From a House to a Home

It's only fair that you get to know me a little bit better and what better way can I show you that then by opening up my front door. About 2 years ago, my partner Ben & I purchased a house, here is a little bit about our journey of turning it into a home...

We found a diamond in the rough...literally it was rough and I think a lot of people thought we were a little crazy and biting off more than we could chew. Lucky for us, we have big appetites and proved that as a pair we could really create something amazing. We had a vision of what this tiny little rectangle could become and being located right across from Lake Ontario we fell in love. (A little background on us, we love being outside; camping, hiking. floating on the water so being close to a lake like this was what sold us.) We checked out a few other properties and against our realtors advisement we went with this little gem. We were vacationing in Mexico at the time that we decided to put in an offer and between beach time and tacos we were sorting out the details of purchasing our 1st home together.

Fast forward to 1 month later...we finally had possession of our house! We had spent the last month planning out details, arranging contractors, getting permit paperwork sorted out, etc. and we were ready to get inside and start the reno's.

Not going to lie...I had forgotten over the past month what the inside of this place really looked like. It was dirty, wallpaper and carpet overloaded(I mean even the saran wrap box in the kitchen drawer was wallpapered!), and walls were everywhere. I quickly realized how much work was in store for us. Ben & I were both working full time in the midst of this project and our evenings and weekends were consumed for the first few weeks with demoing, dump runs and more planning.

We hired Ben's brother a carpenter, for 3 major projects. The first was adding a large porch on to the front of the house so the view could really be appreciated, the second was to vault the ceiling in the living room and kitchen to help make the space seem bigger then it was. The third was to relocate the basement stairs and exterior back door.

What a difference these investments made, we finally had some wow factor and the neighborhood was eagerly sharing with us how impressed they were with the changes we had made so far. By this point we were getting tired both physically and mentally, we were pushing ourselves to the max to get through these renovations.

We had so many late nights still ahead of us and no kitchen so I took advantage of a Free Napoleon BBQ off of Kijiji, Ben bleached and scrubbed up the fridge that was left in the house and we stocked it with easy bbq meals and pre-made salads. We were prepared for another stretch of long days and problem solving issues we couldn't even dream of yet. Let me tell you though, I can't count the number of times we sat out on our front porch enjoying our 20 minute dinner break and enjoying the view which reminded us of why we were doing this in the first place.

When we purchased the house it had blue aluminum siding on it and I had this gut feeling there was brick under that we could paint and get the look I wanted at a fraction of the cost of any other option. Luckily, I was right and we even got an extra $500 when we took the aluminum in, bonus!

We had a lot of firsts with this house, both of us have been home owners before but never have we taken on a project like this and tested our skillset so much.

I learned to use a paint spray gun (Note: If you do this yourself I would highly recommend investing in a coverall set, I learned the hard way as you can see below.) Once the walls were painted flooring and tiles were our next few projects where we once again learned as we went. Working on a renovation means you are working with some pre-exhisting builds which means not everything is level or square and it can be very frustrating work but when the projects are completed you feel so accomplished!

We hired out a few tasks that were beyond our skillset such as the plumbing, electrical, and mudding so we enjoyed a bit of a slower pace while these projects got tackled for us. I took advantage of this extra time with some Kijiji scouring, I came across some awesome deals that gave our place some unique finishes and kept us under budget.

Our main bathroom flooring tile we got for free and our master bathroom flooring tile we got for $20! For our front door I was set on having a wood farm style door but was realizing how expensive a new one would cost. I had basically ruled it out as an option but then came across our current door for $50 and after a bit of time sanding and staining, it turned out exactly like I had imagined! Kijiji also turned out to be a great place for us to sell things as well to make some money back like the toilet from the old basement bathroom we removed, the old washer and dryer, the freezer, the hot water tank, extra Kerdi from our bathroom renovations. I highly recommend finding a few sites similiar to Kijiji where you can try to save a few bucks If you are tackling home renovations yourself, it is definitely worth it in the long run. We were also constantly flyer watching, when things came on sale that we knew we would need we tried to grab them up. Sometimes this took extra planning, where can we store these items that we won't have to move 100 times before we use it? Although it was a pain a few times we saved thousands of dollars by being smart shoppers!

While we were in the midst of these projects we were ordering our kitchen and vanities from Ikea and getting ready to install these. This was another large project that we weren't sure what to expect, we debated ordering cupboards from a more local source but in the end took the leap because we couldn't beat the price and loved some of the custom features that Ikea had to offer. We managed to get the cupboards delivered right to Kingston and putting them together wasn't as scary as I thought. My parents came over for a day and we had the cupboards built and installed in a weekend! Thanks Mom & Dad! We had a few small things that we had to come up with some creative solutions for but in the long run you wouldn't even know it. We did custom toe kicks because our floors have some varying heights and the standard Ikea ones wouldn't be tall enough in some spots but we bought our own MDF board and cut it to the sizes we needed. We also had a 7" gap between our lazy susan and sink cupboard that Ben built a custom wine rack in. Our island size also wasn't available as a pre-order option through Ikea so we bought one cupboard from them and built our own frame around it and I love how it turned out!

At this point, I was getting very excited...this was my time to shine! I have to admit yes I got dirty and put a lot of sweat equity into this place but Ben was the one who did majority of the grunt work with this stuff and now it was going to be my time to put the finesse on the final product. In one day we moved majority of our items in and I got to work selecting which pieces of decor were going to make the cut on our limited wall space and shelves. Obviously, this part is never really complete but I could finally close my eyes at night and feel like I was home.

So, there you have it, a little bit more context on who I am and what my design aesthetic is. This is definitely the simple version of this experience but I wanted to share so you could understand me a little better. We're not quite complete on our house reno's, this Spring we are wrapping up our basement and improving the exterior landscape so I will continue to share our journey with you guys on here as we go and I encourage you to reach out if you have any questions!