Evolution of the Living Room

In case you forgot what it looked like the day we took possession, here's a little refresher. I'm pretty sure that stupid railing was torn down mere moments after I took this photo.

After many hours of cleaning, steaming, priming and painting, the walls are no longer yellow. (Camouflage by Benjamin Moore)

We put back up the floating shelves and gave them a good cleaning

Then we filled it with a bunch of stuff (Yes, that is a Red Bull fridge you see there, and no you can't have it)

Then we got some new/new to us stuff!!!

This sweet red chair from Midmod Vintage

We ordered a new custom sectional! Nothing beats custom sometimes. R picked out the fabric and made an excellent choice. It's a bit like an old mans jacket. But it looks awesome and is wearing really well. Our kitty hasn't wrecked it at all (yet!)

Look at how awesome this couch is. Room for both of us to stretch out a bit. I still love our old couch and it's living in the basement for now. We put a sheepskin on the red chair, and it's so cozy. R found this cool kidney shaped coffee table and matching end table on Kijiji. Nice score. I love the glass top, and that there is places to put all my junk.

 We need to work on the window treatments, the vertical blinds work, but just don't do it for me. I tire of the clatter every time there is a breeze!

Shelves with more, but nicely organized things. Some twinkly lights in the glass cabinet for some fun :)

R's booze collection, with a fine selection of local spirits from our very own Lucky Bastard Distillers

New Old lamp for the corner above the couch, this is from Past and Present antiques (This place has got some amazing stuff, if you've got the time to dig through the layers, you can find some really neat treasures)

New Credenza (also from Past and Present), Custom built by R Speakers, and a new TV! I took a little convincing to agree that this Credenza would be the right one for our space, but I'm glad he brought me around.

I hope that it still works with the new floors, or I may look at sanding and staining it a little darker. Not till after the floors though!

A vintage media stand for all R's gear and his latest and greatest speaker creation. Carbon fiber and oh so sleek!

Just imagine the pink carpet replaced with... well just about anything would be better than this freaking gross carpet. 

I can't wait for the day we can have new floors! We will pick out a new area rug after the floors are in. There are a million different ones that I love it's so hard to choose

We have the best and brightest door in the whole neighborhood. We have the door open all the time to let the air in and it's almost like it's own piece of art. It really brightens up the room. How can it not, really. Notice that no brass light fixture above the door? R painted that one, and the two sconces on either side of the TV with a metallic black spray paint. And we washed the globes until they were no longer yellow. They look better than new!

  My seeestor's grad pictures, some trinkets from family and the most bad ass zombified picture of us! An awesome house warming gift from this guy 

I love this little IKEA cart, I plan to fill it with plants, hopefully I can keep them alive. More Kris Moffat's with a hint of IKEA on the walls.

There will be some more progression on this wall coming soon. We have a new print to be framed and hopefully I can do some re-arranging soon

I love how much things have changed over the last couple of years and can't wait to see how things keep progressing!

Bathroom of my DREAMS!

The bathroom was the first renovation project we tackled. 

We did manage to live with the horrid pink and blue bathroom for quite a few months. My dad called me up one day and said he had a week free to so some reno work for us, so we jumped at the chance. My Pinterest board was already full of plans and I had an Ikea list ready to go (we don't have an Ikea, so my dad had to bring the stuff from Alberta!)

Here is the before, in case you forgot how horrible it really was

Before

Before

Before (gross!)

How on earth did anyone ever find that particular combination of colors appealing? HOW I ASK YOU!!!!

During!

 R and Dad getting to work tearing the old crap out!

 Vanity and Cabinet GONE! There was a shelf below the counter there that had been taped into place...

 New subfloor, with 1000 extra screws to try and cut down on the squeaks. Tub GONE 

The previous owners planned to redo the bathroom, and had bought a very nice (second hand) soaker tub that had been sitting in the shed for a long time. We were thrilled when they left it for us.

Even with the dirt, it still looks way better than the blue! 

PAINT and a TOILET and FLOORS!!!! AHHHHHH IT'S SO AMAZING!!!!!

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I have to say I really enjoyed just coming home from work and seeing huge amount of progress each day!

Kitty is inspecting the new stuff. He approves. 

 

Kind of regret not moving all the outlets to the same location, but not a deal breaker by any means! Ikea plumbing was a bit of a challenge with our old nasty plumbing. There is probably a half of a tube of caulking holding it all together...  It totally works though.

My really ambitious tile selection. It was just so pretty that I had to have it. I was dead set on plain old subway tile until we saw this stuff in Home Depot. I needed it. It turned out great despite the issues my dad had with the massive tiles and the extreme tile thickness difference that I did not take into account. It is not perfect, by any means, but I just don't care. I love it. I promised my dad to be wiser in my future tile selection. I sometimes learn from my mistakes.

It was about a week to get it all done, My dad and R's dad did most of the work. I helped by staying out of the way. R's dad was our plumbing guru and made the old work with the new.

And here it is. The most beautiful room in our house to date! 

I am so proud to introduce to you

SWANKY LOO 2 (TM)

Custom sign made by my AWESOME mother. After I commented that her recently renovated bathroom was a "real swanky loo" she decided that was her new favorite phrase and called mine, Swanky Loo 2. The swankiest of all loo's!

After!

 

Art Print by Local friend of the Family - Kris Moffatt

Paint - Gossamer Blue by Benjamin Moore

Shower Curtain - Fabricland

Towels - Ikea

Shower Storage - Canadian Tire

After!

Toilet - Home Depot

Faucet - Home Depot (Shower faucet matches!)

Sink, Cabinets, Shelving, Mirror - Ikea

After!

Vanity light - Home Depot probably I can't remember... it was cheap. 35 bucks.

TP holder - Ikea (Mounted this way = never arguing over the "correct" way) 

Toothbrush holder - Canadian Tire

Fitbit Aria Scale


Last but not least is one of my favorite details. SPARKLY!!!! it came from Rona

I had just finished wiping it down when I took the picture, hence the skewed strand :)

Also, this is the only room in the house with baseboards!!!(besides the inside of the closets haha!)

Tobacco and Dusty Rose

Yeah, that's the color scheme of our house the day we took possession. We knew it was going to be a lot work the moment we walked and were assaulted with a roundhouse kick of stale tobacco stank to the face.

Thankfully though, no one else could get past the rank stank and we were able to buy the house quickly and at a pretty darn good price, considering the state of the market when we were looking.

Honestly though, we didn't even look at anything else. It was serendipity that brought us to our forever home. After being burned by a shitty condo conversion and having to foreclose, we rented for a few years licking our wounded credit.

My mother received some money after her mother passes away and was incredibly generous in helping us with the down payment. She called on a Monday. That week I scoured the MLS listings and this one popped up sometime in that week and we arranged to see it Sunday. I knew right away it was the one. He took a little convincing. The tobacco and dusty rose threw him to say the least. The stale tobacco smell was sort of comforting for me actually, it reminded me of my grandparents house. But let me tell you, it was so ugly. I think the real estate agents thought I was totally crazy as I bounded from room to room grinning with excitement. Apparently no one has any imagination these days and couldn't see past the smoke and grime and horrid color scheme. I knew we could make it awesome. Monday we were at the bank doing the paper work and putting the offer in. It was a month later and the dust settled and we got possession. Thankfully, we had a week to clean and paint before we moved it.

Let me show you why!

This is the view of the living room as you walk in the front door.

Before - tobacco dripping from the walls, and ash stained carpet

One of my friends commented "Woah, did they park their car in there or what?" Yeah, you can tell where the couch and coffee table were. And just how often they missed the ashtray....

I'm pretty sure I kicked the railing down seconds after I took this picture...

I can't believe that they didn't have a picture of this shelving in the listing. It was a major surprise and a majorly happy one at that. It is just awesome. It has seen better days of course, and probably won't survive being taking down and put up again. I just love it

Such a sad mess of grime and horrible paint colors and wallpaper selection

YASSSS!!!! Check out that sweet shiny, floral wallpaper, and poofy valance. Mhmmm, I know you're super jealous!

So shiny! And so Pink.

The view down the hall. More dusty rose and some powder blue trim. That light fixture is actually clear glass. I know, hard to believe right!?

There was also some strange textured and PINK wallpaper at the end of the hall there. 

Built in China Cabinet that I mostly like. When we redo the kitchen cabinets eventually, it will go, but for now. I like it.

 I'm 100% certain that nothing had ever been cleaned in the time the last owners lived here. 4 years of heavy smoking and never cleaning. It shows. 

I like the layout of the kitchen, it's small but totally functional. There is a good amount of counter space, enough for me to cook anyway!

Gawd I was happy to see that wallpaper go!

 

The grungiest corner counter thingy ever. Yes the counters are also dusty rose. 

When the counters are really clean, they almost look tan. But are still too pink for my taste

 I can't believe that someone could live here for 4+ years and NOT ONCE wiped down the finger prints from around the knobs, I just don't know how that doesn't drive them crazy!

Grunge and grime everywhere. Lovely blue floral plate covers too. I think every room had a different style of plate covers come to think of it.

Bedroom #1 (Office)  Baby Mickey wallpaper, trim and decals on the fan blades and walls! Pink plate covers... Different shade of pink carpets

It probably was a nice nursery, 20 years ago...

Get ready for this. This is the worst of them all!

The bathroom. These people seriously loved pink and blue. It's everywhere, on everything. Blue fixtures. Pink walls and pink cabinets. I think the floors at one point were cream colored...

I can't even imagine this color combination EVER looking good. 

Yep. Gross

Blue. Note the cigarette butt in the toilet. Thanks guys, because the house didn't already smell bad enough.

Streaks of grossness

Weird medicine cabinet that was barely deep enough to hold an aspirin bottle!

See that shelf to the right of the sink? It was taped into place...

Bedroom #2 ("Master") Not much going on here, more pink. Brown carpets this time. A disgusting, but ssurprisingly good quality ceiling fan.

Bedroom #3 ("My Room") More decals in strange places. More pink.

Mhmm check out that bad ass closet organizer!

Random wall decal... 

And on to the basement.  It's sort of a suite...

This is the "living room"?

"kitchen"

 See that light? There in the closet? Yeah, that's the light for the bedroom!

 ALMOST enough room for a bed

Close up of the "kitchen"

 Plenty of storage....

I never would have thought to put an overjohn in the kitchen for added storage 

The Bathroom. This is the worst of it all I think...

Shower that holds most of a person. The stack in the middle of the room is my favorite feature

It's a toilet!

Hallway, First door on the left is the furnace room, to the right is out of the suite and at the end on the left is the bathroom. The water shut off is behing that door at the end of the hall.

I was super excited to eventually discover that my washer and dryer weren't blue, just hadn't had the plastic peeled off yet!

That's it. Our house in all of it's BEFORE glory! Continue on to see the progress we've made!