Recently, Toronto Life published an article featuring one of our beloved past projects – The Butler House, a historic home in Niagara-on-the-Lake. The romantic story centered around a couple whose priorities shifted during the pandemic and they found themselves wanting to leave the rat race and settle into their dream home.
The Butler House Historic Bed & Breakfast (renovated by Queen Street Carpentry and Contracting in 2014): It was a project that was completed back in 2014. We were pretty excited to be able to take a recent peek of the inside complete with all the B&B’s lush furnishings. We took special pride in learning that the couple “loved the home’s four-poster beds, exposed ceiling beams, and original pine floorboards, rumoured to have been salvaged from buildings destroyed during the War of 1812.” While we can’t take credit for the beds we thought we’d shed some light on the rest.
The scope of work: In 2014, the owners at that time wanted us to update the single-family residence from a 1990’s aesthetic into a Victorian-style B&B. The house had good bones but the kitchen, bathrooms, and all the lighting had to be renovated as well as scaling down the oversized fireplace.
The fireplace and floors: We brought in our masonry expert to gently disassemble the existing fireplace and rebuild it using the same bricks while matching the old mortar colour and texture. For a cohesive look, beam details were added to the top of the fireplace to complement the exiting beams in the house. The existing tiled dining room floors were completely removed and the “new” reclaimed pine floor was put in its place.
Electrical: Looking back, I remember distinctly there was a lot of existing wall sconce, outlets, and switches in inconvenient places. This makes it so very difficult to remove the circuits without opening up the existing walls. Thankfully our talented electricians/magicians were able to work miracles by satisfying all the requests while keeping the scope of the repairs in check.
Other details: Beautiful double French pocket doors were added to the opening between the kitchen and dining room to provide some privacy between the working kitchen and the guests without a harsh barrier.
Since this was a live-in B&B some extra comfort features were added to the basement for the owners such as in-floor heating under the carpet and a new corner fireplace.
View the Toronto Life article to get a peek at recent photos of The Butler House complete with furnishings and romance.