“I’ve owned a home and I’ve rented, and I’ll take renting every time”

Who: Sam Tibshirani, 33 Space: A 900-square-foot two-bedroom apartment in Downtown Yonge East Rent: $3,750 Years spent renting: Five

When I was in my mid-20s, I bought a three-bedroom Victorian row house in Hamilton. I’d saved up by living at my mom’s place in Mississauga, and she loaned me half the downpayment. It was a classic starter home—built in 1899 and needing a lot of love. I re-painted the interior and exterior, gutted the kitchen and upstairs bathroom, got all new appliances and restored the original staircase. The plan was to fix what I could, live there for several years and eventually trade up for another house.

Then, in 2021, I got a job at an interior design firm in Toronto. I sold my place and moved into a one-bedroom apartment at King and Shaw. I could have bought again, but I wanted to get a feel for the city before committing to a neighbourhood. And I was hesitant to become a homeowner again. My old row house had been great, but it came with a lot of unforeseen expenses: it needed a new furnace and a new AC unit, and at one point, I had to pay to get a dead tree removed. By 2023, I had fallen in love, and my partner and I decided to test-run living together before locking in on a mortgage. We wanted a decent amount of space, so we moved into a two-storey, two-bed, three-bath townhouse near Jarvis and Adelaide. It has 12-foot ceilings on the main floor and large windows that flood the space with light.

Our expenses as renters are predictable. Hydro and parking are included in our rent, and we have no home ownership headaches. I’m a self-employed designer who manages large-scale renovations and deals with contractors every day at work, so I’m happy to pass maintenance and repair issues off to my landlord in my personal life. I do love a DIY project, though. When we moved in, the walls were the colour of bile, so we painted them a warm white. We transformed the chocolate-brown kitchen cabinets with a few coats of olive green and replaced the builder-grade brushed nickel hardware with brass knobs I found on Facebook Marketplace. I jazzed up the powder room by painting it blue, installing thrifted café curtains to hide the exposed plumbing under the sink and hanging an antique double-swag pendant light.

A lot of the original artwork and furniture throughout our place comes from my late grandmother. I inherited her coffee table, entryway rug, dining table and chairs. Her paintings are on display above our kitchen cabinets, alongside a portion of my massive collection of pottery that I’ve thrifted from antique markets to use in shoots. The rest are in a vintage hutch that guests always comment on. To balance out the grandma-chic, I pair my antiques with contemporary pieces, including rugs I bought on a trip to Morocco and a steel-and-glass credenza that houses my vinyl collection.

My partner and I have no desire to be home­owners. I’ve done that. Now, I want the freedom to move around. I miss living in the west end and sometimes think about moving back there. It’s closer to friends, and it’s easier to jump on the Gardiner to go visit my family in the suburbs. Who knows? I might even drop everything and travel for a year. As a renter, I can.