Brett and Brittany Finnie have lived in Highlands since 2013, after buying a 1922 fixer-upper filled with floral wallpaper and yellowed linoleum. They were immediately charmed by the neighbourhood and especially a century-old house two doors down, despite it being significantly smaller and a little run-down. In fact, that’s what appealed to the Finnies — a designer-realtor duo specializing in old-home restorations.
Although they were planning a family, they realized there was too much space in the new house and were already thinking about downsizing. “Because it’s smaller than the first house,” says Brett, “it was more likely to be torn down, and we didn’t want to let that happen.”
The Finnies befriended the then-owner of the 1915 house and made an offer a decade later. In a handshake deal, they promised to keep the home’s history alive. “The whole neighbourhood was happy that we weren’t going to knock it down,” he says.
Highlanders take a lot of pride in the neighbourhood’s historic character and unique origins. First owned by Hudson’s Bay Company employees, then sold to John A. MacDougall in 1888, it wasn’t until 1910 that it started becoming the neighbourhood we know it as today. The municipality hired two real estate developers to turn it into an upper middle-class escape from the hustle and bustle of the booming city. But the Capital quickly came for it — annexing it two years later, and connecting it to the city’s core via streetcar. (As for the name, Highlands was decided by contest with a prize of $50 in gold.) Though the world wars and Great Depression tested the area, these challenges only strengthened its community. According to a 1993 booklet, The Highlands: Edmonton Historical Walking and Driving Tour, “People trimmed their lifestyles, but moved within rather than out of the Highlands.”
The Finnies are now co-owners of Outline Homes, a design-build and realty firm, and experts in tricky renovations. And while they didn’t knock the old house down, they stripped it down to its studs, which revealed the piecemeal building process of over a century ago. “Some lumber was actually two-by-four-inch fir,” Brett says. “Other pieces looked like they came from dismantled barns — nothing was the same material.”
One previous owner had extended the living room by about 10 feet, and the Finnies converted a storage area into a bathroom, but otherwise the original dimensions remain. This means they downsized to 1,500 square feet from their 1,800-square-foot home. But with two young kids, they wanted two bathrooms upstairs, which meant their trusted tradespeople had to get creative.
“It was very compartmentalized, and we opened it up,” Brittany says of the main floor’s living, kitchen and dining area. “But it was pretty challenging, considering we were adding two bathrooms, because we only had the one wall to get all the mechanical work up to the second floor.”
The solution was to drop the ceiling above the kitchen-dining area 15 centimetres, connect it to the “one wall” that runs up to the second floor, and “cram all the mechanical and plumbing into that space,” Brett explains. Done poorly, a dropped ceiling could cramp an already cosy kitchen’s style, but with wooden beams both structural and decorative on each side, it works as a stylish solution.
A massive marble island is the focus of the main-floor space, and it sits atop a white oak herringbone floor. Brittany says she can’t wait to watch the floor and the island weather over the years. “It’s called patina-ing, where you intentionally let things age,” she explains. “That’s why I chose unlacquered brass knobs on the kitchen cabinets, and why I love real hardwood floors. Old houses that have 100-year-old hardwood look amazing to me — and if my kids dent it, who cares?”
She won’t have to wait 100 years for a patina to emerge on the furniture, because some of it is already that old. A large, old wooden dresser, made in Poland, sits in the front entrance; the Finnies bought it from another neighbour. The kitchen table is antique and chairs are ’50s vintage, too. “I love finding the gems, the things no one else will have, which might otherwise end up in the landfill,” Brittany says of her family’s frequent trips to Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore, which sells donated home furnishings.
The footprint of the second floor is smaller than the main floor, so the Finnies removed the attic and installed a vaulted ceiling with skylights, and squeezed the laundry into the hallway connecting their bedrooms. As we stand in the hallway, Brett reflects on the 18-month evening and weekend process that the couple, along with their company’s tradespeople, spent turning one of Highlands’ oldest abodes into their dream home. He mentions some treasures they found along the way.
When they landscaped their yard, the Finnies found clumps of old coal, possibly from the Edmonton Standard Coal Mine, which operated in the area in the early 1900s. When a neighbour dug up his yard, he found old rail ties, likely from the area’s original streetcar line. And tearing down the single-car garage revealed an old parking pad underneath, which was almost certainly bricked together with product from J.B. Little’s brickyard or the Hardstone Brick Company.
But the most charming piece of Highlands history was found within the home’s walls.
“A lot of the time, we find really weird stuff, like pornography,” Brett laughs. “But one of our guys was doing the demo, and he called me up saying, ‘you might want to check this out — I found these photos.’”
Over a century ago, someone placed two black-and-white photos behind a wall in what’s now the Finnies’ son’s room. The photos are splotchy, but clearly show front and back views of one of the area’s earliest homes, then still unconnected to Edmonton and to the history to come.
“It’s hard to do things the way we do them,” Brett admits. “The easy thing to do is tear down and rebuild — you have set plans, you know what you’re working with, and it’s fast. But something like this, it’s about balancing your ethics and morals with the property and the job, and what you want to leave behind to your community, your kids, your colleagues, and the city at large.”
This article appears in the May 2025 issue of Edify
