WHO: Lynn Manwar, 34, recruitment director, job developer and festival volunteer coordinator; Dulcie Manwar, mom, 73; Sue Manwar, 56, aunt.

WHAT: Lynn owns a junior one-bedroom, 567-square-foot condo near the Eaton Centre, but is renting it out and living in her three-bedroom, 2,000-square-foot family home to save money for the two-bedroom condo in Etobicoke she purchased last year (which won’t be ready for three years).

WHERE: Danforth and Donlands.

HOW LONG: Lynn has been living at home for seven months; her mother has owned the house since 1975.

FAVOURITE THING(S): “I love shopping on the Danforth,” Lynn says of the neighbourhood she grew up in. “My favourite bakery is called Acropolis Pastries & Pies (708 Danforth). It’s more like a restaurant and I purchase my cheese pies and baklava there.” She also appreciates the access to her mother’s home-cooked food.

THE STORY: Since 2006, Lynn has kept vision boards — collages of images and phrases that represent her goals and desires, inspired by the self-motivational theory that you attract into your life whatever you think about.

On her 2007 board, she pasted a cut-out picture of a waterfront condo. She made this a goal during a complimentary life-coach session that a friend gave last October. “And less than a month later, I purchased a two-bedroom condo in Etobicoke on the waterfront,” she says proudly over the homemade Trinidadian black cake offered by Dulcie.

In the meantime, Lynn is happy to be living back at home with her mother and aunt. Sitting at the dining room table — covered in ivory linen protected by clear plastic — she admits that little has changed in the three-level home since they first moved in.

This includes the kitchen’s honey-oak cabinets, yellow fridge and stove; the dining room’s buffet filled with glassware, crystal and cake plates; the living room’s country-­
floral couch; a hand-painted portrait of a 30-year-old Dulcie with a beehive hairstyle; and the basement’s prayer room that has a shelf covered in tinfoil filled with framed Hindu gods and goddesses, burning candles, beads and flowers.

Having recently received a complete makeover in an episode of W Network’s Style by Jury, Lynn has overcome a debilitating three-year bout with arthritis as well as an early-20s occurrence of cancer to go on to create her own recruitment agency, Talent Detective, and Charitytalent.com, an online job board for non-profits and charities to recruit staff that came directly from her own struggle to find volunteers for festivals like Pride, Reel World and the Junction Arts.

“I think that [my volunteer work] was my remedy to deal with those [health] situations,” she says. “Getting involved with community so I [could] always [have] something to look forward to.”

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