08/20/2026
One of our major transformations — and one with a lot of history behind it.
This 1890 home was completely stripped back, removing outdated systems and tired finishes so we could thoughtfully rebuild it for the next century. Schmidtville is one of Halifax’s oldest residential neighbourhoods, originating from land known as Pedley’s Fields and developing in the early 1800s into what is considered Halifax’s first private residential subdivision
We designed a new, more functional multi-unit dwelling that met HRM development requirements, respected the property’s heritage character, and maximized the available space for future tenants.
The original structure was carefully straightened, levelled, stabilized, and secured before we constructed a new two-storey addition at the rear. We excavated the entire basement, poured a new floor, and rebuilt sections of the failing foundation walls. The interior was completely rebuilt and finished to modern building codes and standards while preserving the exterior character that made the house worth saving.
Some of the most important work in a restoration like this is the work you don’t immediately see. Our masonry expert, for example, spent more than 120 hours carefully restoring the main chimney and sections of the original stone foundation walls — the kind of detailed craftsmanship required to properly preserve a structure of this age. We also stripped the main staircase railings back to their original wood, bringing some of the home's warmth and character back into the entryway.
But one of the things that made this project particularly memorable was discovering just how many lives had passed through this house.
Throughout construction, people of all ages would stop by to tell us that they had once lived there, or that a friend or family member had. Every so often, one of those conversations turned into a great story.
One gentleman told us he had moved into the house as a boy in the 1960s. His family had a cat named Spotty, who sadly had to be put down shortly after they moved in. Not long after hearing the story, we arrived one morning while pouring the new basement floor to discover a perfect trail of little cat paw prints hardened into the concrete.
Our first thought was, My God, it’s the ghost of Spotty.
It wasn't.
It turned out to be the very curious neighbourhood cat who had decided to inspect our work overnight. Still, the timing gave everyone a pretty good laugh.
Another gentleman stopped to tell us about his children playing with a little red ball on the staircase many years ago. The ball had disappeared through a crack in the floor, and despite looking for it, they never found it.
During the renovation, our crew had made a habit of setting aside interesting things we uncovered inside the old house. One of the guys disappeared inside for a moment, came back carrying a little red ball and asked, “Is it this red ball?”
The gentleman couldn't believe it.
He told us his kids had been very upset when they lost it all those years ago, and that he was going to save it and surprise them with it the next time they visited. Decades later, a little piece of their childhood had found its way back to them.
The house gave up plenty of other pieces of its history as we worked.
We uncovered old newspapers from the 1940s and 1950s that had been used as underlay beneath the floors. My grandfather had told me stories about food rationing during difficult times, and there it was in front of us — old calendars and schedules showing when different foods were rationed, alongside headlines about war, influenza and economic uncertainty, voting liberal, rent freezes... . Reading some of them, you couldn't help but notice how familiar a few of the headlines still sounded today.
Behind one of the fireplaces, we even found an old meat ration token, a form of "change" given if full rations were not taken do to lack of refrigeration — a tiny reminder of a time when families had to carefully manage their food allowances and everyday life looked very different from ours.
Those are only a couple of stories from this project, but they are a reminder that there can be a novel's worth of memories hidden inside an old house. When we restore one, we're not simply rebuilding walls, floors and foundations. We're working on something that generations of people have called home.
The result of this incredible amount of hard work is a complete transformation: preserving a classic Schmidtville home, giving it new purpose, and preparing it to stand proudly for another century within one of Halifax’s protected heritage districts.
Thats what we do
Design. Build. Restore.
