Inside her “little country cottage,” Paddy Bowen sits on a plush green sofa, a steaming cup of tea on the coffee table.
Her favourite books, along with medieval-style tapestries, line the walls of the home. It’s furnished with antiques from her parents’ place in Ottawa and Facebook Marketplace finds, an “idiosyncratic style” she calls “grandmillennial.”
The devoted grandmother prizes her independence, but she also wants to help her family out with child care. Luckily, it’s about a 30-second walk to them. Her home is literally in her daughter’s backyard.
“I have everything I need,” said the retired charity executive. Her daughter Elisabeth rushes in and hands off three-month-old John, wrapped in a colourful patchwork quilt, to Bowen so she can deal with some water in her basement.
“I’m very cosy.”
Bowen built her garden suite from the ground up after co-buying the Etobicoke lot with her daughter and son-in-law in December 2024. The couple lives in the main detached home, which — at $1.3 million — they could not have afforded alone.
But this is not your grandmother’s granny flat. At around 960 square feet, two storeys, two bedrooms, and two-and-a-half baths, plus a Harry Potter-style cupboard under the stairs for extra storage, her “cottage” doesn’t exactly feel like a tiny home. Especially in Toronto, where a condo that size would be considered spacious.
And she built it for less than $300,000.
Some garden suites, which have been allowed in Toronto without having to get special permissions since 2022, may look straight out of the pages of Architectural Digest, with sleek interiors, high-end finishes and multimillion-dollar price tags. But Bowen’s represents a more attainable everywoman path. An affordable build that gives a senior like her a way to stay connected to family, and millennials a path to home ownership in a city where those costs have risen far above what most people make.
The total for her to co-purchase the land and build the suite came in at under $400,000, as she contributed $100,000 for the family’s down payment on the property. She also now pays $2,000 a month toward the mortgage.
“I’m like a poster child for doing this,” Bowen said. “I’m not living in a trailer in the backyard or anything, I’m in a real little house.”
Her dog Lily sits quietly beside her, and somewhere her two cats Bridget and Seamus are hiding.
In a cabinet in the living room are urns containing the ashes of beloved pets she’s had over the years.
Bowen had to toss a lot of stuff when she moved from her home in Brighton, Ont., near Belleville. But she held on to the urns, as well as heirlooms, including her family crest, done by Robert-Ralph Carmichael, the same artist who designed the loonie, which she proudly displays in the living room. In the kitchen is a treasured photo collage of family pictures, with a portrait of her mother, who served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War, at the centre.
Her daughter and son-in-law, both first responders, work shifts, so they knew they would need help with child care when they found out they were expecting almost three years ago.
The family sat down and figured out there were about nine days a month when both mom and dad would be working, around the clock. But with typical daycares closing around 6 p.m., they had to get creative. So they hatched a plan.
Bowen used the equity from the sale of her Brighton home to help with the down payment on the roughly 35-by-110-square-foot lot.
The 68-year-old describes herself as a “planner,” she spent her life designing programs, implementing them, and sticking to a budget. So when it came to her retirement, she wanted to be in control.
She set a budget of $200,000 and got to work.
Bowen had to get building permits from the city, and designed the home herself, with a building inspector coming every step of the way.
While the suite was under construction she lived in the spare bedroom in the main house, which gave her a look into a life she didn’t want. “I don’t want to be Nonna in the corner,” she said.
There were a few surprises, like having to put in bike parking that was required by the city, something she said doesn’t really make sense for her home.
Bowen saved by getting items like bathroom vanities from Facebook Marketplace, and putting a cheerful garden wallpaper panel up behind the kitchen sink instead of a backsplash.
She detailed the budget in a post on Facebook: $12,000 for lumber; $13,000 for electrical and $8,000 for interior plumbing; $7,000 for the roof, for example.
Some things took longer than expected or cost more, and she had a falling out with someone she hired. In the end, the build took about eight months with the total price tag coming in around $280,000.
Still, she’d never have found a home in the neighbourhood for that.
“I feel like I took on this project and it hit some really bumpy bits but the project is done, and I’m set,” she said.
With her own home, she can retreat when she wants to without anyone bothering her for having another cookie.
Her biggest advice is to build a cupboard under the stairs like she did. It’s where she stores all the “spillover stuff,” like a second set of dishes and casseroles. One day she envisions her grandkids playing there.
“You have to be very clever with your space,” Bowen said.
Toronto city council changed bylaws to make it easier to build laneway suites in 2018 in old Toronto and East York, and across the city in 2019. Garden suites followed in 2022.
Since 2018 there have been 1,533 permits issued for laneway and garden suites (as of November 2025).
The most were issued in the downtown ward of University-Rosedale (1,780) and the least in Don Valley North (97). In Bowen’s ward of Etobicoke-Lakeshore there have been 81 permits issued.
Laneway suites can sometimes make a property take longer to sell, because some owners don’t want the responsibility of finding and managing tenants.
But both laneway suites and garden suites can generate rental income and provide housing options.
Noam Hazan, principal of Noam Hazan design studio, who has worked on many secondary suites, said they sometimes go for higher rents, because they feel more like a home and less like an apartment.
“Citizen developers” such as Bowen are becoming more common, especially when there’s a family connection, he said.
Bowen doesn’t have a pension, but got a small one from her husband who died in the summer. She’s “not a rich person,” she said. But because she has no debt and manageable living expenses, she has enough.
With her project finally finished, Bowen can see a little creek, and weeping willow trees from her window.
She’s a five-minute walk to the lake and across from a playground where she can take her grandchildren.
“I’m so blessed,” she said.
