It’s been practically a year because my fiancé and I took possession of our fixer-upper in downtown Toronto and embarked upon renovating it. There has been a lot of dust, dirt, tension and fun along the way (but no tears I’m happy to say)! Our main floor is now complete, save for a few lingering projects like painting the back door and the window jambs, and sewing some linen blinds.
I’ve shown you the newly painted staircase, so here is the front hall from the other direction. Under the original floorboards, we found some old mail (with one cent stamps) dealt with to the home’s first owner, which I framed in a shadow box to display above our foyer catchall.
I’m a little hesitant to show you the state of our little retro cocktail room, but here it is with the now-exposed fireplace. We still need new cosy chairs and to construct some bookshelves, but for now it’s a great spot for a game of chess or a glass of wine. The old suitcases belonged to my grandmother, and, yes, we do use the old phone. My sister so kindly sent me the rug after reading in an earlier post that it was on my wish list! The plaid throw was my prized purchase from a trip to London last Christmas.
I showed you one side of our kitchen a few weeks back. This is the opposite side of the room (the shot on the left was taken before the table was in the room and the range hood was up). It took five coats of blackboard paint to ideal the look. We purposely didn’t install a permanent island as we like the freedom to relocation furniture around… a lot.
We had originally planned to use our antique table in this area as a formal dining space, but found it fit perfectly in the kitchen. Here, you can see the completed slat wall (created from the wood lath that was part of the original plaster wall.) It’s a great place to cuddle up beside the cat and speak with the person doing the cooking.
Now that the construction is over, I am enjoying decorating. above is a little vignette on the living room window ledge and the pile of artwork I have yet to get up on the walls. It’s surprisingly challenging to put a nail hole in a brand new wall!
Thanks for staying tuned to my extended diy reno blog. I’m signing off for now, but don’t be amazed if I come back sometime soon with tales from our upstairs restroom redo!
To follow the reno from my first blog post, complete with before photos, click here.
Photo credits:1-8. Catherine MacIntosh