Home Reborn

We had a wonderful experience working with John on our total home renovation and would highly recommend him. He completely transformed our home in just four months, taking on a major renovation that included reconfiguring the layout, installing all new windows, replacing the flooring throughout, renovating all of the washrooms, and creating a beautiful new kitchen. John also expertly managed all of the electrical and plumbing updates, including the replacement of old lead pipes, and knob and tube wiring, which gave us great peace of mind throughout the process. What impressed us most was his meticulous attention to detail and the beautiful quality of his craftsmanship. Every finish was completed to a high standard, and the final result truly exceeded our expectations. John is incredibly knowledgeable, trustworthy, and dependable. He was always on site, worked extremely hard, and never missed a day. He ensured everything stayed on schedule and was completed on time. Just as importantly, every subcontractor John brought into the project was equally professional, dependable, and trustworthy. He managed the entire renovation seamlessly, coordinating all aspects of the work and making what could have been a stressful process feel smooth and well organized. We are so happy with the outcome and would not hesitate to recommend John to anyone looking for a builder who delivers outstanding quality and truly cares about his work. We feel very grateful to have worked with John, no one could have done this project as quickly as he did. We now have our dream home thanks to John!

They say you should never hire a “family friend” to do home renovations, but we’ve known John Hansen for many years both as a friend and as a completely dependable and trustworthy individual who can be relied upon to do excellent work while meeting timelines and budgetary commitments. His company, Home Reborn, had previously renovated two bathrooms in our home, but our most recent project was an extensive ground floor and and kitchen renovation which was quite involved as we wanted to eliminate both a sunken floor feature and a badly positioned structural post in the kitchen which had always compromised the room’s look and functionality. Over the course of several weeks, John and his subcontractors demolished the existing kitchen, levelled up the sunken floor, added a structural beam to eliminate the post, repositioned a large window and patio door to line up with the new floor height, and lastly added a beautiful modern kitchen with site-finished maple floors that perfectly match those in the rest of the house. I should note that all of this was undertaken while my spouse was experiencing a number of health issues which largely restricted them to the ground floor where the work was being performed. John made every effort to keep work areas separate from our personal space and even kept the much-needed ground floor powder room completely functional while it too was being renovated. We are very pleased with our new ground floor and would be happy to recommend Home Reborn to anyone. S. Thomson

We hired Home Reborn in 2024 to build a second-floor addition on our bungalow after speaking with the happy owners of a very similar project on our street who had also trusted Home Reborn for their second-floor addition and full renovation in 2018. Ours was an ambitious project. We wanted a fully open-plan main floor with nine-foot ceilings, nine-foot ceilings on the new second storey, and a contemporary modern farmhouse feel both inside and out. It was important to us that the addition look seamless and thoughtfully designed and that’s exactly what we achieved. John and his crew, along with an excellent team of subcontractors, started on schedule and completed the project within the anticipated timeframe (just over five months!). The work remained within the labour and materials budget outlined in the contract, aside from a few elective upgrades where we chose to exceed allowances. John was always very responsive, professional, and attentive to our questions and concerns throughout the entire process. We’re extremely pleased with the results and would confidently recommend John and Home Reborn to any homeowner planning a major renovation or addition.

We recently completed a project with Home Reborn. It was a great experience beginning to end (see photos John posted re: Toronto Bungalow). We had a lot of starts and stops in our design planning and John stood by patiently until all was in order to proceed with construction. John is extremely hard working and very responsive. He works with a great group of trades people who are equally responsive and conscientious about their work. The project was on time as John only works on one project at a time and is a terrific project manager. If you are in Toronto and looking for a trustworthy, reliable contractor - give John a call! O&S 8 month update: Disappointed with how the work wrapped up - was rushed, lack of attention to detail and no follow up on remediation after we paid in full. Too bad.

A year after Home Reborn tiled our kitchen as part of a renovation, the grout is crumbling and falling out of the tiles in the kitchen that Home Reborn tiled.

We did a major renovation to upgrade our home for the future. Our vision was somewhat atypical, but we are so pleased with our new space. We have many different spaces to spend time with our friends and family, including the beautiful deck and wonderful breakfast nook John built. John did an amazing job on our renovation, both in the work he did himself and through his seamless management of other contractors for the specific work. He was great at providing suggestions and ideas, while also understanding our needs and “must haves”. He was great at letting us know what was happening, what would happen next, and what critical decisions were needed (when to select washroom hardware or furniture, when to pick up paint colour or flooring, when to order windows or appliances, for example). Whenever there was a decision to be made, he would let us know promptly and would provide recommendations based on his extensive experience doing renovations of older homes. It is unreal how hard John worked on our home. He takes pride in his work and his focus on one project at time and seeing it through to completion is fantastic. He preserved the style of our home, keeping with the character of our neighbourhood and improving the functionality of our living space. Beyond what he personally built, from careful finishing touches to floorboards to major steel beam installations, his contractors lovingly took care of railings and drywall. During the renovation, we also discovered that John had done two renovation projects for a work colleague, so that shows that he is trusted, reliable and has a great reputation!

We engaged John in 2023 to complete a roughly 12'x16' extension of both our basement and ground floor; the project also included the complete renovation of the ground floor kitchen & living room, the creation of a new mud room, the redo of our small master bath and the rebuild of the exterior back deck to the top of the new addition. If you want a project on time and on budget, John is your guy. This was echo'ed by his previous clients who we had met prior to engaging him. Our entire project was completed in 4 months (3 months when excluding exterior demolition and excavation for new foundation), almost to the day, in line with our contract. This was a timeline that many acquaintances and professionals considered aggressive at the outset. Due to the tight timeline, we did need to be on top of any requests for decisions & materials by providing very quick turnarounds. Any increases to the originally estimated cost were due to allowances where we purposely selected upgraded materials or added scope (thanks for the extra master build-in closet!). He also made suggestions throughout the life of the project where we could be more cost efficient and remain within our budget - this was very appreciated. Additional pros: maintaining good lines of communication not only with us but also with our neighbors, IKEA wizard and strong relationships with subtrades - those we met were respectful and also great to work with. If we ever needed another project done (which we won't for a long time since we are so in love with our "new" house), we will go directly to John and not even bother with any other quotes. He is the type of contractor that you want to wait for, even if it means postponing your project to get onto his list.

We hired John and his team at Home Reborn to complete a major interior renovation of our 100-year-old semidetached home in Toronto. This was our first experience with home renovation and we are so pleased to have had John's expert guidance throughout our project. What really makes this company stand out from the pack is the commitment to complete one project at a time. It was so reassuring to know that all efforts would be focused on ensuring we would be able to move back in with our family on the timelines we had planned for. We were kept up to date on their progress, and John and his team were available and responsive whenever we had questions and concerns. John was patient in explaining so many aspects of the process and he offered many helpful pieces of advice that enhanced the final project. While not everything in a project is within his control, one of John's exceptional strengths is anticipating issues and coordinating the trades to ensure the project continues to advance every day and there is no real downtime. John's commitment to the promised timelines was obvious, and he was personally on site almost every day. With so much forward momentum, things moved quickly; one piece of advice I would offer for other homeowners working with Home Reborn is to do your best to pick your fixtures and finishes with lead time in advance! When we found it difficult to parse the available options, we benefited from John's experience and advice regarding readily available quality options, pros and cons of different choices, and tips on where to save and where to consider splurging. One might worry that with this focus on speed, there would be a trade-off in terms of the quality of the work. We did not find this to be the case! Our project was completed between January and May 2022, and we have now lived in our renovated home for over six months. We are pleased to confirm the quality of the work overall seems great. Moreover, when we did have an unexpected issue recently arise (a small leak during an exceptionally long and heavy rainstorm), we called John and he came over immediately to assess the issue. He went out on the roof himself in the wind and rain to create a temporary fix, and had the relevant subtrade back to our house to do a complete repair within a matter of days (before the next rainfall). John took responsibility and helped us to resolve the issue, and then came back himself to touch up the paint inside. While he was here addressing the touch up, he noticed another small area that could benefit from some added caulking. He took it upon himself to correct that issue when we had not even noticed it. This speaks to John's attention to detail as well as his integrity. We are so pleased with our newly "reborn" old home. The design is so much more functional for our family, and we and our children will be enjoying it for years to come. Thank you John and team.

Our project was a large, 2-storey addition plus basement as well as interior gut. John and Home Reborn started right on time in Sept, 2021 and finished as scheduled in January, 2022, and on budget. This was done despite some COVID-related supply chain delays for a critical path item - flooring! I'm going to try to keep this brief, but we are so insanely obsessed with our reborn home that will probably be difficult: John was great to work with from start to finish. We knew going in we wanted a "one project at a time" contractor - someone that was only working on our project until it was done. No split attention. This is John's fundamental principle and his dedication to our project - and only our project - was evident. He was on site every single day until the job was done, working tirelessly himself or making sure subs were on schedule (or often both). John has an incredible attention to detail that reflects not only in his work with clients but also his ability to anticipate and plan for every detail of your project. This proved fundamental in mitigating delays. I was often impressed with his ability to coordinate trades, ensuring not a minute is wasted or otherwise pivot planning where circumstances were beyond control. This is all without compromise to quality. John also has an incredible design sense. This came as an added bonus to his obvious skill set at a GC, as he sometimes was a sounding board for design ideas. He also offered up some key suggestions along the way that we had not even thought of and made the end result that much better! Basically, he knows how a home will function when he's done with it, sometimes even better than we did, and wants to maximize that functionality for his clients. I know many people who have nightmare stories with contractors. I am happy to say we are not one of them and are so grateful we found Home Reborn!

Our project started in Sept. 2020 and we moved back in Jan. 2021. It was substantial. We removed our A frame roof, attic and chimney. It was replaced with a living space that includes a master bedroom, an office, a bathroom and a walk-in closet. We also replaced our flooring throughout, remodeled our kitchen and have a new porch that was heavily used during warmer weather. John estimated that the project would take 4 months. When we shared our project and the estimate with others, we were often told to prepare for at least 6 months and that we were getting an aggressive estimate. We were extremely pleased to move back into our home 4 months to the day. John's strategy is to focus on one and only one project and I don't understand why other GCs don't use this tactic. We were pleased to connect with John as he is at the pinnacle of his career, delivering with right amount of energy and experience. He was always exploring options for us. He guided us through the process so that we understood where we needed to focus and other opportunities for us to explore cost saving options. John would always find ways to optimize his team's time, from the demolition, framing, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, roofing, siding and all the other trades in between. There was never a weekday that went by without activity that moved us closer to the finish line. He is very responsive by text messages and this is his best method of communication. He is proactive in resolving issues, whether they are with the build, the invoicing or other matters in the project. There were understandable supply chain issues that we had to endure, but all told, we were able to move back into our functional home. We had a list of items to resolve after our move in and John resolved them all. John will own your project and see it through to the end. If you are ready to work in a fast paced project and supply John and his team with the items that are needed in a timely way, then I strongly recommend that you work with him to achieve your Home Reborn.

We were so happy that we had Home Reborn renovate our ground floor. This was our first major renovation and we were nervous about staying on time and budget. From day one, we felt that we were in very good hands with John and his team. Throughout the process he went above and beyond to make sure that we understood all of our design and structural options, and to ensure that we loved the finished product. He and his team were extremely professional, reliable and meticulous in providing a result that exceeded our expectations. We lived through the renovation, so it was important for us to finish the project quickly. John and his team stuck to the original timeline provided, even though we had some surprises with live knob and tube wiring, and wanted to make some improvements in the heating ductwork for our main bedroom upstairs. Even with those additional tasks, the project was completed in exactly one month (save for the kitchen counters and tiled backsplash, which were installed in a day about two weeks after completion of the main project - but we had a complete, useable kitchen the meantime). The crew were very considerate about keeping a clean workspace (as much as you can be for a major renovation:)). He also stuck to the original budget, and was upfront about any incremental costs out of the original scope of work. He tracked expenses with a detailed spreadsheet that was emailed to us promptly after each progress payment. We also really valued John’s design input. He provided us with advice that helped ensure we ended up with a kitchen we love. We would strongly recommend John and his team and would definitely hire him for any future renovations.

So glad that Home ReBorn renovated my 20 year old outdated kitchen, 2 bathrooms and powder room. After bathrooms demoed, lots of care taken to ensure that prep work (framing, electrical, plumbing, flooring, waterproofing, etc.) done properly, before new fixtures installed. The master bath with tub, and 2nd bath with shower & bench was completed in approx. 3 weeks. Then kitchen and powder room demoed, with 2 layers of floor tile removed, and attractive new tile installed that is level with the main floor. Kitchen was completed with new pot lights, under counter lights, new floor tile, new cabinets/quartz countertops, improved waste water drainage, new "pantry wall" added, also in approx. 3 weeks, despite some delays due to supply chain issues and some drawer fronts "not in stock". John is hard working, energetic, accommodating, with lots of experience, gave excellent advice and tirelessly answered many questions. He and team are reliable, responsible, professional, helpful and the workmanship excellent. Work was completed on time, and on budget. Highly recommended and a HUGE thank you to John and team!