tell people, I'm trying to basically just encourage some storytelling
to happen and just sort of find out about,
again, where people are from, the stories of people who are,
you know, living in the area, how they found their homes, how they found or
how they decided that that street,
which again, you can name the street or not, I'll leave that up to you, how that happened.
What's the story behind it? Because for me, it's fascinating.
I get to hear them every week from people like why they love a certain street,
why they had to move from A to B.
I love hearing those stories, but some of them don't want to share the stories.
So today I've got you here, Andrew So let's start with a little bit about you.
Where where are you from? Where were you born and and and all that?
Well, I'm a first-generation Canadian, was born in Ottawa, still have some roots
back to Eastern Europe. Nice.
Yeah, I'm a mostly retired nuclear engineer now.
Oh, wow, nuclear engineer. Okay, so you definitely were using your full brain power for many years.
You still are, but that's a pretty amazing job title. That's great.
Yeah. And that's given me the opportunity to work in many places around the
world over the years over my career, which was really very interesting. So that was great.
And now I've settled down into the Danforth area.
Oh, wow. So with your job over the period that you were actively working,
you were in different places, what would you say your best memories are of that time?
It's a very, the nuclear engineering is a very interesting field.
Keeping the keeping the uh i worked actually in
in servicing the old plants okay rather
than building new ones we were in the servicing make
sure they continue to run efficiently and safely it's very rewarding it was
very challenging you got to see all kinds of different places around the world
different cultures different people
yeah so that was you know and you got paid to do it so it was great.
Well, yeah, obviously that, that should go without saying you better be getting
paid for that kind of work. That's a important stuff to do.
So over those years, you've traveled plenty of places, but you still managed
to settle here, not back in Ottawa.
So clearly there was something that happened at some point or someone that may
have said, check out the Danforth.
So tell me a little bit about how that happened.
Yeah. So both of my kids were looking at going to school in Toronto.
And, you know, I had the prospect of, oh, great. That means I'm going to wind
up with two rents to pay for my kids.
A parent's dream and nightmare all in the same sentence.
Yes, you want your kids to do well. No, you don't want to be paying two rents. I hear that one.
Yeah. So, so we came up with the idea. Well, we should, maybe what we should
do is buy a smaller property in Toronto and instead of paying rents and we can
decide what we do with that, you know, after they finished school.
So we bought a house in Toronto, a small semi. Okay.
So how, how did you, how did you narrow down as far as neighborhoods go?
How did that search? Because for me, again, that's sort of, again,
to me, that's like music to my ears when I hear people's, you know,
search process. So how did it, how did it start? I guess, how did the search begin?
So obviously, I would guess close to,
the close to the schools would have been the first choice, right?
Well, well, no, we went close to the public transit.
Okay. That's okay. That's a good close second. Cause of course,
yeah, you want to be able to get around. So that makes sense. Okay.
So besides the Danforth, were there any other contenders along the way?
You remember? It was, it was a bit price dependent since it would be a second home.
So, you know, we were looking at that sort of
put us in the East end at the time where the east end was a
little bit less pricey than the west end absolutely has
been for a long time it's get it's getting
you know it's it's it's of course moved up uh and how long ago did you move
in by the way well we bought in 2013 okay all right so yeah just over 10 years
that's right we were talking about that yeah okay so then and then i was i had
this opportunity to so we bought the place.
My kids were in school. Everything seemed fine.
Then I had an opportunity with a new employer in Toronto. Oh,
this looks like a great opportunity.
And conveniently, I had a house in Toronto.
Surprise kids, I'm moving in with you. Okay. Oh, so at the time,
it was just them, not you? Correct. Ah, okay. All right.
That's a pretty cool progress to that story. So it was just them.
It was a student house, you know, them, them sort of just doing their thing
and, and, and, and existing.
And then at some point during that time, you decided to take the job opportunity
and move in. So what were your first impressions?
Again, just again, because you were the dad, you obviously bought the house, you felt safe enough.
And again, whether you name the street or not, I know the street very well.
I've, I've had some of my best clients move in and out of that street and still
talk about it to this day,
even though some of my favorite clients move from that street to just literally
a street just north of the Danforth because they just needed more space or whatever it was. But...
What were your first impressions though? Well, I'm okay to say that it's on,
that we live on Danforth.
Yeah. Okay. Or sorry, sorry. We live on Oakcrest. Oakcrest. Yeah, exactly.
So it's just a little South of Danforth. Still obviously very close, like a block away.
So yeah. So what drew you, Andrew, to that property when you started investigating
it in 2013, which again, wasn't, the area wasn't that much different.
And it was still sort of in its, and it's still in a, and this is the,
I think the appeal of the Danforth East anyways, is that the fact that it's
behind developmentally, as far as like, you know, the area has probably been very, very slow.
The early 2000s, nothing happened, literally like nothing was going on there.
Still very sleepy. East York, just a bit North of there is where I first moved in the late nineties.
And it felt like a whole nother country.
You know, just St. Clair and O'Connor, Sunshine Village, as it's called,
felt like literally like you were back in the 50s because it was all war vets.
And all the homes were literally like cookie cutter bungalows.
Every street had this line of bungalows. So in 2013, when you moved there,
again, you were probably looking at, I'm guessing, did you look at a few properties?
I mean, it's fair to say most people do.
Yes, we did look at a few properties. At that time, I wasn't planning on moving to Toronto.
So it was purely an investment move for us, for the family.
Okay. Well, you know, well, so I wasn't really overly, there was no emotional
attachment to anything.
Okay. So you looked at the house and you said there's bedrooms, check.
Windows, check. Doors, check. Okay, great. Let's buy it. It's not,
it's not run down. It's livable.
Okay. Good enough.
It's on the subway. Check. Did you guys get an inspection done?
It doesn't matter if you did. Yes.
Okay. Good for you. I get it. You can't go back. Nothing can change, but I'm glad you did.
Any surprises along the way that you, that you don't, that you weren't aware of sort of thing?
Cause this, obviously this happens in how in home ownership,
as you know, it's, I think the quote yesterday, I read this funny quote about
home ownership and it just sort of nailed it in a very succinct way. Yeah.
I'm trying, I'm trying to recall the post now, but it has something to do with
the fact that, uh, home ownership is literally a, a, a series of changing toilets,
trying to find the, the, here it is owning a home is just pulling weeds and
fixing toilets until you die.
It's, it's, it's a funny yet somewhat accurate way of describing home ownership.
So yeah. So as far as any surprises along the way, cause I know those homes,
I know some of their issues. I know because it's close to the tracks,
there's actually some vibration issues.
I don't know if you've ever experienced that, but I know other people have.
Yeah. So, well, they were mostly pleasant surprises.
Good to hear. It was mostly an original house. I did have the wiring upgraded.
Probably at 1920, 1930s, I'm guessing.
Yes, it's mid-1930s. So it was the last houses built on Oak Crest.
Okay. So the newest houses on Ocrest, which were 1930s houses,
I joke about that being the, you know, you got one of the new models.
Obviously it's not new, but it's newer.
Yeah. Right. Which, which it did seem to have some nice build qualities.
It had masonry party wall.
It's a semi. So it had masonry party wall, which is nice. Not common at all
for, for, for semis out there, for semi owners.
Sometimes you're finding out by surprise that the, you know,
the, the distance between in your house and another one is like,
you know, a ridiculous amount of drywall, like nothing, nothing too protective,
but good. I'm glad to hear that you found that. Yeah.
Yeah. So that was a very pleasant surprise. Yes. We, we back actually back onto the rail bed. Okay.
Originally a bit concerned about it but it actually turned out
to be very good because we don't have any neighbors on the back no
one's looking into our backyard and we have this wonderful green private
space behind us so you got a bit of a you got a bit of a flat before it drops
i assume yes yeah okay that's good so you know so it's so it's kind of like
being on what do they call a ravine lot without actually being a ravine lot
yes we have to put up with the occasional train,
but it's really, you don't know.
We now more notice when it's not there.
Having sold homes on your street and on Aldergrove, which is just on the other
side of Woodbine, same exact conversation.
Who gets, who hears the most noise? You guys with the train in the back or people
that live at Neville park with the,
with the, with the, with the streetcar that does that like very loud screeching
sound every few minutes. Like who gets more noise?
Probably they do. And they've got $4 million homes.
So it's not, it's, it's, it's of course something to get used to.
But I think most people there, again, people have been there for very, very long years.
Some people like, you know, 20, 30 years, it just seems like it's something
you guys get used to, which again, sounds like same for you.
And we really appreciate the privacy.
On the back, on the front, you know, we've got the hustle and bustle of the
city and the back, we have just green space. Oh yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. And actually the, the, the, the thing I brought up yesterday is
I had a client of mine who just moved to the area and I said,
and they asked me, where's the best place to take the kids go for Halloween? I said, Oh, crest.
I always bring up that street because over the years, as I took my kids when
they were smaller, they're teenagers now.
So if they go out, it's for 10 minutes just to grab candy and come back to it.
They don't want to be out for very long.
Back then we'd have to find places where there was a lot of homes.
I don't know what it was like this year, but I know in the, in years past,
Oak crest was always like one of the best Halloween streets.
We do get lots of kids. Yeah. Yeah. That's great.
Okay. So yeah, so you've been there now for 10 years. How would you say,
Andrew, how would you say that during that time?
Because there's a lot of people listening who might be moving to the Danforth.
And my point for doing this, whether you live on the Danforth or you're in Scarborough
or the beach or the junction or Leslieville, wherever it is that I get to do these podcasts,
I want it to be where someone literally has a friend on that street now,
which is going to be you, whether you like it or not.
So how would you say things have changed from when you bought,
which you didn't move in them, but when you bought to present day,
How would you say, just in your own general view?
Well, first of all, as an engineer, just as you.
When dad moved into the kids to this small semi, suddenly it became too small.
So we did, we of course then did the rear addition.
Oh, you did. Okay. I love that idea that you did that.
So that was, that was something that you did to make the space possible.
So you've got a back addition at the top or the main?
We did three with basement and first and second story oh no way okay so you
went up yeah wow good for you okay yeah so that so that made the space yeah,
Modern, everything in the house now is modern, modern plumbing,
modern electrical, modern kitchens and bathrooms.
So it's a very nice. That is such a, that's such a great thing that you did.
And obviously you did it a few years ago.
It sounds to me like you probably did it prior to the pandemic. Correct.
So the fact that you did it then, which you could not have imagined how bad
of an idea it would have been during the 2020 to about 2022 in terms of how
prices of that kind of a thing changed.
So let's talk quickly. If you, if you want to discuss, obviously going through
a renovation as a homeowner there, how was that?
And obviously I know that process, no matter how hard you try,
there's always going to be a few bumps, a few, you know, things,
especially with an older home. So any sort of surprises along the way for that aspect?
No, it actually went relatively smooth, never as fast as you'd like.
We had a contractor build the exterior shell, and I did all the interior work.
You did all the work inside? I did all the interior. With permits and with electrical
permits and all permitting. That's amazing.
Have you done a lot of that in the past, renovating? Nothing on that scale.
Oh, yeah. Okay. That makes sense. but i've
done all of the individual items on a smaller scale okay
so you so you were the you literally became the
subcontractor so to speak correct of
the project okay which gave
us the opportunity to really we which it
meant it went slower because when you're doing it yourself it always takes longer
as you're trying to figure certain things out but it gave us the home that we're
much more comfortable with and put in the fittings and the allowed us to spend
the time on the design and interior design and get the things that we wanted. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, again, yeah. And having gone through that process, that's the one thing
I didn't know I needed to learn,
but on my first house, I decided that I needed to know how to dig out a basement
and, And, you know, add in toilets and make a basement more functional.
Because just at the time I was in my 20s, but I was just so eager to learn.
And coming from a construction family, I had a little bit of unfair advantage
because these, my dad and my uncles knew everything about this.
So I could technically screw up a little bit and they'd reset me and say,
okay, yeah, not don't do that.
But just putting my hands into that soil, obviously from a hundred years ago.
And, you know, digging all those clay pipes, which for me was sort of a,
a very interesting experiment to find out that's what was underneath my house.
So we, of course, of course, upgraded with PVC and, you know,
did all those things that you guys did electrical and plumbing,
tried to bring it up to speed just because of course.
For a lot of people, whether it's your first or second home,
it is a, you know, it's a massive investment.
And of course, it's probably worth a couple more bucks than when you bought
it, Whether or not that matters, it probably has grown in value in terms of,
uh, you know, what, what, what you guys bought it for them.
I'm guessing probably more than likely it's, yeah, it doesn't need to be said.
It's probably a given that the fact, all the things that you've done to it,
you literally the house you bought doesn't exist anymore.
It's something, you know, obviously it's something else. The,
the addition, the upgrades, all that stuff just makes for, you know,
such a better living experience for you.
Yep. And, and we tried to keep the character of the home of the thirties home.
That's again, that's, that's a really good point. Cause I've seen people,
uh, and again, I I'm happily signing on anytime my clients need me to as a consultant for,
we're going to sell the house in two years or a month or six weeks.
What do you think we should do? And I've seen people actually take advice from
maybe some people who were a little bit too eager to help and put like the cheapest
laminate floors over a 1930 strip wood floor that looks amazing.
All it needed was a sanding and, and, uh, and maybe a coating.
It just needed a little bit of TLC and it would have been such a great thing,
but then they went ahead and put like, again, just click flooring on top because
maybe a contractor or somebody again,
maybe they had good meaning but the character as
you brought up uh keeping some of that i think
you know only helps the the the experience
and the storytelling of the home yeah so what you see in the in my background
is actually in my cottage because i'm at the cottage today oh okay all right
so we're not we're not getting the walkthrough tour that some people have done
and i didn't ask but they would take the phone and walk through the house and
i love it so you're at the cottage so we'll.
If I was at the house and not at the cottage, then we would be doing the walkthrough tour.
Well, that'll be podcast two then. Because I definitely love the podcast house
tours that, again, just sort of sprung up from pandemic boredom.
So that's okay. So sorry, go back to what you were saying. Yeah,
we, as I did, as I said, I did all the interior finishing.
We kept the character of the house. We went with finish in place, hardwood flooring,
Tricky things, we matched, we added more doors, so we had to try and match the doors.
So I used to go look in bins of where people were doing renovations and looking
what doors they were throwing out and found a beautiful set of doors that are in our house now.
Oh, really? So you went sort of, yeah, you went sort of, I guess it's called
dumpster diving, so to speak, on a renovation level?
Correct. And the doors look absolutely correct. They're correct for the house.
And they bit of TLC and they're just beautiful.
You know, all the wide baseboard is in.
Yeah. You know what? I don't know. I don't know about everybody else, but for me,
I guess the first couple of years of renovations, just because I was so hopeful
of keeping the character, I would be spending just ridiculous amounts of hours
at like the Habitat for Humanity stores,
just antique places like on Eglinton by Bayview.
There's all these antique places we bought, we bought couches and beds and doors
and tables and all that stuff, trying to keep, you know, within reason,
within budget, because of course it's all budget dependent, especially when
you're young and starving, uh, you're not going to spend an extra a hundred bucks on a.
Uh, you know, on a, on a piece of furniture just because it's the character
of the place and you still got to eat.
So, you know, within reason it's, it was, it was, it was great to do that kind
of stuff. Sounds like, you know, your place is a really nice mix of modern and
a little bit of traditional.
Yeah. The plumbing and the electrical is all nice and modern. Yeah.
Which is exactly the behind the scenes stuff that you shouldn't see is where,
you know, the money should be spent.
I've talked about that on the podcast too. No one's going to see it.
No one's going to look at your wires and your, you know,
and your plumbing pipes and go, wow they're not going to fall in
love with that stuff but in a way they should yeah and
so we've put sound insulation you know between the bedrooms between the washrooms
i mean the floor between the first and second floor so it's a very quiet house
that's you know what that's good whether or not again and i encourage my kids
to you know play music and and and and you know.
Be themselves and not have to be quiet. But the fact is, if you've got that
soundproof, it just sort of helps everybody have their own little zone in the
house, which is such a great thing.
And we did this because everyone absolutely loves the neighborhood.
We love living in the neighborhood. So we love to be able to walk to the stores.
We love our front porch. We love to be able to sit out on our front porch and
we're very close to the sidewalk.
So generally when people come walking by and they look over,
it's either a wave or a hello.
It's a very, which makes it very friendly to have a front porch.
So that's the, the front porch discussions. And I've had so many great moments.
I could probably do a podcast on those alone, including one that's my kids went to school at St.
Bridget, not far from there, from where you are.
And one of the neighbors there would be like, I'd be dropping off the kids,
talking to everybody about everything because you just sort of crave that social
interaction when your kids are small. So you get to talk to humans again.
It's fun. So I would spend hours. Sometimes I'd be there at nine to drop them
off or eight 30 and then still be there at 11.
One guy was across the street. He was a smoker. I don't, but his conversation
was so good that I put up with it because we were having such a great time.
He was sitting there smoking and having a coffee. I was just having the coffee.
But the front porch discussions are there's, there's nothing like those,
which is why to this day, I still do a lot of my neighborhood walks and postcard
deliveries in person, because I know every once in a while,
just by chance, someone's going to pop out and say, Hey, Paul, how's it going?
Blah, blah, blah. And we'll just, it'll, you know, we'll just go right down
memory lane and I'll just, that'll be it for me.
I'm, you know, that, that, that was a great day just from that one moment.
So that's great that you say that.
Absolutely. Absolutely love the front porch. Yes.
I mean, yes. Some people enclose them to get the extra space since we did an
addition, we didn't need to do that and wouldn't want to lose the front porch. No, that's amazing.
So before I let you go, cause I don't want to keep you much longer than about
20 minutes, half an hour.
And I know we're going to have another one eventually, cause you're going to
do a little home tour for me, maybe with the video, or I can come by and do one.
But lastly, let's do a little bit of favorite bakeries, favorite coffee shop,
favorite pizza places. Any of those kind of things pop up as far as for you
since you've been here? Oh, OK.
So we love our our our go to bakery is Selena's.
OK, I could have guessed that's a lot of people's favorite because it's,
of course, you know, so good. Yep. Makes sense.
Royal Beef would be for McDonald's.
Our butcher we love we love hooked on
race yeah yeah i love royal
beef i actually have done collaborations with them
it's they're so good and yeah
and hooked the the fish place yep yeah that's that's also one of our favorites
okay coffee shop we like there's a couple what is it east end coffee yeah yeah
right uh yeah across the street as far as that's as far as that concerned for
you right over there by Cedarvale.
Is it Cedarvale? No, no.
Yes. It is Cedarvale. Cedarvale, yes. Yeah.
Yeah. So, yeah. And it's just so nice to be able to walk to the stores because
you don't really want to drive.
Oh, and it's, I think, just because having lived in the area since 98, we moved once.
We moved from the East York area sort of closer to the Danforth,
So then we were closer to the fire station on, on Woodbine for many years and
just seeing the neighborhood grow to a point where walking and biking around
just made sense, especially with little kids.
But even now more than before, I think it just makes sense that if you can walk
to the coffee shop, to Sobeys, to get some groceries, to the TTC,
of course, you could always walk there, pizza shops,
karate studios, whatever it is you might need.
It's all there. So, and I, and I love, and I hate to interrupt you,
but I love to take, and I love to take my bike and check out all,
you know, to check out all the local craft breweries that we have in the area. Yeah.
You got me on that one. And if you don't know yet,
your podcast is going to be right up there with one of my favorite ones,
which is when I did the Muddy York brewery that unfortunately has left,
but it was one of my first podcasts.
And I don't know if I was just being overly ambitious. I
just thought maybe someone would want to hear me
going through a brewery and what I experience because
i don't want to get i don't want to disclose too much here
but i grew up playing rugby so beer and
rugby are sort of like that's like the the official fuel
of that sport like you you're sponsored by breweries you go to a pub wednesdays
and saturdays after the game to support the pub we would have gone anyways just
so the pubs know we would have gone anyways because we were thirsty and hungry as hell,
but brewery tours and local breweries, I don't know if there's anywhere else
that you could get that much,
you know, that many great breweries sort of all so close together, left field,
God, God's spell, I think on Gerard,
just a whole, again, just so many great ones that have popped up over the years,
but that's, that's awesome, Andrew.
I really, I really appreciate you adding that to it because breweries,
bakeries, all that stuff that we've got in this area, it just makes it very
attractive for so many people.
Yeah. And, and, and just, you know, and what I've been seeing over the years
is so many homes getting renovated and they're given the price of real estate
in Toronto, that many of those renovations look quite impressive.
Yeah. Obviously there's a lot of people that again, love it so much and they
want to be in that area that they are willing to rather than put the money,
not everyone, but a lot of people want to be putting money into that home and
making it the home for the next hundred years.
Obviously we can't biologically plan for that, but of course,
in terms of preparing a home to be around for a long time and beyond where we're
going to live, it makes sense.
So that's, uh, that's very true, uh, renovations.
And this is, this comes up a lot in these podcasts is people doing,
you know, renovations that suit their needs.
And the best reason to do renovations, Andrew is like when you did it,
when you moved in so that you can enjoy it.
Not the last three months before you're about to leave to have to go and do
a whole kitchen and a bathroom.
Most people that go through that, they know, you know how stressful it is to
have it to be, to be able to have to do that for under a timeline.
And for someone else is sort of a, it doesn't feel, it sort of has a little bit of remorse.
So the way you did it was perfect. And I tell people all the time,
once you move in, if you can do the renovations earlier, A, it's going to be better for you.
B, as you can tell by history too, it's going to be way cheaper for you to do
it in 2015 than in 2020. I can promise you those numbers would have been way different.
And that's good that you did it when you did. So.
Yes. And now we have the house that we really love.
I love it. I love it. Again, in the location that we love. Yeah.
This has been great, Andrew. Thank you so much for joining me.
I really, again, I sort of just pitch the idea of doing this meeting the meeting
your neighbors podcast, but also sort of as a celebration for sort of the hundredth
year of, you know, East York day and forth sort of a time capsule thing.
And I think every time I do one of these, it reminds me of why I do it.
And again, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it.
And this will be added to the, to the list of all the great ones that I've done.
My pleasure. Thank you very much. And it was great Thanks, Andrew.
Really appreciate your time. Bye-bye.