Making what was old new again clearly appealed to voters for the 2025 People’s Choice Award. This year’s winner of the coveted award is a renovated 1950s bungalow, although calling the project by RND Construction a “reno” hardly seems to do the job justice. Maybe a “reimaging” would better describe the transformation of the dated bungalow into a stylish, bright, open-concept home with a singular loft above the living room and a remarkable level of energy efficiency.
The project won the People’s Choice Award sponsored by All Things Home at the recent Housing Design Awards organized by the Greater Ottawa Home Builders’ Association.
The award is the only one voted on by the public. As always, the 2025 iteration showcased a range of finalists, from production and custom homes to kitchen and bathroom makeovers, and a variety of esthetics, from traditional and heritage to contemporary.
This year’s 15 competitors were drawn from finalists in the prestige categories of the 2025 Housing Design Awards: production builder of the year, custom builder of the year, designer of the year and renovator of the year.
Voting for the People’s Choice winner took place online and at the Fall Home Show.
MORE: Check out the 15 finalists for the 2025 People’s Choice Award
“The People’s Choice Award is especially meaningful for RND because it represents recognition directly from the public, the people who experience, appreciate and value our work firsthand,” says RND president Roy Nandram. RND, an Ottawa leader in green building. “Unlike judged awards that focus on technical or design criteria, this one reflects community approval and emotional connection.”
RND has won the award twice in the past, most recently in 2014. The company is also a regular award winner at the national, provincial and local levels and took home three other trophies at this year’s Ottawa Housing Design Awards, one of them for the same home that captured the People’s Choice prize.
Sustainability + style
“Get sustainability with style” is RND’s tagline, and it applies in the case of the award-winning bungalow.
The style part starts on the exterior of the home, which Nandram says had good bones but needed a “serious renovation.” The owners bought it with the goal of modernizing and making it look new.
Two new peaked roofs, a staggered front elevation, warm cladding, natural materials and an overall contemporary feel establish the home as unique and break up its previous, mid-century linearity.
The original roof was also reconfigured and reoriented to allow for the addition of solar panels, part of an overall net zero plan for the home.
New landscaping and a generous front porch connect the reimagined home with the street while raised vegetable beds running along the property line underscore the concern with the natural world.
Inside, kitchen, dining and living areas flow one into the other, with the vaulted ceiling punctuated with skylights and expansive windows enhancing the sense of spaciousness, airiness and calm that RND built into the design. Warm wood tones, clean lines and a massive stone fireplace add to the home’s welcoming vibe, with the fireplace providing a visual anchor to the main living area and connecting with the natural elements on the exterior.
Minimalism defines the kitchen with its large porcelain tiles, elegant cabinetry and patio door leading to the backyard.
Above the living room hovers a fun, unexpected feature: a flexible steel net that serves as a loft designed for the family’s children but, also incorporating a TV, is used and enjoyed by the whole family and visitors alike — it’s “part treehouse, part media zone, part art installation… and a vertical expansion of family life” in the words of RND’s written submission to the Housing Design Awards.
The idea for the loft came from the homeowners who had seen something similar in the past, says Nandram. “They asked us, ‘Can you guys do this?’” Tied into a concealed steel beam structure, the net can support half a dozen or more people and has a glass guardrail for safety.
“It’s like creating a room with very little space (to do it in),” says Nandram. He points out that a parent can be preparing a meal while easily keeping an eye on the young ones horsing around in the loft.
The lower level has also been remade and is now a bright home gym, while the backyard is a private retreat with a pool, hot tub, lounge areas and a barbecue deck.
MORE: The record-setting 2025 Housing Design Awards
Along with style, sustainability was central to the renovation of the home, which was part of the 2024 RenoTour Parade of Homes.
Currently certified net zero ready, the home is a beacon of energy efficiency. A complete re-do of the building envelop — including increased insulation, better air sealing and high-performance windows — coupled with an air-source heat pump have slashed the home’s greenhouse gas emissions from 5.6 to 1.2 tons per year.
“The air quality is amazing,” says Nandram, thanks to an energy recovery ventilator, reduced moisture in the home and other innovations.
The home is now 47 per cent more efficient than a similar new home built to the Ontario Building Code.
Much of Ontario’s housing stock is aging, but RND’s award-winning project shows the potential many older homes still possess.
“I think people see this as being a realistic renovation,” says Nandram. “People have an older bungalow and imagine, ‘I can make it look like this.’”
And if a homeowner can’t afford a total makeover all at once, go for incremental improvements, he suggests.
“Start working with the envelope because it’s the best bang for your buck: windows, exterior insulation, sealing it. The heating system isn’t important because if you reduce the heat loss then the heating system is fine, unless it’s really bad — that could be one thing you change down the road. Figuring out the complete building envelope will make the house much more comfortable and durable.”
