After some creative renovations, Toronto's tiniest home is back on the market and poised to make its owner a tidy profit.

When David Blois opens his front door and says, "Let me give you a quick tour," he's not kidding about the quick part.

Five months ago, he bought the littlest house in Toronto, a 300-square-foot home squeezed into what was once intended to be a laneway. Now, he's putting 128 Day Ave. back on the market after months of renovations that could serve as a master class for making the most of a small space.

"Once I saw the house, I saw what I thought were a lot of possibilities," says Mr. Blois, who took on the flip as a project with his family. "We wanted not just to decorate and resell it, but to make it so someone could actually live in it and feel comfortable."

Mr. Blois bought the house in April for close to the $139,000 list price, and has priced it now at $189,800. The first open house is tomorrow.

The changes start in the front yard, which, like the rest of the house, is about six feet wide. Mr. Blois put in landscaping and a walkway, and removed a non-load-bearing centre post and some latticework to open up the front porch. To maximize the storybook appeal and create the impression of more vertical space, he added a decorative rooftop gable.

The transformation continues inside. The previous owners, who cared for the house for 13 years, had made many improvements. But the home had a patchwork of flooring - tile, laminate and carpet - which broke up the space and made it look smaller.

Mr. Blois installed new oak floorboards that run horizontally to make the rooms appear wider (the same visual effect that makes vertical stripes look slimming).

He kept the original wood door, but replaced the single-pane glass in it with a thermal window. The custom sandblasted design on the glass projects a geometric pattern on the wall when the sun shines through: That's one way of adding decorative flair without cluttering up walls.

Opening the front door, you walk into the living room, where two armless chairs are pushed together, facing a flat-screen television on a knee-high shelf. The furniture's low profile opens up the space, Mr. Blois says.

Past the television, a narrow hallway with an even narrower door leads into a bathroom with storage nooks above the shower.

Past the bathroom is the kitchen, where a nook houses a stacked washer and dryer with wire shelves above. Pivot to the right and you're facing the refrigerator, with more storage above it. The new stove vents straight through the wall to the outside, freeing up precious cupboard space.

Mr. Blois replaced the door leading to the bedroom with a frosted panel door that lets in light while still affording privacy. The bedroom, which spans the back of the house, looks empty except for a wall of white cabinets - until you pull one of the handles and down comes a Murphy-style full bed.

"It was a bit of a challenge," says Mr. Blois, but "the idea was to make this room usable if you have guests." The new owners can flip up the bed and let people walk through to the backyard's fenced-in patio. "It could also be used as a small dining space, a little study or a small family room," Mr. Blois adds - in a tiny house, rooms need to multitask.

Toronto contractor Arthur Weeden built the house around 1912 on a narrow rectangle of land where the city had forgotten to cut the curb for a laneway, and lived there with his wife for 20 years. While the Blois family was renovating, an elderly man walked by and claimed he'd lived in the little house with his wife and three children - but they were never able to substantiate that account.

Luanne Kanerva lives next door and says the whole neighbourhood is eager to see what's inside. A professional home stager, she lent Mr. Blois some of the low-profile furniture in the living room.

"It's amazing how much bigger it looks," Ms. Kanerva says. The house offers lessons to all small-space dwellers, she says.

"One of the most important things is having furniture that's appropriately sized for the space," she says. And stick to one style. Ms. Kanerva usually follows the 80/20 rule of home decorating: A room should be 80 per cent one style, such as classical antique, and 20 per cent something else, such as a few funky pillows to mix up the look.

"In a small space, it should be 100 per cent," she says.

If nothing else, she says, working on the littlest house has given her a newfound appreciation of her own space: "I thought my house was small," she says, "but not compared to that house."

Source Globe and Mail Toronto

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