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Music [John] when we moved in about seven years ago we always had kind of thoughts of renovation but we kind of wanted to fill the house out first and and kind of find what was going to work for us so it was always in the back of our minds and then you know we got to a situation where the house wasn’t really working for us so we kind of thought it was the ideal time to start Renovations [Tonia] we had done some renovating in our old home we did we had the basement renovated and it wasn’t a bad experience it was just we always had people coming and
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going there was just a lot of dust and it was just it was busy we were lucky to have my dad who kind of played the role of coordination with all the the subcontractors and all of that so we were lucky but we knew this time like my obviously my dad was older couldn’t do it but and it was a much bigger job that we wanted to do so we knew that we needed some support but we had we didn’t have any negative thoughts about renovating we just knew it was going to be very daunting so there was some fear that of that of the pressure that it
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would take and the the toll it would put on us and whether or not we’d survive it we our marriage would survive it so it did but it did in the end yeah we knew we needed a designer because like John said we had spent a number of years here but when we first bought the house we knew we had to get a feel right what we needed what would work for us and then we’ gone through Covid right so we we knew we wanted someone to come in and kind of help us work through all of the ideas that we had and a friend of hers was already
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in the design process with SOSNA and she says oh they’re my friend is doing this she’s with them she says they’re really great and they referred us and that was it we actually didn’t even get go with anybody else we just that’s we met you guys and then kind of that was it from there [John] when we met Andrei we we we heard great things about SOSNA and Andrei kind of went through our you know our thought process what we want wanted to do he basically questioned everything and I think he probably asked the
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question why like a thousand times so we were a little unsure if you wanted our business but I think we’re kind he was just trying to fill us out and to see if we’re serious about our Renovations and what we truly wanted and and I thought that was a really good experience because it it actually made us think about a few things and I think we kind of changed some ideas based on that discussion as well so we ended up at the end of the day feeling really good about that meeting and we and we knew at that point we
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actually wanted to proceed with with SOSNA [Tonia] and then we had talked to people it was funny because after we had started the process a lot a few number of people actually more that work with him had done had worked with you guys with SOSNA in the past and so we talked about that and they giggled because they’re like yep that’s Andrei and that’s how you know that’s that’s the process but he really does that to get a good feel and just to make sure it’s going to be a
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good working relationship so that yeah it’s really good the design process wasn’t as difficult as I thought it was going to be I was kind of scared of it just based on experiences I’d have when I got was engaged and I had to choose everything for our bridal show registry was I was like petrified so I thought it was going to be similar but it was actually pretty amazing it was Chantel really worked with us and really tried to understand like the things we wanted what we were looking for how we would use the space and was
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able to translate everything that we had said into some pretty amazing designs actually pretty well the first time [John ] [Tonia] we got pretty bang on actually the first time so that was pretty amazing and then being able to see it in the D was even more exciting you know like we changed hardly probably [John] anything right very few things so it [Tonia] hardly was it was pretty amazing to have that connection right away so we were very very pleased with the whole process [John] we actually moved
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out the construction process so we had left a space to SOSNA and you know we had a great experience from the beginning you know we met prior to the construction phase just to kind of discuss how we wanted to be in communication if we wanted you know what kind of updates we wanted and and then once we left the house over to I think we had one of the most amazing people here in Gus and [Tonia] Hello Gus! [John] and he basically took care of this place like it was his own so he called us on a daily basis almost kind of just
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communicating what was going on and it was awesome we you know we initially thought we’d come here on a daily basis just to make sure everything was okay and we kind of felt you know a lot better throughout the entire process and we maybe came once once a week or every couple of weeks just to kind of meet up with Gus but other than that we felt pretty comfortable with with the entire construction phase and not being here [Tonia]and it was so clean I remember coming and thinking you know it would be
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a disaster area but even from first of all we were shocked construction was going to start on day one but we thought oh you know we have a start date we’ll be out but we weren’t sure but things were moving like from day one like we saw we could see progress in the house but it was just so organized in here I think that was another one of the pieces that we thought we came in it was safe we didn’t feel like it was unsafe if we needed to come to visit the home it was clean and just just all those pieces so you knew not just
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Gus but the entire team was treating the the the house as if it was their own and we got so many comments from our neighbors just like you know the crew is so great they’re so respectful they’re so quiet and I don’t even how they knew how clean you guys were because they’re like oh and it’s so clean and organ like I was just like were they in the house you know but they just the way things were moving they just knew that it was it was different than anything they’d
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seen before there was the two issues the issues that we had to deal with was that the the floor and the family room and the kitchen weren’t level and so we had to build up the family room so we end ended up having to size that out to put the extra plywood underneath and that was great we addressed it right away made a decision right away had pros and cons so that was actually really good and then the pocket door [John] oh yeah [Tonia ]in the office that we had planned for just wasn’t possible
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just based on when the walls were opened it didn’t Happen but then we had again alternate solution we put the door in so everything was fast dealt with and didn’t delay anything yeah the [John] schedule was done up front we stayed on schedule from the beginning and everyone everyone at saw the entire team everyone we met with from Andrei to Chantel to Gus to the entire team even the subcontracts I don’t know if they’re subcontracts were the people that came [Tonia ] [John] all the people that came through the
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house everyone we talked to was super friendly polite took care of the place this place was immaculately clean for for doing a full full full renovation so that that really was impressive for us that we knew from the beginning like we we never had a doubt in the mind that we we didn’t make the right choice [Tonia] and having a process background like my my career is process for the most part for years I I liked the you know there was a you know forms and there was a clear understanding by
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everyone kind of what needed to be done and the process was followed to a te to the point where when we made decisions Gus would make us sign the back of of wood just to say Hey you agreed to the you know so it’s just kept everything really kind of straightforward and clear so communication was really was really great and that was that’s really important [John]we got two kids and I think we had three people sharing one bathroom prior to the renovations so we got one of the kids using their own bathrooms now so that’s awesome
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and then obviously this you know just the extending the kitchen making you know this just works for us as a family we have you know we we have a big family and now we’re able to kind of have everybody in one room and share the space together [Tonia] we can open our kitchen table the entire extension like [John] we can get everyone in here it’s everyone has a great time we’ve had so many compliments from our entire family on on the design and on on on the renovation we had we
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previously had an office a dining room functioning as an office and kind of kind of just collecting junk and just didn’t look you know awesome so that you know the office we created has just been absolutely amazing so I think that’s my favorite my wife’s favorite room so you know it’s it’s just it’s it works this is great [Tonia] so much storage it was probably the other piece right like we have more storage than we need which is a good thing and sometimes not such a good thing because you forget where you put stuff
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but but that’s another great aspect is that we have lots of space to store stuff thank you SOSNA so much for everything you took our home and you made it into even more of a home for us and we’re so grateful to you and to the entire team like we said from Andrei to Chantel to Gus to Rosie to Roman everybody we really appreciate you and look forward to working with you again [John] yeah thank you so much
