{"id":606109,"date":"2024-01-25T20:17:33","date_gmt":"2024-01-25T17:17:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/how-this-run-down-halifax-home-became-a-real-life-barbie-dreamhouse\/"},"modified":"2024-01-25T20:17:33","modified_gmt":"2024-01-25T17:17:33","slug":"how-this-run-down-halifax-home-became-a-real-life-barbie-dreamhouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/how-this-run-down-halifax-home-became-a-real-life-barbie-dreamhouse\/","title":{"rendered":"#How this run-down Halifax home became a real-life Barbie Dreamhouse\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nSeasoned home renovator Rebekah Higgs created her own all-pink palace, which she shares with her daughter and dog\u00a0\n<\/div>\n
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(Photographs courtesy of Rebekah Higgs)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

As a kid growing up in the leafy south end of Halifax, Rebekah Higgs admired the rambling, majestic old homes dotting her neighbourhood, but never imagined owning one herself. She spent her twenties travel<\/a>ing the world as a musician\u2014both as a singer-songwriter and with her <\/span>electronic dance band Ruby Jean and the Thoughtful Bees\u2014<\/span>and earning a starving artist income.\u00a0<\/span>
\n\"AIn 2014, a year after her daughter, Lennon, was born, she gave up her peripatetic career and moved back to her home province, taking a product job at Halifax-based media<\/a> company Egg Films. But as a lifelong lover of interior decor raised by seasoned home renovators, she soon decided to follow in her parents\u2019 footsteps. By 2016, she began renovating houses as a career, even starring in a web-turned-TV series<\/a> called DIY Mom.<\/em><\/span>
\n\"AFive years later, Higgs was living in a mid-century modern bungalow with a pink door in Rockingham, Nova Scotia, with 10-year-old Lennon. She came across a\u00a0<\/span>$850,000\u00a0real estate listing for a stunning 3,300-square-foot Craftsman home in the South End of Halifax. The home had beautiful wood-framed windows and high ceilings, with an elementary school within walking distance. It even had a pink door\u2014a feature she has added to every single home she has ever renovated. But its market status kept switching from \u201cpending\u201d to \u201cfor sale.\u201d \u201cOnce that happ<\/a>ens a few times, you get the impression there\u2019s something wrong with the house,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

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When Higgs visited the home, she quickly learned why. The roof was rotten and leaky, the foundation was crumbling, and the plumbing was beginning to rust\u2014the house would need an entirely new system. That was a problem, because Higgs planned to add several new bathrooms and an addition on the back of the house. She used the poor condition of the house to her advantage, finagling a deal to purchase the home for $767,000. She took possession in September of 2021.<\/span>
\n\"AWhen she bought the house, the exterior was painted a shabby shade of green. After considering the East Coast\u2019s renown for eye-catching, colourful houses\u2014and clocking the blue, red, yellow and green houses on the street\u2014she realized she wanted to add to the charm. And the colour most emblematic of her personality? Pink.\u00a0<\/span>\u201cPink is a pretty bold choice, but because it\u2019s just me and my daughter, I get to make these decisions,\u201d she says. \u201cSo if I want to live in a pink house then I get to live in a pink house.\u201d<\/span>
\n\"AFrom there, Higgs embarked on a series of major renovations to turn the charming but crumbling hovel into her ultimate Barbie Dreamhouse. When she first moved in, the basement was filled with exposed wires and pink insulation hanging from the ceiling, making it look like something out of the <\/span>Saw<\/span><\/i> franchise. Her first order of business was to transform it into a proper basement apartment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She found the six-foot ceilings claustrophobic, so she opted to hire a professional house lifter to jack up the property by two feet to create eight-foot ceilings. \u201cI was going to dig down, but when you lift the house you get these big beautiful bright windows in the basement, which makes the space feel so much lighter and brighter,\u201d she said. To make the structure as light as possible prior to lifting, she demolished several walls, which opened up the main floor, and removed the chimney and the front steps.\u00a0<\/span>Then, by building an addition onto the back of the house, Higgs was able to add a few more bedrooms and bathrooms to the space to increase the property value.<\/span><\/p>\n

READ: The Move: How two Toronto entrepreneurs revamped a retro Nova Scotia general<\/a> store<\/strong><\/em>
\n\"AOne of Higgs\u2019s favourite features is the pink polished concrete floor in the basement apartment, which she rents on Airbnb. To save some money, Higgs purchased her own dump truck full of concrete, added concrete dye and hired a worker to funnel it into the basement. By <\/span>bringing in the concrete herself and having Nova Scotia Concrete grind and polish the stone, she was able to <\/span>bring the cost of the floor down from $10 per square foot to $4 per square foot.<\/span><\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0This revamped \u201930s-era Montreal duplex has its own Escher-inspired staircase<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Higgs moved into her pink palace in the spring of 2023, two years after taking possession. Inside, she kept the palette slightly more muted than the facade, but made sure to sprinkle a number of pink accents throughout the house, like a pink living room couch, pink bathroom tile and pink stools at the kitchen island.\u00a0<\/span>
\n\"AHiggs kept most of the home\u2019s historic flourishes, including the original wooden trim, windows, and staircase spindles and rails. She also left the brass radiators intact, albeit turning each one into a shelf with the assistance of white open-front radiator covers.\u00a0<\/span>\u201cThe house feels like it fits my personality. We\u2019re a house full of girls. It\u2019s me, my daughter and our dog Ziggy, who is also a girl,\u201d Higgs says. The finished home is calm and cozy\u2014Higgs loves to host parties, and she wanted the house to be a place where people could enjoy themselves. Every year, she hosts a <\/span>DIY Mom<\/em> Christmas Karaoke party\u2014where she puts out a big spread of oysters and charcuterie in the kitchen\u2014and a Galentine\u2019s Day potluck dinner with 20 of her closest friends.<\/span><\/p>\n

Higgs plans to stay in the home as long as possible. \u201cI wanted to create a moment that people would remember, a recognizable space that adds a little bit of culture and character to the street. I think that\u2019s what I achieved,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n