It started with a pair of work boots.
My fascination with renovations may have started at four years old, when I tried to fill my Grandfather’s very large work boots and discovered just how much bigger they were than my feet.
By ten, I was delivering flyers around the Danforth for my Grandfather’s company, Active Contractors, earning five cents for every flyer delivered. By twelve, I was parging foundations.
That summer, my Grandfather managed to fire me about once a week—mostly because of my sense of humour. But every time I got fired, the next morning the phone would ring.
“Where are you? Why aren’t you ready for work?”
Apparently, getting fired wasn’t going to stop me from showing up for work.
By fifteen, I was shovelling gravel while my grandfather reminded me, “Your Grandmother can dig faster than you.”
I was learning the trade the old-fashioned way: by watching, doing, making mistakes, and figuring things out.
In high school, I started working for my Uncle, Paul Napolitano, at Royal Home Improvements, delivering flyers around Bloor West Village and helping clean and organize the office on weekends. My Mother was the General Manager there, so renovation was very much a family affair.
After high school, I was torn between continuing my education in design and accepting a full-time offer from my Uncle. He convinced me to join him, and that decision shaped most of my career.
Over the years, I worked for and alongside him, learning just about every side of the renovation business. I started with the hands-on work, then moved into estimating, customer service, administration, accounting, marketing and project management. Eventually, I became a Senior Project Manager and then Operations Manager.
I learned that renovating a home isn’t just about knowing how to build things. It’s about knowing how to plan, how to solve problems when things don’t go according to plan, how to communicate with clients, and how to pay attention to the details that make the difference between a job that’s simply finished and one that’s done properly.
I even spent time at the radio studio when my Uncle was on air for Saturday Seniors. Sometimes I’d hear his voice coming through the radio while I was out running errands. Looking back, renovation wasn’t just the work I was doing—it was the environment I grew up in.
Nearly forty years later
That experience is what shaped the renovator I am today.
After nearly four decades in the renovation trade, I bring a lot of experience to every Home Perspectives project—but I also know that experience doesn’t mean much if you can’t put it to work for the person whose home you’re renovating.
My approach is straightforward: listen to what you want, give you honest answers, plan carefully, do good work, and deal with problems when they arise instead of pretending they don’t exist.
And after all these years, I still enjoy the work.
I still like figuring things out. I still like seeing a space come together. And I still believe there’s room for a good laugh along the way.
That’s Home Perspectives.
