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tales of a DIYer: living through a reno

Wednesday, May 16th, 2012

Remember that bathroom we just gutted and re-did?

Well, in case you didn’t know, that’s the only bathroom in our little pad. Yes, there is technically a second bathroom downstairs, but it’s in the basement apartment that we rent out to a tenant… so although it’s “ours”, it’s not really ours. Luckily it’s just the hubs and I – no kids, roommates, or other family/friends living with us, but still, being a one-bathroom household has it’s challenges. Case in point? When you want to renovate it.

I had a few people ask me how we coped with this during our reno, so thought I would give you a bit of an idea of some of our strategies, in case you are planning something similar in your pad.

So first off was to do some really careful planning. We timed the beginning of our reno – the demolition and removal of the bathtub when our tenant was going to be away for a weekend. This meant that we could turn the water off, make a lot of really loud noise, and (thanks to having a REALLY great tenant), use her shower at the end of the day when we were covered in dust and debris. We also planned to have our plumbing slash handyman extroadinaire friend give us a hand that weekend. The boys worked long, long hours to get the plumbing done and the new tub in. So come Sunday night, we had a demo’d room and a tub installed, but not much else.

The week that followed, we would come home from work around 4pm or 5pm, have a very quick bite to eat, and then go to work on the bathroom until 10pm or so. For those first couple of days, I showered at the gym and Dan went over and used some friends’ showers in the evening (not just because he was sweaty, but because usually he was covered in tile-cutter dust/water). We did this for a few days, but it got old. Fast. So we went and got some heavy duty plastic (it comes in a roll) from Home Depot. It’s probably usually used for painting, like a heavy drop-sheet, but we stapled it up to the drywall around the tub. Our tub was in and the plumbing was working, but we hadn’t finished the tiling around the tub. Yay – showers! They were sort of grimey showers, but showers nonetheless. We plowed through the tiling and got the bathtub all finished at the end of that second weekend. Once it was done we threw up our old shower curtain liner until we were finished the room.

The other particularly tricky bit was the floor tile. Tiling the floor meant removing the toilet. Removing the toilet meant we would have to pop a squat out in the backyard. No thanks. So again, this had to be really well timed. We chose a weekend day when we could go out and stay at my parents’ place for the night. We got all the floor tile ready and everything prepped, used the toilet for one last time, removed the toilet, and laid the floor tile. Then that night when we were finished, we booted it on out of our pad. The next day when we came back, we did the grouting right away (the tile had set by that time), and then plunked the toilet back down.

Other than those two big things that required some careful planning and timing, the rest was just more annoying than actually a problem. There were tools, tile, garbage, and various project things everywhere. There was dust on every single thing in our little house. Frankly, I’m still dusting. We tried to keep brooms on hand so that we could easily give things a quick sweep every night when it was time to call it quits, and an easily-accessible garbage bin.

Our other strategy was to try to keep all of the bathroom stuff in particular zones. We used the area to the right of our front entryway as a spot for supplies, and we used the office/guest bedroom as a spot for all of the bathroom furniture/parts and toiletries with no home. That meant we could hang out in our living room or go to sleep in our bedroom and not be surrounded by the clutter.

Our other strategy was to keep a laundry basket at our bedroom door for “reno clothes”. We usually just have a wicker laundry basket, but since we were going through so much clothing (it would get wet, really dirty, full of paint, etc), it was easier to just be able to dump it in this basket.

And that was about it. We made sure not to have any social plans for those few weeks and just basically plowed through it. On the one hand, it’s great to have only one bathroom because it forces you to move quickly. But on the other hand, it’s a pain and kinda stressful. Anyway, it’s over and we have a nice sparkling bathroom to show for it. Totally worth it!

What about you guys? Done any reno’s lately? Have any strategies about living in a reno zone? Do you try to continually clean up like we do, or do you just do one big clean at the end? I think my nightly clean doesn’t actually make much of a difference to anything but my sanity. 

On a different note, it’s the LAST day for votes for the EQ3 Blogpodium contest that I’m a part of. I’m still trailing in second place by a few votes, and would LOVE any support! If you have Pinterest, please-oh-please leave a comment on my moodboard here. Every comment helps! Thanks guys.

Posted in renovations | 5 Comments »

project bathroom: the reveal

Tuesday, May 1st, 2012

So after proclaiming that the time had come to do something about our dated and dull bathroom on March 26th, we have done a complete overhaul of this small-but-important room in our pad. One month, a lot of elbow grease, a few dolla dolla bills, and we can (almost) call this one officially done-zo. The *almost* refers to still having to install the overhead fan and put in the floor transition (both on handy hubby’s to do list!).

In case you’ve missed the progress, here is what we’ve done to the space:

-the “before”
-the demo
-tiling the shower
-grouting
-installing marble floors
-building a floating vanity
-installing the vanity
-patching walls
-adding trim and paint
-caulking
-accessorizing 
-painting the ceiling and installing a pendant light

And before we get to all of those after shots, let’s just take a little stroll down memory lane and remember what this space used to look like, shall we?! Pretty non-descript, totally storage-deprived and a danky old tub.

 

Goodbye boring beige bathroom. Hello classic, bright, and fresh. She’s a whole new woman.

Let’s throw in a little side-by-side comparison for good measure. She’s come a long way, huh? Showering in that new bathtub is like a total dream.

And as always, here is the budget breakdown. You know we’re all about affordable around here. We had originally saved up $5000. We knew we wanted to come in under 5K, but were a bit worried about coming across some really bad plumbing or other major issues that would require us to hire a contractor. Luckily, other than having a bit of help from a plumber-friend, we were able to do everything on our own.

Budget breakdown:

-tile (marble, subway tile, accent glass tile): $601.23 (originally $900, but we returned some unused tile)
-bathtub and fan: $364.45
-accessories (shower rod, towel bar, shower curtain, toilet paper holder, etc): $155.46
-drywall: $115.98
-mirror: $30
-vanity (wood, track system, legs, handles): $176.50
-vanity sink: $100
-paint: $64.85
-supplies (tiling supplies, plumbing, trim, tools, etc): $900.26
-gift card purchased for friend who helped out with plumbing: $100

Grand total: $2608.73

But the best part? We had saved up some Home Depot, Bed Bath & Beyond, and IKEA gift cards from our wedding (thank you friends and family!), which totaled $1081.06 on gift cards. So actual moula out of our pockets was only $1527.67. Not bad for a complete bathroom renovation.

So there you have it. A top to bottom rehaul. I think the bathroom may now be my favourite room in the house!

What about you guys? Done any major renovations lately? Or fixed up a bathroom? Even just a coat of paint can do wonders! 

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Posted in bathrooms, renovations | 71 Comments »

project bathroom: the last piece of the puzzle

Monday, April 30th, 2012

We’re coming up to the finish line, folks. Painting the ceiling and switching out the light were more or less the last things on our “to do” list for this bathroom renovation. There are still a few small maintenance things – like adding the floor transition, sealing the tile, etc, but those don’t really affect the big “after”.

After painting all of the walls white, I was left wanting a pop of colour somewhere in the room, and you know how I love a painted ceiling, right? (check out this one in my hallway). I didn’t want to introduce a completely new colour into the small space, so I ended up going with the exact same greeny-gray shade as our DIY vanity (called Sterling by Benjamin Moore). You can see that I taped out the wall and painted a few strokes to get an idea of what it would look like.

And here is how she looked after two coats. The colour actually came out looking a bit more dark and moody than it does on the vanity (you’ll notice that the walls look more buttery-cream than white here, which is just thanks to the lack of natural light when I was snapping these pics!).

I’m really happy with it. It seems to bring the eye up and make the room feel taller and more spacious (a major bonus is such a small space!).

In terms of light fixtures, since we don’t have sconces on either side or above the mirror in the bathroom (and didn’t want to bother running new electrical to put them in), we needed to make sure we got a light fixture that would allow a lot of light to beam around the whole room. I fell in love with a few industrial looking fixtures, but they had shades that cast all of the light straight down. Bummer. So when I saw this guy, from the Debbie Travis collection at Canadian Tire for $50, I was sold. It was budget-friendly, a chrome finish (which ties in with the rest of the chrome fixtures), and had a clear glass shade that would cast light all around.

It’s not my favourite light fixture of all time, but it’s pretty and totally works with the space.

I also really like the crackled glass effect, which adds a bit of extra interest.

So that’s it! I’ll be back tomorrow with the whole roundup of after photos and budget breakdown. Hooray!

Hope you all had a good weekend. Get up to anything fun? I spent most of the weekend getting caught up with friends and doing my fair share of thrifting. Found a couple of good finds, which I’ll share later this week. I can’t wait for all of the spring community yard sales to start popping up – I love the treasure hunting! 

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Posted in bathrooms, lighting, renovations | 1 Comment »

project bathroom: trim and a little paint

Wednesday, April 18th, 2012

So, I bet you thought it wouldn’t get any more exciting than patching walls on Monday’s post? Well, get ready, we’re going to talk about trim. Yep, this is a week of thrilling blog posts here on the sweetest digs.

Anyway, just bear with me. Adding trim actually made a huge difference to our in-progress bathroom reno. Here is how this half of the room was looking pre-trim. The doorway was pretty rough and there was the lack of transition between the wall and subway tile behind the sink (I forgot to take a photo of that area post-wall patching, so that big gaping hole did get fixed before the trim went up).

I had a bit of help with the regular trim around the doorway (thanks Dad!), but I handled some of these tricky bits solo. There were two spots in the bathroom that wouldn’t be able to have nailed-on trim, since they were partially going to be on tile. I consulted with some of my local hardware store buddies about what I might use, and they suggested this ultra-strong “PL Premium” glue. Apparently it bonds almost anything and is crazy durable. It’s also a-okay in rooms that may have some moisture (like a bathroom).

I cut the piece of trim to size using a regular old hand saw and then applied the glue pretty liberally to the back side. It’s kind of smelly stuff so I had the windows open for tons of ventilation and wore gloves too.

Then it was just a matter of placing it in the right spot and holding it on for a few minutes. You want to leave it un-touched for a good 24 hours while it cures. Looks so much more finished, right?

Oh and just so this post isn’t completely devoid of any pretty pictures, here is an updated peak of the DIY vanity with it’s drawers on.

The other piece was for where the shower tile butts up against the window trim. We needed a piece of trim that would wrap around the corner. Luckily, we found the perfect piece in the trim department and just cut it to size.

Again, I just applied the glue and stuck it down.

And here’s how that side of the bathroom was looking post-trim. All capped off and so much more finished. I was a happy gal, for sure.

You may have also noticed that the room was looking a little bit crisper and whiter. Well, that’s because I slapped up two coats of paint – ‘Simply White’ by Benjamin Moore in their Aura Bath series. I was a little bit worried about the matte finish, but it went on really nicely and seems pretty durable and washable.

That isn’t the end of my painting though. Since it’s all feeling pretty light and bright, I have plans to paint the ceiling in something other than white.

Here’s the up to date “to do” list to be able to check this room off:

  • caulking
  • paint ceiling
  • install accessories (towel bar, shower curtain, toilet paper holder, new mirror, unit above toilet)
  • de-haze and seal the tiles
  • install new light fixture
  • install vent
  • frost window

I think that’s it, anyway. There might be a few more niggly little things that pop up. I can see the finish line on this one, though.. which feels great!

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project bathroom: fixer uppers

Monday, April 16th, 2012

Doing corners and filling holes. Not one of the more exciting steps in the reno process, but I’m just keepin’ it real folks. This step always seems like it’s going to take all of 20 minutes and somehow becomes a multi-day project. We had a variety of patching to do in our wee little bathroom – fixing existing walls, working on the new areas of drywall, and filling some big gaping holes.

Let’s take a look at what we were working with.

One of the first things I tackled was the old walls. They had this weird subway tile pattern on the bottom half which at first glance looked like the real thing, but once you zoomed in you could tell it was just a painted vinyl. Not charming.

Since we didn’t want to rip down the walls and start over with new drywall, I figured I would try and patch them. I grabbed some handy dandy Polyfilla (the “prep” stuff is for smaller holes, and the “big” stuff is for the bigger holes.. duh!).

Basically you want to slap the stuff on and scrape it into the gaps, then go over it again to wipe away the excess. It’s kind of tricky to write into words, but you get the hang of it pretty quickly. Here is how the wall was looking post-pollyfilla.

Then you want to sand it down before doing any painting. I tend to use the block sanders since they are easier to grab than loose sanding sheets.

So that was one fix taken care of.

Next up were the corners. We had thrown up some new drywall all around our shower surround (see that here), so had to do something about the seams where the new met the old.

We grabbed some of this sheetrock flex metal tape from our hardware store…

… and a tub of drywall compound (or “mud” as it’s known in the drywall world).

Basically the flexible metal tape folds in half and fits into corners. We cut the pieces to size first, then put some drywall compound onto the wall, stuck the piece of tape on, and then layered more compound on top. You want to scrape it down and try to feather it out as much as you can. The aim is to get it to blend in with the wall.

Here’s how it was looking while it was still wet.

Once dry, you sand it down for a smooth finish (again, this is easiest when using the block sanders).

Last up was this big hole above the sink. We’re planning on putting a piece of trim where the tile meets the wall in order to make it look seamless, but knew that the trim wouldn’t quite cover that gaping hole.

Plain old polyfilla wasn’t going to be enough since there wasn’t anything for it to hold on to, so we used some of this wall repair fiberglass tape that we had on hand.

We cut it to size and basically just stuck in on top of the hole.

Then we put the drywall compound right on top of it. It was little messy and we couldn’t scrape it for a totally smooth finish (it wasn’t strong enough for that), but we just wanted to get that hole covered.

Once it was dry, we were able to sand it down and get it relatively smooth. All set for that piece of trim.

Remember those sanding blocks I mentioned? Well, there was a lot of sanding. Five blocks worth and a whole whack of dust.

So there you have it. Tales of patching holes and making corners. Thrilling stuff, huh?

Next up – trim, caulking, and then some paint. All of this prep work is going to make slapping that paint on feel oh so good.

So what about you guys? Do anything fun this weekend? Any super exciting wall-patching? ;)

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project bathroom: vanity take two

Thursday, April 12th, 2012

After we built our custom vanity (which you can read about here), it was time to install that sucker. Goodbye, teeny-tiny wall mounted sink with no storage!

Remember how the Lillangen sink was practically bang on for measurements in our little nook? Well, once we held it in place with the vanity it just felt too close to comfort for us (like the door was *almost* scratching it as it opened/closed). So, we decided to knock out the drywall and bump it in a little bit for some wiggle room. We had a medicine cabinet in this wall already, so we knew there was some room behind the wall.

Just more dusty drywall. A typical day in the life of a reno. We put a piece of carpet down to protect our beloved new marble floors.

Then DIY Dan grabbed some sheets of drywall leftover from doing around the tub and cut them to size. Thank goodness for that handy hubby of mine. I feel like I can take on quite a few handy things around the house, but installing drywall just ain’t one of them. We tend to have “Dan jobs” and “Gemma jobs” (some of mine are things like wall patching, painting, caulking and tiling). Not surprisingly, he’s better at the rough stuff and I’m better at the precision stuff.

Then it was time to bring in the vanity and sink. We got a little nervous about the heavy sink sitting on a completely floating vanity, so ended up running out to IKEA and grabbing these stainless steel legs (used for the Godmorgon vanity.

Once again, DIY Dan did his magic and got it all drilled in and installed.

The modern, square-lined sink instantly made the room feel so much bigger. Such a long, lean beauty. Kind of like our own beautiful runway model (I think I might be falling slightly too in love?!).

We wanted to keep it simple and budget-friendly for the faucet. After checking out a few options at different stores (and being slightly shocked at how crazy expensive faucets can be.. !!), we ended up going with an IKEA faucet. Not only was it friendly on the purse strings ($49.99), but we knew the Rorskar faucet would be a perfect fit with our IKEA sink.

Oh, and we also quickly tiled the backsplash using all the same tile and process as our recent shower surround tiling. Three lines of subway tile with a pop of our glass aqua tile (we did a row of two instead of three this time since that’s what we had leftover).

Some basic plumbing later, and she was all ready to go.

So this was as far as we got. A functional sink, but still missing the drawer fronts and lots of patch work left to do. Since we pushed the vanity/sink back into the wall a bit, the tile comes up exactly flush with the old wall. We’re going to patch what we can of the cracked wall above and then probably just add a piece of trim to clean it all up.

I can happily report that we can now shower, brush our teeth, and use our toilet again without disruption. Just in case you wanted to know.

Things are humming along in our casa, so I’ll keep you posted on our progress!

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Posted in bathrooms, renovations | 4 Comments »

project bathroom: tiling

Friday, March 30th, 2012

So after demo’ing the bathroom and installing the tub, next up was tiling the tub surround.

Like all of the projects in our casa, we are doing this on a budget. We looked around a bunch at different tile options. I knew carrera marble somewhere in the room (a girl can have a bit of luxury, right?). So after humming and hawing at many different options and laying all kinds of tile out on the floor at Home Depot (we now know the tile guys on a first name basis), the hubs and I decided to do marble floors. The actual amount of floor space is so small that it made sense to splurge there.

Once that decision was made, it was a pretty clear choice for the bathtub surround: subway tile. White, classic, pretty. I wanted a little bit of embellishment, so we also grabbed some ultra pretty aqua blue glass tile as an accent band. I almost went with an accent tile in marble, but it was pricier and I thought the blue would add a nice pop of colour and contrast to the room. So we grabbed boxes and boxes of tiles and headed back to get to work.

Before we could tile anything though, DIY Dan needed to re-drywall part of the surround that had been demo’d.

Here was the space now prepped and ready to go. See that triangular box we have in the corner? Well, we had a space on the ceiling where the old drywall and new drywall met up. But they didn’t really meet properly and no matter how much we mudded/sanded, we knew you would be able to see some imperfections. So, we added this little triangular box to cover it up. Let’s call it a “design feature”…

Now came the fun part. Supplies needed: a trowel that is meant for tile adhesive (it has two spikey sides), the tile adhesive (also called mortar), a damp cloth to wipe away any stray adhesive, spacers, and the tile (duh).

I was pretty excited. I have never done tiling before, so I was chomping at the bit to get going.

In terms of the process, there are a few things to take note of. The first is that you can pretty much guarantee that your bathtub and walls aren’t going to be perfectly level. So what you want to do is rest your level on the edge of the bathtub, and then adjust it until it’s level. Draw the level line on your wall. That way you can lay your first row of tiles along that line so as you move upwards it’s all level. You may have a bit of a gap at the bottom, but you will be caulking around the tub and won’t really be able to notice any differences.

Then to apply the tile. You want to spread your adhesive on thickly, like DIY Dan is below…

…and then go over it with the spikey part of the trowel (called v-notch). You’re left with these ridges in the adhesive which is the golden ticket for getting your tiles to stick well. Then place your tiles on one-by-one, put in the spacers, and push the tiles down so that they are nice and stuck.

There are lots of videos on YouTube about how to apply tile, so if you’re a novice like I was, I would definitely watch a few of those before getting started.

I laid the tile in a brick pattern. We cut a bunch of the tiles into halves so that along the corner in the wall I would switch between a full and a half tile all the way up. Luckily we borrowed a tile cutter from a friend, so we were able to cut all the half pieces and the rest of the custom pieces we needed. As I worked my way up the wall I would just take a step back every so often to re-check with the level and make sure that everything was lining up well.

Oh, and the person actually cutting the tile? Yeah, they tend to get covered with water, tile shards, and dust. I like to leave the really messy jobs up to the hubs.

So here she was after about 4 hours of tiling. We had to shut ‘er down with the third wall still to do, as the sun going down (we were cutting the tile outside).

Finishing the tile, grouting and adding in our shower fixtures are next up on the to-do list, and this gal is getting exciiiiited! We’re not even close to being done the bathroom, but to have the tub part done will be a big sign of relief (and will mean we can shower here again!). Happy Friday, folks!

What about you? Tweaking your bathrooms lately? Or any big plans for the weekend? Do tell.

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Posted in bathrooms, DIY projects, renovations | 7 Comments »

project bathroom: demo

Wednesday, March 28th, 2012

Step one in project bathroom reno? Demolition, baby. We need to still be able to use the bathroom during our re-model (we only have one, after all!), so we didn’t rip everything out all at once. We knew the bathtub had to be the first thing to tackle (messiest and biggest job), so that’s where we started.

Let me tell you, that grimy old tub of ours was cast-iron and reeeeally well installed. It took a whole lot of hammering, and help from one of Dan’s friends (my muscles just weren’t cutting it), but we got ‘er out.

Luckily this friend is a carpenter/plumber, so he also helped us install the new tub. Changing a toilet is one thing, but doing the plumbing for a new bathtub was one of those things that we didn’t want to just wing ourselves. A few hours of soldering and some heavy lifting, and the boys called me back in to see the new beauty. Success!

Ain’t she pretty? Just a basic pure white tub from Home Depot for a mere $269 (plus tax). The brand is Mirolin and the tub is called the Sydney Acrylic. It was exactly what we wanted – basic, white, no frilly stuff, and comfortable. I’m so looking forward to a few evenings in there with bubbles and a gossip magazine. Come to think of it, I haven’t actually ever taken a bath in this house!

So here’s how it’s looking. A bathtub, but not much else.

The other side of the room is still in tact so we can use the toilet and sink.

And here’s the new tub celebration we had going on. Just partying in the bathroom, no big deal.

The house is a crazy mess though. I forgot how major reno’s in one space totally take over the rest of the house. There is a layer of dust on everything, and piles of supplies everywhere. Oh, and there is no door on our bathroom.. so everything is pretty “out in the open”, if you know what I mean… !!

Drywall and tiling are up next. We’ve picked out a subway tile and gorgeous glass tile accent that I’m SO excited about. Wish me luck!

You folks done any demo recently? Don’t you feel like your whole house is a construction zone? I feel like I’m going to be dusting for months and months…

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Posted in bathrooms, renovations | 9 Comments »

the time has come, bathroom

Monday, March 26th, 2012

The bathroom. A room in our pad that has been at the top of the “to do” list ever since we moved in. I have showed this shot below of the room in our house tour, but have tried to avoid any other pictures at all costs.

Want to see why? This grungy, old, doesn’t-get-clean-no-matter-how-much-you-scrub tub is why…

Ickity Ick Ick Ick. See why it has been at the top of our list? Not only is the tub grimy and gross, but the vinyl floors are “blah”, the sink that comes out of the wall has zero storage, the lighting is boring, and the room just doesn’t really have anything going for it.

So, it’s renovation time! We’ve been saving our pennies and talking endlessly about what we’d like to do with this room for months. Because this is the only bathroom in our house that we use (the second bathroom is downstairs and is part of our tenant’s apartment), we need to keep it as a 4-piece and try to pack in as much storage space as possible. This is a wee little bungalow after all.

Having said that, I still want to make sure the room stays bright, flows with the rest of the house, and feels as big and open as possible. Here are a few photos I’ve been pinning lately..

I’m leaning towards white subway tile, marble, and pretty classic finishes. Pops of colour, but mostly neutrals. Stay tuned to see how this room turns out, and all the steps in between!

What about you folks? Done bathroom renovations lately? Any “wish you knew beforehand” tips to share? 

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basement renovation: THE BIG REVEAL

Sunday, November 21st, 2010

It’s taken a while to get here, but here we are — the final reveal of our big bad basement renovation! Let’s go back for a sec. You’ve seen how we’ve:

And all of that in 7 weeks (while both working full-time). Phew! Here is the final product, room by room:

LIVING ROOM

The living room went from dingy, cold and damp to bright, cozy and spacious.

THE KITCHEN

The kitchen is probably my favourite post-reno space. Partly because I adore the glowy-green vibe, and probably also because it feels like the biggest feat considering the pre-reno space.

THE BEDROOM

Creating the huge window and window well was what really made the transformation in the bedroom. You wouldn’t even know that we made the bedroom a bit smaller (we pushed the wall in a little to make the living room larger) — with that big window and good-sized closet, it feels spacious and has more than enough room for a big bed, dresser, and desk.

THE BATHROOM

I would have loved to do more of a gut-job to the bathroom and replaced the flooring and tub, but it just wasn’t in the cards this time around due to a tight budget and timeline. We did, however, give it a minor face-lift to bring it out of the 1980′s with a new sink, faucet and toilet, and some good old-fashioned paint.

THE LAUNDRY ROOM

We took the laundry from the old storage room (which became the kitchen) and moved it into a newly-built closet at the bottom of the stairs. This means it is in the shared part of the house so both upstairs and downstairs tenants can access it without bothering one another. I have grand plans later on to do something more fun to this space — maybe some graphic wallpaper or bright paint with some decals, but for now it is clean and functional.

THE STORAGE SPACE

This is the area at the bottom of the stairs which used to house a big ugly oil tank. After switching up to a high-efficiency natural gas furnace, we were able to get rid of the tank and make the space more useful. The original plan had been to build some more permanent shelving, but we just simply ran short on time. Once we’re back in the house, this project will be back on the to-do list.

THE FURNACE ROOM

When we created the kitchen area, we closed off the furnace and made a small but efficient furnace room. Sure it’s not the prettiest of rooms, but it’s a great space to store dirtier items — especially those that you can’t put out in the garage (like paint for example, which shouldn’t be out in the cold garage over the winter).

On the last night, after finishing up all the final details and moving all of our stuff out of the house (as we were leaving for our new adventure to England), we were a mixture of exhausted, thrilled, and slightly delirious. Here is the evidence (please keep in mind that it was about 1AM at this point):

So there you have it folks, a transformed basement. I would have loved to be able to actually decorate it — pick out furniture, artwork, accessories, etc. — but since it’s meant for a tenant, I did everything I could to hold back. Luckily, after only one week of posting ads and showing the space, we rented it out to a really lovely nurse who has made the space her own.

It was definitely one of the most satisfying projects that both Dan and I had ever worked on. Thanks to all the family, friends and neighbourly support along the way. A special HUGE thank you to my Daddio who not only kicked into high gear with some serious skilled labour, but who also gave us tons of guidance and definitely taught both Dan and I a thing or two (or ten?) about building.

And now, a sigh of relief… and the day-dreaming of the next renovation begins!

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Posted in basements, renovations | 13 Comments »

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