According to a popular axiom of modern living, when the world hands you lemons, the best thing to do is to make lemonade.
The world sure has handed Kerry Sparrowe a bushel of lemons lately. While she couldn't make lemonade herself, she fortunately has many friends who have the recipe down pat.
When the 35-year-old mother moved into her freshly and extensively renovated Grandin townhouse last weekend she couldn't believe the transformation. She knew that the contractor was interested in doing more than she could afford, but she had no idea how far Gunslinger Construction, and her friends, would take the project.
"I was in awe!" she recounted after a few days to recover from the surprise, still with lots of emotion evident in her voice. "It was pretty amazing. I was expecting basic-basic-basic renos, only upgraded quite a bit. It was quite a shock!"
That sweet moment capped off a few years of trials and tribulations that would cause many people to despair at their lots in life.
The backstory
Sparrowe is no stranger to setbacks, but somehow she remains upbeat. Even though she is displaced and unsettled, and can't even work because of a flood at the salon where she works, she smiles and laughs.
"I have to," she admits.
First, her youngest daughter, Brooklynn, had trouble growing. She wasn't gaining weight and she was rolling everywhere instead of crawling and walking. She didn't sleep well. She threw up constantly. She didn't communicate well. Had seizures.
It took some time before Brooklynn was finally put through gene testing and was eventually diagnosed with Rett Syndrome. The neurodevelopmental disorder of the brain affects girls almost exclusively. It means that Brooklynn likely won't ever talk, won't have good vision, won't have normal digestion, and at some point in her adulthood, her spine will probably develop a lateral curve called scoliosis.
There's a lot of hope that scientific research will demonstrate that the problem is reversible. Right now, though, she's pretty happy and is surrounded by love.
Unfortunately, Kerry's marriage struggled to thrive as well. She and her husband have just gone their separate ways. Turmoil was a huge part of her life.
Trying to find a new place to live is not always a joyous prospect, especially when money is tight. She settled for a 40-year-old Grandin-area condominium townhouse that even she admits needed more than a little work.
"Absolutely, it was a cat house. We could barely get the furnace filter out, it was so bad. There was cat feces and urine all over the basement. Everybody asked, 'Why'd you buy it?' Well, it was in the budget."
That budget only provided her enough leeway to get a new bathtub, furnace, hot water tank and some windows and carpeting. Not nearly enough to fix everything that needed fixing, but just enough to make it liveable and bearable.
The kindness of strangers
"Well, it was an adventure," Kelly Brewer said with more than a hint of downplaying the scale of the project. His business, Gunslinger Construction in Campbell Park, is no stranger to interesting home renovation assignments for humanitarian efforts, like Habitat for Humanity.
When Sparrowe called and asked for an estimate on a painting job, he took one look at the place and dubbed it a disaster.
"I wouldn't have moved my kids into the place. The place reeked of cat urine. It was still the original aluminum windows. There was two inches (five centimetres) of sawdust in the attic for insulation. There was no insulation up there. The corners had been so bashed and battered in the place that they'd gone over top of them with plastic strips. It just wasn't a nice home."
Brewer knew Sparrowe's story and figured that this family needed more than just a fresh coat of paint. He told her that he wouldn't sit idly by when he could be doing more to help her out.
He started making a lot of calls to plead her case, Sparrowe said.
"They just went to their people and said, 'This is Brooklynn's story. Can you help us out?' Just about everybody they went to said, 'Yes'."
What he was able to come up with can only be described as a colossal act of generosity. Most of the labour was donated. So were the windows, the countertops, the baseboards, the carpets and linoleum, too.
Some things, like the doors and cabinets, couldn't be gifted. Instead they were sold with a large discount. Most, if not all of it, was kept a secret from the eventual beneficiary.
Overall, more than 75 workers contributed more than 1,500 hours of labour. Normally, this kind of project would have taken 10 weeks and, if billed, would have been worth somewhere between $90,000 and $100,000. Brewer lined up a long laundry list of other companies (including Paradise Carpets, Coventry Homes, Gienow Windows and Doors and Kitchen Craft) who made significant contributions to this one goal.
Susan Tooke was one such person. She worked as the superintendent on the project, sometimes working on the clock, sometimes not. Brewer estimated that she put in between 60 to 80 hours of volunteer time in the last four weeks.
She did it for the same reason that everybody else did.
"Everybody's got a heart. She was in need. She couldn't move into that house because it was just not liveable. We did what we had to do to get her to move into a beautiful home."
Sparrowe knew that something was up. After all, you don't need to hole up in a hotel room for a month just to have some carpets installed and some walls painted.
She describes it as "a remodelling, complete 100 per cent, scraped ceilings, down to subfloors, drywall gone, gutting renovation of my house."
Home, sweet home
Sparrowe first walked through the doors last Saturday, with family and friends on hand to see the look of amazement on her face. Brewer was there, too.
The new place has new walls, floors, handrails on the stairs, cabinets, windows, doors, hot water tank, furnace, ceilings … practically everything was worked on at some point. It has a child-friendly bathroom.
There are also a few extras, like the full landscaping job in the backyard, complete with new patio, and the home salon in the basement. Now Sparrowe can supplement her part-time income by working from home.
"I had no idea they were doing this," Sparrowe stated. "I had a couple of projects that I wanted some people to do and had a few contractors come in to do some estimates when I got possession. They called me up and said, 'Don't worry. We've got it covered. We even have your hotel stay covered'."
In the end, Brewer is still trying to catch up with all the fine details. He said he isn't even sure how much he's going to end up out of pocket on the whole thing. It could be more than $10,000, he says. That doesn't seem to bother him too much, considering how much he says he stresses over his projects.
"I think it's a beautiful house. We had people in there up until 15 minutes before she saw it. It was great!"
Practically speechless, Sparrowe was left with her new keys and a big smile.
"I was very thankful and grateful to everybody who helped out."
