Archive for category decorating
Before & After Photos
Posted by Brian in bathroom, bedroom, decorating, diy, finished, floor plans, interior, kitchen, living room, photos, renovations, small spaces on May 25, 2012
It’s been a long time since we’ve done some updates, we’ve been living comfortable for over a year now since the major renovations took place. Â In that time we’ve put the house on the market for 2 weeks showed it to 20+ potential buyers, decided not to sell, then put our apartment up for rent on Kijiji, showed it to several potential tenants then decided not to move, and finally decided to do some more renovations. Â We’re sticking it out a while longer and have some smaller renovations to do this coming summer. Â The next couple of weeks will involve building a small backyard, and new deck with roof for the back entrance (our main entrance), this will provide us a bit of outdoor space to relax in the summer. Â Following those renovations we’re planning to finish up the kitchen (backsplash and pot rack). Â Here are some before & after photos of our apartment, not everything is finished, but pretty close. Â Thanks to everyone that helped us get to this!
Bedroom almost finished.. moving in tomorrow
Posted by Brian in bedroom, decorating, diy, interior, photos, small spaces on January 22, 2011
I spent the day building a closet organizer today, putting in some baseboards, and installing one of the set of  blinds we purchased on Thursday from blinds to go.  Just have to put some closet doors on, and a finishing baseboard around the room and the bedroom should be finished.  We had the floors finished 2 weeks ago through out and they look fantastic.. the patches of new flooring don’t exactly blend in, but hopefully over time they start to mesh with the old.  The bathroom is also almost done, we just have to mount the shower and install 2 pot lights.  Our art studio/2nd bedroom is also finished (minus the baseboards), the living room still needs to be wallpapered and baseboarded, then there’s the kitchen.. not quite there yet.  We probably have 2 more weeks and 2 weekends of work to go on the kitchen before we’re ready to get the granite guys in.. now that I’ve put a timeline on it, it will probably be 4 weeks.  Either way we’re partly moving in tomorrow (bed, clothes, food, kitties, xbox) and commencing life in the new house..  Photos of the bedroom almost there but still empty:
Painting and Tiling!
We had a big push over the new years long weekend, and most of Christmas break, which resulted in getting a lot of work done! It’s so time consuming every little detail takes about 3x longer than you would expect it to, if not more! Â We started tiling in the bathroom, my mom and uncle roger got a couple of the granite pieces down as well as one of the walls of subway tile, and a start on another 2 walls. Â In the other rooms, Ilona, Rob, my sister and myself got to work painting the master bedroom and the hallway. Â We decided to go with hot pink for our closet, believe it or not I actually like it, I think it will look pretty cool as a colour that peeks through our closet organizer and clothes. Â Next Monday the hardwood guys come in to do the floors, after that we’ll have the kitchen floor to lay, the cabinet for the washer dryer to build, and to get the granite guys in to measure for the counter tops. Â I think we might actually be in by the end of the month!
So what do you think of the closet? Â (and no jokes about me coming out of it)
Kitchen colours, custom molding and pot lights!
Posted by Brian in decorating, interior, kitchen, photos on November 7, 2010
It’s been a busy week since the last post, we’ve had lots of help from friends and family, and are finally starting to do some finishing touches. Â Last blog post we had just had the drywallers in, or coming in, to tape, mud and sand the drywall we had put up. Â Since then, last week (for back to back nights) Alex and Danny came and helped us paint, as well as Rob who helped us with painting and installing our own molding along the ceiling.
Since our ceilings and walls are so crooked and the plaster is so old, we’re unable to finish the corners where the walls meet the ceiling. Â Crown molding apparently requires relatively straight ceilings, so we decided to create our own “crown molding” out of 3 different pieces of wood/molding tacked together which allowed us to use slightly more flexible wood, and save some money at the same time.
Sunday afternoon we continued putting up some of the molding, and also installed the potlights in the kitchen, Ilona was definitely much quicker at installing the lights than I was, and it was really nice to finally see some finishing touches being added. Â We still have a long ways to go, but the next update might also be just as colourful.
Wallpapers
Posted by Ilona in decorating, interior on October 25, 2010
So Brian and I want to do something cool with the worst wall in the house.. its cracked and wavy with bubbles and lumps.. we thought some interesting wallpaper would take away from the major flaws, and add some dimension and style to the room. After some research i found these beauties on 2 websites, flavorleague.com and wallpaperstore.com. Its gonna be tough to decide which one will grace our living room wall!!
Mid weekend update
Posted by Brian in bathroom, bedroom, decorating, interior, kitchen, photos, renovations on October 16, 2010
We’re a little behind schedule, but things are still moving along. Â We had a contractor come in last week to put up a beam to support our tenants kitchen, which was above ours, and was being supported by a wall resting directly on unsupported floor joists beneath our kitchen. Â We took down that extra wall which was the plan all along and it really opened up the space. Â We spent 12 hours at the house today, finished gutting the living room, and we’re finally starting some construction in there. Â At 8pm tonight my dad and I finished putting up roxul sound/fire proof insulation in the ceiling. Â The bathroom is completely gutted and hopefully this week we’ll get to work building that out. Â Really too tired, and still feeling under the weather to have much more to say. Â One nice note is the wood trim around the doors/windows appears to have beautiful wood underneath as you can see from one of the photos in this post. Â Also we ordered our cabinets today, and tomorrow we’ll start wiring the internet/home theatre etc.
Beds with storage – small space solutions
Posted by Brian in decorating, furniture, interior, small spaces on September 9, 2010
We’ve been starting to look at some good solutions for small spaces, and one of the ideas we came up with were beds with storage underneath them. Â Actual built in storage, rather than just cramming everything and anything under the bed, the prices and style vary depending on where you look, from $300 at Ikea, to well over $1000 at Leons. Â The brick seems to have a decent selection, although I’m sure with a few visits to a couple of other stores we could definitely find something that we both really like. Â Having drawers under the bed could be great for all our extra linens, pillows, and towels. Â Here are a few of the beds we’ve found so far:
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