Urban Abode

When we were looking to start our basement renovation, we started looking around at local contractors and their portfolio of work. We were looking for someone who had a decent variety jobs that weren’t all vanilla and certainly didn’t want to have something that looked the same as everyone else’s. My wife found Urban Abode online and we set up a meeting with Brad to get his ideas and take a look at what he could come up with.

It only took one meeting and we knew we’d found our man. He is not your typical contractor. He is full of energy and is highly personable. The best part is that he is full of ideas. We had our wish list for what we wanted in our basement. Having a small child who is slowly taking over the rest of the house, we wanted to create an adult playground, a place where we could entertain, a place that was still a part of our house and had some of the elements that were already there. At the same time we wanted it to be different, so that when we went downstairs, we were still home but it just felt different with different energy. Brad nailed it. The colours are different, the look is different, yet it all still fits. Our friends have dubbed it the “Purple Lounge” because that’s what it is, a lounge and of course, it's purple. We often entertain and lose track of time because it’s just soo comfortable and energizing.

One of the key features of working with Urban Abode is that it’s not up to the client to try and imagine what the space will look like based on drawings, they provide a full 3D rendering that is extremely realistic and really helped to put us into our space. The finished product matches the original renderings soo well that at a glance they actually look like the finished product. Using these really helped my wife and I pick out our pallet and choose furniture so that when the basement was complete, my wife already had it decorated well before it was complete (literally) so that we already had everything. The day it was done we could enjoy the space without any delay.

I will note that the project took much longer than the original estimate, however, this was primarily due to some issues with the original project manager that was assigned to us not being on top of out project. It was frustrating at the time but it was handled in a very professional manner, and once the necessary changes were made, progress was not only smoother, the communication became much clearer. Brad absolutely made up for the issues (which will generally arise on all large projects like this) and we could literally not be any happier with how it turned out.

Brad was very accommodating of our wants and wishes and made amendments to the renderings before moving forward implementing them so we fully understood what it would look like. We had some pretty vague ideas in some spots and He took our ideas and ran with them. The wine cellar for instance turned out much better than my original idea. We went back and forth a lot with him presenting ideas and me incorporating them in and asking for small changes here and there. It was built completely to spec with foam insulation, vapor barrier, temperature control, custom built insulated door, double pain windows control unit tucked nicely in the ceiling and so on. The description does not do it justice. I knew what I needed for it to function and knew the types of storage I was looking for, He made it look good. This holds true for the whole project, just a few of the highlights include:

•The media center with hidden components, panoramic fireplace and white stone, puck lights to highlight all our treasure knick-knacks and pictures.
•The bathroom with in-floor heating, and spa grade steam shower that I now have to get up earlier to enjoy because I don’t want to get out.
•The highly functional workout room with cork floor (no images for this).
•The absolutely brilliant way he came up with to hide 2 very poorly placed tele-posts that is now an awesome shelf with lighting.
•The bar… Fantastic!

All in all, I would highly recommend Urban Abode to anyone. They have an excellent team of craftsmen. The mill workers are top notch, the painter/stainer is an artist (literally) and they are all extremely kind. The space they created for us FAR exceeds anything we could have imagined.