Christopher Guest and Lichia Liu were strolling the streets of East York in the summer of 2015, dreaming of finding their perfect work-live space.

The two were engaged to be married and keen to buy a building that could double as a studio-shop for Gotamago, Liu’s stationery and gifts brand, as well as a home to begin their new life together.

At the corner of Woodbine and Mortimer Aves. they stumbled upon a run-down, two-storey building painted wasabi green with a “For Sale” sign in the window. It had been a fast-food restaurant that went bankrupt and all the cooking equipment sat idle inside, old grease left to rot in the deep fryers.

“We were like, ‘Ugh, it’s so ugly, who would ever buy that?!” recalls Guest, 41, a video editor. “We looked through the window and it was so gross!”

“The windows weren’t actually windows, just a piece of glass with some trim holding them in!” adds Liu, 33.

If someone had told them this would be the site of their wedding the following year — and the home they would be bringing their first child into — they would have laughed them off the block.

They walked away, barely giving the big green building another thought, and continued with their hunt. Liu and Guest spent months becoming more and more disillusioned by Toronto’s competitive real-estate market, and even started looking at residential properties, ready to give up on their dream of a work/live space. After being outbid by $300,000 for a bungalow, they said enough is enough.

“We got to the point where we thought this place wasn’t such a bad deal, after all,” says Guest, sitting inside “The Green Beast,” the nickname the couple now have for the 100-year-old building they have completely transformed.

The building had been listed for $650,000, but since it sat on the market for 18 months, Guest and Liu put in a lowball offer of $500,000. The parties eventually settled on $540,000.

Possession took place in December of 2015 and the couple set a modest renovation budget of $100,000. “We set the budget in the dark!” says Guest, who laughs and adds they’ve already spent $150,000 and counting. “It was a horror show,” he says.

The roof had to be redone, the foundation needed to be reinforced and there had been a lot of water damage. Over the years, the building had been totally neglected; the couple found ads from the 1930s on old broken pieces of glass in the support ledge underneath the replacement windows. “The front windows were propped up by the old windows,” says Liu.

They set out to overhaul the main floor and upstairs levels, leaving the basement as command central for the massive construction project. They decided to switch from expensive commercial gas heating to electric after sourcing a company in Quebec that refurbishes and electrifies old radiators. They removed the asbestos from the basement, took down the chimney and added a new $15,000 roof.

Guest acted as the general contractor, and learned as he worked alongside the many tradespeople hired for specific tasks. Since his father worked in construction, he came and helped out, too, as did Liu when she wasn’t busy running her own business.

By last June, studio renovations were completed and in October they opened the doors to Gotamago’s storefront, the company Liu first started years ago as a hobby on etsy.com. She now employs four part-time employees who work out of the shop.

Since Liu previously worked as an urban designer, the couple drafted and designed the renovation plans themselves. They put in an exposed brick feature wall along the whole length of the studio, painted the original tin ceiling white and added several eclectic hanging light fixtures, all of which work together to brighten and warm the space.

Liu is thrilled to finally have the large studio to keep her extensive greeting-card inventory organized, after the supplies had begun to overtake her downtown bachelorette pad. (She is keeping her condo to rent out, while Guest sold his to help fund their joint venture.)

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The upstairs level has been reconfigured, as well; gone are the three tiny bedrooms which had been used as low-income rentals and in their place is one large, bright master bedroom with windows overlooking Woodbine Ave. For added natural light, transom windows have been incorporated into the bedroom and bathroom, which also features sun tunnels. New windows have been added along the wall of the modern kitchen they put in upstairs, as well.

Last September, the couple invited 60 of their closest friends and family to their intimate wedding inside the studio space, with the dinner reception held under a white tent in the parking lot at the back of the building.

“It felt right, like this was supposed to have happened all along,” says Liu. “We jokingly called the wedding celebration a ‘Housewarming’ on the invite, because to us that’s what it was, a day of celebration with family and friends in the house that we have been breathing life back into.”

The couple are now eagerly expecting the arrival of a baby girl on July 1 and while the crib will stay in their bedroom for awhile, they’re already making long-term plans to accommodate their growing family. Adding a third storey with another three bedrooms is next on their to-do list.

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NUMBERS BAR:

60: number of years the building was a local pharmacy

750: square footage on each floor, including the unfinished basement

40 per cent: amount they had to put down on the mortgage, since it was a commercial property

Countless: Neighbours who have come into the store to thank the couple for giving the building a new lease on life

2: number of dead rats found during renovations

6: number of new holes punched through the building (three windows, two solar tubes, one door)

15: number of minutes it takes to walk to the Danforth

6: number of trips to ReStore (Habitat for Humanity) and the Salvage Shop to find old doors

43: number of new LED pot lights installed throughout the building