Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

There was “a fresh tree we cut down outside.” The adults would be laughing and talking around the dining table, oblivious to “the chaos of kids running around.” And later the youngsters might take their high spirits out to the hills for a little tobogganing.

Sitting in the grand room — named for the grand piano that’s always been there — homegrown musical talent Royal Wood is revisiting Christmases past on the family farm.

He feels “very blessed and very fortunate” to have spent an idyllic childhood on the 100-acre property just north of Peterborough, Ont. Now, he’s creating memories for his own two children in the same house where he grew up.

“It’s a very special moment in time,” Wood says of raising Henry, 2½, and George, 10 months, with his wife Alison Waldbauer in the big Tudor-style home.

The pop-rock singer/songwriter, nominated for multiple Juno Awards, purchased the property from his parents in 2007. But it wasn’t until 2019 that he and Waldbauer moved there from Toronto. Their first child was on the way and his career had reached a stage where it could accommodate a country lifestyle.

THEN The sunken grand room was a dark green before Wood started the long process of repainting the home's interior.

“It was always about the land for me. All my happiest memories are out in the fields,” he recalls of winter fun, play sword fights and fishing in the pond.

The sprawling 7,000-sq.-ft., three-storey farmhouse Wood shared with his four siblings was built in 1978, the year he was born. Growing up, he was surrounded by “musical instruments everywhere,” recalls the recording artist who started playing the piano at age four. Wood, who headlined his own show at Massey Hall in 2018, recently released a new album called “What Tomorrow Brings.”

When he and Waldbauer moved in, the house “had never been renovated, never been touched,” he says. “In its day, it was very grand and beautiful.”

NOW The couple kept the old wood-stove in the kitchen but updated everything else in the same black-and-white theme used throughout the house.

Turning over the dormant land to young organic farmers in exchange for meat and vegetables, the couple took on a full-scale renovation to bring the homestead back to life.

While they didn’t knock down a single wall, they gutted rooms, updated the mechanicals, roof, windows and flooring, and removed some main-floor interior doors. One of the five bedrooms was converted to a music studio. They kept the kitchen’s wood-burning stove but did a complete makeover of the bright, spacious room.

When work was going on, the principal bedroom boasting a fireplace and ensuite bathroom with a 12-foot ceiling became their sanctuary.

THEN Like the rest of the house, the kitchen had never been updated when Wood and Waldbauer started renovating in 2019.

“We moved our entire Toronto condo into this room,” Waldbauer says, surveying the 900-square-foot space whose dated pink wallpaper has been replaced with soft white paint.

While skilled professionals were hired for the major upgrades such as electrical and plumbing, Wood tackled other tasks, including installation of new light fixtures, a tin ceiling in the study and “a lot of painting” to cover dark or odd colours like “grandma’s green.”

He also painted over the old panelling along the staircase which once served as an indoor playground.

Built in 1978, the Tudor-style, five-bedroom house was the happy childhood home of singer/songwriter Royal Wood and his four siblings.

“We would slide down the carpeted stairs on garbage bags,” he laughs. “How we didn’t kill ourselves, I don’t know.”

While his DIY skills date back to his days as a “creative, handy kid,” he credits Waldbauer for the interior design makeover.

“My wife is 100 per cent the vision,” Wood says, referring to the contemporary decor in black and white, with neutral accents and natural materials.

NOW The refinished foyer gleams with new hardwood and a pale paint palette.

He indicates the sunken grand room’s once-white fireplace that she suggested painting black: “It’s amazing how beautiful it is now.”

Waldbauer, a nurse, says it’s all about teamwork: “I just point (at things) with ideas, and he executes.”

Wood adds further praise, calling her a “saint” for living through the reno with two young children. Waldbauer, however, advises against it.

THEN The carpeted stairs served as an indoor toboggan hill when Wood and his siblings were children.

“Every day is total chaos,” she says, remembering how the dust-covered floors had to constantly be mopped for a crawling baby.

But now that the dust has settled, Wood’s childhood home again feels like his own.

CV

Carola Vyhnak is a Cobourg-based writer covering personal finance, home and real-estate stories. She is a contributor for the Star. Reach her via email: [email protected]

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