With their sights set on a custom backroad build, a family designed their forever home with some expert help.
Jon and Ashley Millar always knew they wanted to settle down and raise their family in a rural area. And for the couple and their two young children, Jake and Grace, that dream came into focus when they scored a deal on a wide-open lot on a quiet road outside of Lindsay, Ont. “We both love having open space,” Ashley says. “I grew up on a farm, and we were always outside as kids. We love having our own space for all the things they love to do.”
For the Millars, those outdoor activities include just about every type of fun you can’t have within city limits. Summers are spent fishing, Jon hunts in the fall, and they hit the trails on their snowmobiles all winter long. The kids even have their own ATVs. “If they want to go out back and play catch or hit golf balls, they can do it without disturbing anybody,” Jon says. “There’s a pond that we clear off during the winter and play hockey,” Ashley adds. “We love having that freedom.”
Beyond the wide open spaces and the outdoor activities, moving to the country meant they could build their dream home instead of living inside of someone else’s vision. “We both lived in town in Lindsay, so we know what it’s like to have neighbours on top of you,” Jon says. “You walk out the front door or the back door, and there are balconies and porches right beside you. It just wasn’t for us.” And while there’s no shortage of large farmhouses on massive properties throughout rural Ontario, they didn’t relish the idea of maintaining an older house. They wanted a builder to customize a new home just for them, and the choice to go with Beaver Homes & Cottages was a no-brainer. “My parents built a home with Beaver years ago, and they were happy with how they were able to make any changes they wanted,” Jon says. “We liked a lot of the existing models in the Design Book, and we knew that we could customize them, but we already had something in mind.”
The ability to customize existing plans or create new ones is a core part of the Beaver Homes & Cottages process, and John Ireland, the design consultant at the Lindsay Design Centre, was their main contact who helped them realize their vision. “Ashley had a bunch of pictures from a house she absolutely fell in love with, and our challenge was to take inspiration from those pictures and produce a set of architectural plans that would capture everything on their wish list while fitting on the property,” John explains. In addition to creating the plans, tweaking them according to the Millars’ requests, and guiding the overall process, John’s team at the Lindsay Design Centre also provided nearly all of the finishing materials for the home. “Beaver Homes & Cottages is a one-stop shop,” he says. “We have everything under one roof here, so you can choose all your finishes, and there’s no need to travel all over the countryside trying to source materials.”
The Millars came to the table with high expectations of John and his team, and they weren’t disappointed. “Jon’s parents had already worked really well with him, so we knew we were in good hands,” Ashley explains. “We showed him our vision, and then we met many times to tweak things along the way, and he did an excellent job.” In fact, the first draft of the custom design was pretty close to the final version, and it included some bright ideas inspired by John’s past projects. “We wanted to add a loft, and we wanted the stairs to be at the front of the house instead of the middle, because we didn’t want to divide the basement once it was finished,” Ashley says. “Now the basement is wide open, and we have a three-storey staircase from top to bottom that’s a unique feature.” That floating staircase may not be in the middle of the home, but it’s definitely a centrepiece. “The builder did a lot of head scratching over how he could build a staircase that big without it being anchored to the walls, but it turned out incredible, and it doesn’t break up the open spaces on any of our floors,” Jon adds.
Other custom elements on the couple’s list included an oversized three-bay garage for all of their outdoor toys, from the kids’ ATVs to Jon’s bass boat, as well as hydronic in-floor heating throughout the garage, basement, and main floor. The open floor plan has no unnecessary walls, but the kids still have their own space thanks to a shared walkway and games room between their two upstairs bedrooms. Ashely insisted on an en suite with a steam shower for the primary bedroom on the main floor, and she wanted extra-wide doorways throughout the home for accessibility as they grow older. The couple also wanted the kitchen to be as big as possible. “We’re a family of four, but I wanted a big island in a big kitchen where we’d all spend time. It connects with the main living area and a big fireplace, so we call it the great room,” Ashley explains.
In addition to the custom design choices, like the Douglas fir beams above the great room, Jon also wanted to customize his level of involvement, since he works in the building industry. Even though Beaver Homes & Cottages specializes in connecting clients with trustworthy local contractors to handle everything from the foundation to the roofing, Jon wanted to bring his own connections to the project, and to handle the electrical work himself. “I had a builder already lined up, and it was easy for him to take the package from Beaver Homes and bring it to life,” he says.
That local know-how, combined with the Beaver Homes & Cottages guarantees for design, price, quality, and quantity of materials, made for a smooth process that minimized the stress of taking a custom build from start to finish. “Our materials were delivered on-schedule before the Covid shortages began, but since there was still some work to be done, the locked-in pricing gave us a ton of reassurance,” Jon says. He especially appreciated the staged delivery. “It meant we never had a full house worth of supplies sitting in our front yard. So not only were we not working around materials everywhere on the lot, but we never fell behind from waiting on materials. Plus, we weren’t getting stuck with a ton of bills up front.”
Now when the Millars soak in their hot tub on their new back deck, listening to nothing but the sounds of nature around them, they can relax knowing that they made the right choice. “The whole team at the Lindsay Design Centre was fantastic to work with, and we’d definitely choose them if we had to do it again,” Ashley says. “We went into this knowing that it would be our forever home, so we’re happy that we did it right and invested in the features we knew we’d want to have for the long run. We wouldn’t change a thing.”
