{ Archive for the ‘DIY’ Category }

makeover monday: diary of a new home

A few months ago, my boyfriend Mick and I purchased our first house, just outside of Toronto. So, with the dawn of a new blog, I thought it would be a great opportunity to share my decorating ups and downs (hopefully less of the latter). We’re a household of three: Mick, the football/golf/hockey obsessed handyman who can be found tinkering in the garage or grilling a rack of ribs on the BBQ; Wendel, the adorable beagle puppy who pays rent in kisses and cuteness; and myself, Lauren, who spends days dreaming up ways to create my dream home (and also wishing Mick wasn’t so against white furniture).

house exterior 460x443 makeover monday: diary of a new home

House exterior when it was almost at the end of construction phase

house kitchen before 460x336 makeover monday: diary of a new home

Poppin' champagne in the new kitchen, sans fridge

This being our first house, we’re definitely on a budget, so I’m really excited to take on DIY projects, whether it’s wallpapering the foyer or painting an old piece of furniture to bring it back to life.

Every Monday I’ll be doing a feature on my decorating process, so I hope you’ll follow along as we turn this cookie-cutter house into the home we’ve always wanted.

xo,
Lauren

condo makeover: hanging lighting fixtures

Next step in my condo makeover: Hanging the light fixtures. I decided on two matching pendant fixtures from the Debbie Travis lighting collection from Canadian Tire. They’re beautiful white glass fixtures that can hang about 67 inches long but I had to shorten them – one is hanging in the kitchen, one in the foyer. I have to admit, we had a hard time assembling and hanging them but fortunately, my friend’s husband Richard was up to the task and did an amazing job. Here he is, hard at work!

hanging lighting condo makeover: hanging lighting fixturesThe pendant lighting fixtures were a bit tricky to hang but once they were up, they looked FANTASTIC!

You can find more information on these lighting fixtures on the Canadian Tire website. I also picked up this gorgeous fixture from The Shopping Channel to hang above my desk. You’ll have to stay tuned to see all the final photos!

painting the backsplash

It’s amazing how things snowball when you start a renovation. What began as a small and manageable project quickly became an undertaking that was going to cost a lot more time and money than I’d budgeted for. But not everything has to dig a too-deep hole into the ol’ pocket. Not if you’re willing to try something new and put a little elbow grease into it.

For a long time now, I’ve wanted to replace my backsplash. (The current one is just plain white, but there are six tiles that have this strange vignette of lobsters, potatoes and a glass of wine. Seriously. I can’t make this stuff up.) So, these six tiles have irked me to no end and finally, as we embarked on this condo makeover, it was time to kiss those lousy lobsters goodbye.

I was thrilled at the idea of putting up new tiles (I love the look of 1-inch by 1-inch glass tiles), but as my expenses continued to inflate beyond the limits of my budget, my designer Lisa suggested I paint the tiles. Paint them? To say I was skeptical is to put it mildly. But eventually, Lisa’s can-do, no-problem, just-do-it attitude rubbed off on me. She picked up the primer and the paint I’d need and I set about the task (OK, I was still a little skeptical … )

I scrubbed the tiles well to remove any film, dirt, grease and grime. Then I sanded them lightly, followed by a coat of primer. Today, I began painting them.

Take a look at this in-progress shot below. It’s not looking too bad – here’s hoping it looks fantastic by the time I’m done! So instead of spending about $600 on tiles, we’ve updated the backsplash for about $30 (the cost of the materials) and a little bit of work.

painting the backsplash painting the backsplash

painting the gables in my kitchen

At the risk of boring you to tears, I’m going to share the next step in my condo makeover: Painting the gables in the kitchen. If you’ve been following along, you’ll know that Lisa and I decided to get my honey-coloured wooden cabinets lacquered white for a clean, bright look to better match my fabulous new Tarkett flooring. Tim Welsby from Beresford Inc. came and removed my cabinet doors and drawers in order to get the job done in his furniture restoration studio. I can’t wait to see how they turn out!

But once the doors were removed, I realized that there were still portions of wood trim that would need to be painted. Tim was willing to do it (for a price!) but I decided to give it a go myself. Oh boy. Thankfully, Tim was kind enough to provide clear instructions.

He provided me with a small vial of trisodium phosphate with which to clean the wood. This cleaner quickly and easily removes any grease build-up that may be on the wood and gives the wood a much better surface for painting. Next step: Lightly sand the wood. Then prime. The primer needed to dry for about three hours so I haven’t painted yet but here’s where we’re at:

gables1 painting the gables in my kitchenBefore: This was the largest section of wood that needed to be painted.

gables2 painting the gables in my kitchenAfter: Here it is cleaned, sanded and primed. Please, please, please don’t let me mess this up!

wallpaper in progress

wallpaper in progress wallpaper in progressLisa and her amazing assistant Kristelle did a great job wallpapering the back feature wall in my condo. I love it! We chose Marimekko’s Lumimarja wallpaper from New Wall (pictured above) and I really love how it looks. Read more on Lisa’s blog!

installing marimekko wallpaper

marimekko wallpaper installing marimekko wallpaper
The flooring installers from End of the Roll just showed up at my door, ready to finish up the job. Yesterday, they installed the new floors throughout the living room and now, just the kitchen and front foyer are left. I really can’t wait to see the whole thing completed. It’s looking amazing already.

Since they’re finished in the living room, my designer Lisa Canning (check out her website at condosbycanning.com) is ready to get the wallpaper up. Our design plan has evolved throughout this process and we’ve agreed that we love Marimekko’s Lumimarja wallpaper from New Wall (pictured above) for the front foyer and on the long back wall of the living room (behind the sofa). Hopefully the wallpaper can go up today – we have to work around the flooring guys! But as you can see, things are really starting to come together.

What are your thoughts on the wallpaper? I just returned home from a vacation that took me to Finland. While in Helsinki, I strolled through the must-visit, typically Finnish design stores like Marimekko and Iittala. I love the playful feeling in their designs and this Marimekko wallpaper is fresh and fun, without being too overwhelming for a small space. What do you think?

painting the ceiling

condo ceiling painting the ceiling
Next step in my renovation: Painting the ceiling. I’ll be honest. I wasn’t too concerned about painting the ceiling. It just seemed like one more job to add to the never-ending list of things to do. But my brother-in-law Paul insisted that we just do it. Especially since I’d painted the walls white, you could really see the difference in the ceiling colour – it was dingy compared to the new clean white walls. So Paul showed up bright and early on Saturday morning, ready to work! We picked up one gallon of ceiling paint (the kind that goes on pink and dries white) and taped off the edges. In less than three hours, Paul had painted the ceiling in my living room and kitchen. Now that it’s dry, I see that he was right. It looks bright and fresh and makes a big difference. Thanks, Paul! You’re a brother-in-law extraordinaire!

painting the walls

painting painting the walls
Today: Painting! It was a long day. My dear friend Jen and I painted from 10am til 9:30pm (with a handful of breaks thrown in). The colour I used is called Satin, part of the Style at Home paint collection from Home Hardware. Covering my dark green walls required one coat of primer and three coats of paint but wow – what a transformation! My condo instantly felt brighter and, more importantly, larger. It’s amazing what an impact paint can have.

Painting with white can be a bit tricky. Because the paint colour (when wet) was so similar to the primer, it was sometimes difficult to see where we’d stopped painting. So you have to keep a close eye on what you’re doing. Good lighting is key, too. As the sun started to set, it became more and more difficult to see what was painted and what was not. But overall, the most important thing was to have patience, a keen eye for detail and a good friend to help, who shows up bearing Timbits.

I’m thrilled with the change and can’t wait for the rest of the space to start coming together!

priming the walls

priming priming the walls
And the fun (work??) begins! I primed the walls of my condo tonight. My brother-in-law was kind enough to help. We started by removing all the baseboards. I’ll be putting in new hardwood floors to replace the laminate that’s there and replacing the baseboards, so removing them made the priming much easier since I didn’t need to worry about the edges. It took about three hours and surprisingly, I only needed one gallon of primer to cover the dark green walls in my living room and kitchen.  Thank goodness primer is water soluble and so easy to wash off. I was covered in it by the time I was done. Tomorrow: Painting! I’ll let you know which colour I’ve chosen.

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