The Renovation That Almost Ended My Marriage (And the One That Saved It) | GetAHomePro
The Renovation That Saved My Marriage (And the One That Almost Ended It)
·11 min read
L
Lisa NguyenGeneral Contractor & Renovation Specialist
Published March 20, 2026
Key Takeaway
How two renovations — a chaotic kitchen reno and a calm bathroom rebuild — nearly destroyed and then quietly saved one Oakville couple's marriage.
I want to tell you about two renovations.
Same house. Same couple. Completely different outcomes.
The first one cost us $62,000 and six months of couples counseling. The second cost us $23,100 and gave us something back I didn't even know we'd lost.
The House
We bought a 1992 colonial on Rebecca Street in Oakville in the spring of 2021. Three bedrooms, two baths, original kitchen, original everything. Marcus said it had "good bones." I said it had ugly linoleum and a dishwasher that sounded like a motorcycle.
We had two kids — Ella, nine, and Owen, six. We called it our forever home. We meant it.
Part One: The Kitchen (February–May 2022)
We'd been saving for three years. Forty-five thousand dollars. That's real money. That's a number you say out loud to your husband while standing in the kitchen you hate and think: this is finally happening.
We found Perfect Touch Renovations on Instagram in January 2022. They had maybe 2,000 followers and a grid full of stunning before-and-afters — quartz countertops, subway tile, open shelving. The kind of photos that make you feel like your current kitchen is embarrassing.
We DMed them. Rick responded within an hour.
"Rick was a salesman. The best kind — the kind you don't realize is selling you until you're already sold."
He came to the house with an iPad. He had a 3D rendering ready, somehow, before he'd even taken a single measurement. He showed us our kitchen — our kitchen — reimagined. Waterfall island. Matte black fixtures. Soft-close cabinets. He said six weeks. He said $45,000 all-in.
Marcus shook his hand in our gutted-out kitchen on February 7th.
There was no formal contract.
Rick said he'd email us the scope of work. He never did. We reminded him once, maybe twice. He said he'd get to it. We didn't push because we'd already said yes, and saying yes felt easier than starting over.
That was our first mistake. There would be others.
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Lisa Nguyen is a licensed general contractor and LEED Green Associate with 14 years of experience managing residential renovation and remodeling projects. She brings expertise in kitchen and bathroom remodels, basement finishing, and sustainable building practices.
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Demo started February 10th. The kitchen was gutted in three days — cabinets out, appliances out, floor up. What was left was studs and subfloor and a smell that I can only describe as "old house secrets."
Then things slowed.
Rick called on February 18th. The subfloor had issues. He said it would cost an extra $3,200 to fix it right. He had photos. They looked legitimate. We said yes because what else do you say when your kitchen is in pieces?
March came. We were cooking on a camping stove in the garage. I cannot overstate how much this defined the next three months. A Coleman two-burner that Marcus had used exactly once, at a campsite near Algonquin in 2019. We ate a lot of scrambled eggs. A lot of takeout from the Pita Pit on Lakeshore. The kids thought it was an adventure for about a week.
Then the electrical panel came up. An extra $4,800. "We can't pass inspection without it," Rick said.
Then a plumbing rough-in issue. Another $3,100.
Then a delivery delay on the custom cabinets — four weeks behind. Nobody warned us. We found out when Marcus called to ask where the cabinets were and Rick said, almost casually, "Yeah, they're coming from a supplier in Brampton, they got backed up."
"The week he slept on the couch — it wasn't about us. It was about the fact that we were drowning and had no way to talk about it without fighting."
March 19th was the worst night. We'd just gotten another call from Rick — a ventilation issue, another $2,700. I did the math on the back of an Esso receipt because I didn't want to open my laptop. The total was climbing past $55,000.
Marcus and I stood in what used to be our kitchen, looking at exposed wires and bare studs, and we just... went at each other. Not about the renovation. About everything. About money we'd trusted each other to manage. About who approved what. About a text I'd sent Rick that Marcus thought committed us to something we hadn't discussed. About the fact that Owen had eaten cereal for dinner three nights in a row.
He slept on the couch that night. And again in April.
We went to couples counseling in June — after the kitchen was done, after the dust settled. Six months of it. Our counselor, Dr. Patrice Osei, who works out of an office on Trafalgar Road, was careful about it. "The kitchen wasn't the cause," she said. "But it was a trigger. It created conditions where every disagreement felt like a crisis."
She was right. But "you were already stressed before the reno" doesn't actually help you when you're living through the reno.
The kitchen was finished May 3rd. Fourteen weeks, not six. $62,000, not $45,000.
It is, objectively, a beautiful kitchen.
I can't always enjoy it.
The Years Between
We didn't talk about doing another renovation for almost two years.
Not out loud. But I'd catch Marcus looking at the master bathroom — the original 1992 tile, the vanity that had seen better decades — and I'd see him decide, visibly, not to bring it up.
In October 2023, I brought it up.
"I know," he said. "I know we need to."
We sat at the kitchen island we'd paid $62,000 for and made a deal: this time would be different. This time I was running it.
Part Two: The Bathroom (March–April 2024)
I want to be honest about something. I was scared.
Not of the reno itself. Of us — of what another chaotic renovation might do. Dr. Osei had helped us rebuild a lot of things. I didn't want to un-rebuild them.
So I did it differently. Completely differently.
I spent two weekends in February 2024 doing nothing but research. I got four written quotes — from four different companies, all found through verified platforms where I could see licenses, reviews, and actual project histories. Not Instagram grids. Not DMs.
"I wasn't looking for the cheapest quote. I was looking for the most thorough one."
Lakeside Builds came in third-cheapest at $22,000. But their quote was twelve pages long. Line items for everything — demo, tile, plumbing fixtures, vanity, electrical, permits. A payment schedule tied to milestones. A change-order process that required written sign-off from both Marcus and me before any scope change could proceed.
I called their references. Two of them. Real calls, not Google reviews. A woman named Diane in Burlington who'd had them redo her ensuite said, "They finished two days early and it looked exactly like the rendering." A retired guy in Mississauga said, "They sent me a photo update every Friday. I never had to chase them."
We signed a contract on February 29th, 2024.
Four Weeks, Two Days
Lakeside pulled permits before demo started. Their project lead, a guy named Anton, did a pre-construction walkthrough with both Marcus and me — forty-five minutes, questions answered, every material confirmed.
Demo started March 11th. We got a photo update the first Friday. Then the next. Then the next.
Week two, we wanted to upgrade the shower tile. The original quote had standard ceramic. We'd seen something at Ceramic Tileworks on Cornwall Road — a large-format porcelain, warmer tone. Anton sent us a written change order within twenty-four hours. The upgrade cost $1,100. We both signed it. Both of us. Together. On paper.
No ambiguity. No "well I thought you approved it." No fighting.
"We didn't fight once during the bathroom reno. Not once. I didn't realize how heavy the first one had been until the second one was this light."
The bathroom was done April 14th. Four weeks and two days. Total cost: $23,100 — exactly the base quote plus the one change order we'd both agreed to in writing.
We stood in the doorway together. New walk-in shower with the porcelain tile. Double vanity. Heated floors. It smelled like grout and possibility.
Marcus put his hand on the door frame and looked at all of it for a long moment.
"This is how it should have been the first time," he said.
He wasn't just talking about the bathroom.
What We Learned
Not generic tips. Actual things — hard things — we learned from doing this twice.
"A contract isn't about distrust. It's about not having to remember what you agreed to at 11pm when you're already stressed."
1. The contract protects the marriage, not just the money.
With Rick, we had no written scope. So every "discovery" became a negotiation, and every negotiation became a conversation we'd already had, and every repeated conversation became a fight. With Lakeside, there was nothing to fight about. The contract said what it said.
2. You are not equipped to evaluate a renovation mid-reno.
When your kitchen is gutted and your contractor says the subfloor needs replacing, you have no leverage and no frame of reference. The time to ask hard questions is before you sign anything — when you can still walk away.
3. The cheapest quote is not the safest quote.
Rick wasn't the cheapest, but he also wasn't thorough. We chose him because the 3D rendering was compelling and he responded fast. Lakeside took two weeks to get us a quote because they actually came out and measured everything.
4. Both people need to be in the room for every decision.
One of our worst fights was about a text I'd sent Rick approving something Marcus didn't know about. With Lakeside, the change-order process required both signatures. They built the communication into the system.
5. Boring renovations are good renovations.
Nothing "exciting" happened during the bathroom reno. No surprises. No urgent calls. No new discoveries. That is what a renovation should feel like.
One More Thing
I still think about what Dr. Osei said — that the kitchen reno wasn't the cause of our problems, just a trigger.
She's probably right.
But I also think about the bathroom reno, and how we came out of it closer, not frayed. How the process gave us something to agree on instead of fight about. How we stood in that doorway together and Marcus said what he said and I didn't cry, but I wanted to.
The renovation didn't save our marriage.
The process did.
And I'd had no idea, until Lakeside showed us what calm looked like, how much chaos we'd been carrying.
If you're planning a reno, GetAHomePro lets you find licensed, reviewed contractors with real project histories. Get quotes, compare, and go in with your eyes open. We wish we had.
Questions Readers Asked After This Story
Did you ever confront Rick about the cost overruns?
Yes. Once, when the total crossed $58,000, Marcus called him and asked directly whether the original $45,000 quote was ever realistic. Rick said "every old house has surprises." He wasn't wrong, technically. But a thorough contractor would have built contingency into the original quote — or warned us upfront that $45K was an optimistic floor, not a ceiling.
How did you find Lakeside Builds?
Through a verified contractor platform where I could see licenses, reviews, and project photos. I filtered for Oakville, bathroom renovations, and checked references directly. The process took two weekends. It was worth every hour.
Is couples counseling during a reno normal?
More normal than people admit. Our counselor said she sees renovation-related stress in about a quarter of the couples she works with. The financial pressure, the disrupted routines, the constant decision-making — it compounds fast, especially if communication is already strained.
Would you use Rick again?
No. The kitchen is beautiful and I hate that it is. I want to love it without the memory of what it cost us — and I don't mean the money.
Marcus made dinner last Sunday. In the kitchen. The one we fought about.
He made his mom's recipe — arroz con pollo, the one that takes two hours and fills the whole house. Ella set the table. Owen complained about the onions. Normal Sunday.
I sat at the island and watched him cook and thought about how close we came to losing this.
The kitchen is just a kitchen now. It took a long time to get there.