With a self-built home in Tobiano, a booming architecture business and a baby on the way, TRU alum Sean Bulman’s (ARET ’14, BA ’16) journey has taken him a long way from his Ontario origins.
Growing up in a small city north of Toronto, Bulman first heard of TRU in high school at a university fair.
“TRU had a booth at the fair and they talked about the architecture and engineering program,” he says. “I knew I wanted to get into architecture, but a lot of the Ontario-based programs are very art-based. The program at TRU sounded a little bit more technical and included the engineering side. For me, it sounded pretty good.”
Shortly after graduating from high school that June, Bulman and a friend headed west. As soon as he set foot in Kamloops, Bulman felt right at home.
“Even though it’s a big town, it kind of has a small town feel with how people know each other,” he says. “It just felt right.”
Early on, Bulman was a man with a plan. He chose his high school because they had a drafting program, then enrolled at TRU intending to ladder his diploma into a degree in architecture before completing his master’s degree to become an architect. Very quickly, he realized he could accomplish his goals another way.
“I learned in my first year that I didn’t actually need my master’s to work in the residential side of design,” he said.
Bulman focussed on learning all he could about residential building — from both the design perspective and the construction side. Over the course of his time at TRU, he gained classroom skills as well as hands on experience working for a couple different construction companies. He also built his first home with his wife, Chloe Johnson-Bulman, and the help of her father, who was a local home inspector at the time.
TRU alumni Sean Bulman (ARET ’14, BA ’16) and Chloe Johnson-Bulman (BA ’17, BEd ’20, MEd ’23).
Award-winning design
The couple’s new house also became the location of their custom home design company Bulman Designs. Within a five-year span, Bulman completed his diploma and a degree, fell in love, built his first home and started his entrepreneurial journey. Now, nearly a decade into his career, he hasn’t slowed down. In 2019, Bulman took first place in a residential design contest and in 2022, he was a finalist for the Kamloops and District Chamber of Commerce Young Entrepreneur of the Year and a Canadian Home Builders Association Central Interior Keystone award winner.
Bulman works directly with clients — developers and individuals — to design and create blueprints for custom homes. They come to him with inspirational material in hand, usually after purchasing a building lot, and together they discuss first steps. He describes his style as a mix of modern and craftsman and says keeping the views Kamloops is famous for in mind is always a priority. The whole process from concept to build varies but can take anywhere from 10 months to a year and a half. Bulman worked on designs for homes throughout the area, but lately much of his focus has been on developing Tobiano.
“Over the last six or seven years, I think I’ve designed up to about 60 per cent of the houses in Tobiano,” he says. “At any time, I’ve probably got anywhere from five to 15 projects on the go.”
With so much time spent working in Tobiano, Bulman and Johnson-Bulman decided it made sense to live there, so they built their third house together in the resort community west of Kamloops, where they live with their dog, Dusty. Also a TRU alum, Johnson-Bulman has a BA in psychology (’17), a BEd (’20) and a MEd (’23). She teaches elementary school children in Savona, a short distance away from their home. The couple will welcome their first child to the family early in 2025.
