S. Evelyn Cimesa, Ottawa Citizen
September 28, 2017
John Mark and On-Yee Yam purchased an older fixer-upper in the Glebe back in 2011 for its location. The pair could walk to work, stroll down the Rideau Canal and take advantage of local restaurants and shopping. They knew the house would eventually need some mechanical repairs and renovations in order to be brought up to code.
“A lot of the renos were done by the previous owners so they were do-it-yourself repairs… I mean, they did the best they could and some of it wasn’t up to code. There was freezing pipes every winter, there was weird ductwork that caused some heating and cooling issues. The main thing was that the water pipes weren’t installed to code so they were susceptible to freezing and, on occasion, they even burst on us,” says John.
They looked around at other houses in the neighbourhood, and when they did, they realized if they purchased another home in the Glebe that it would be around the same price they could sell their home for and then they’d still have to pay to renovate the new house. So, last year, they decided to take the plunge and hired local renovation specialist Lagois to do the renovations.
“Lagois was great! The one thing I liked about Herb Lagois personally is that he was really low-stress to work with. He was really accommodating and he wasn’t pushy, which was sort-of the experience I had with other reno companies we interviewed,” says John. “He spent a lot of time talking to us, asking us what we wanted and didn’t really try to direct us towards changes in the scope of the project.”