Real Estate Room Reno-Update

Back in June 2014-yikes, a while back now- I posted a real estate room reno for a house that was for sale near my aunt and uncle's house in Ile Bizard that I truly loved. Here is what I said back then:

A few weeks ago I got an email from my aunt that said: "I know you love this house. They are subdividing the property and the price has plummeted to $495,000. Think of all the reno projects you could undertake!!! (Notice I didn`t cc Chad on the message……)."

So instead of actually buying it I did the next best thing I could think of, pretended I owned it and planned a renovation on one room in the house. You can see the full post HERE. I happened to be browsing the real estate listings, as one does when one is closing on a new house in less then 20 days, and saw that "my" house was listed for sale again. It's been completely renovated. It's obvious they didn't follow my plans but it's not too bad for a flip. There is nothing I love more then a little before and after action (except for browsing the real estate listings), so here it is:

Listing and Exterior Before

Unique 1786 4-bedroom ancestral home on large lot on Ile Bizard with no rear neighbours. Thick stone walls and historic architecture create a charming atmosphere. Large yard is surrounded by a cedar hedge, and has many mature trees. Located 30 minutes from downtown Montreal, and close to 3 Golf Clubs and Bois-de-l'Ile-Bizard Nature Park.

Bedrooms: 4
Bathrooms: 1 full/ 2 half
Year Built: 1786
Asking Price: $495,000

Listing and Exterior After

Nested on a private 5000sqm, beautifully landscaped and surrounded by mature trees lot, this exquisite 1786 authentic stone manor was completely renovated in 2014/15. Experience the luxury of today's comfort and modern design combined with the timeless elegance from the past. An architectural 3-story treasure, only 30min. from downtown Montreal!

Bedrooms: 4

Bathrooms: 2 full/ 2 half
Year Built: 1786
Asking Price: $1,150,000 

So that's quite a jump in price! What kind of work did they do to warrant that jump? First exterior, it looks like a new roof, newly painted shutters and some landscaping but let's dig in and see the really good before and afters to find out where all the money went.

Living Room Before

Living Room After

You have to agree that is so much better. While the decor is a bit bland for me, the bones of the room have definitely been returned to its former glory. The popcorn ceilings removed (something I have to look forward to), the wood paneling removed and the floors and beams refinished. It looks like all the trim work and staircase was refinished as well. This is now such a great neutral base to come in and decorate however you'd like. Wouldn't it be lovely to have two seating areas in your living room? 

Dining Room (Porch) Before

Dining Room After

I really like the use of this space. In the original photos I envisioned this as more of a three season porch or conservatory but I love it as a dining room. It looks much less porch-like without the wooden ceilings and fans. 

Master Bedroom Before

Master Bedroom After

I think you probably know if you've read this blog for a while now how much I dislike beige and taupe, regardless I'll still give this bedroom a pass. New floors, new ceiling and beige is still better then red. Oh yeah, and a fireplace in your bedroom- I could handle that too.

Family Room Before

Family Room After

While this one isn't as dramatic, it goes to show the power of new flooring and the removal of weird textured ceilings and walls. I imagined the before room had a wet musty carpet smell while the new room looks perfect for relaxing and not having an allergic attack. I've saved my favourite for last, the kitchen remodel.

Kitchen Before

Kitchen After

What do you think of this kitchen? The before was an obvious gut job. I like how it's still fairly traditional with white shaker, full height cabinets and a beamed ceiling. I think the island is a little strange with the cut away for bar stools and I don't love a small scale glass subway tile but overall I think it looks well done and not too modern for the home. I might have gone a bit more classic with a subway tile and gone with a more traditional soapstone counter. Would I take this kitchen and enjoy it? Yes! 

Overall, this appears to be a high quality renovation with attention to detail and materials. Do you think it's worth over a million dollars? What would you have done differently and who wants to buy this for me?

Plans for the New House

Hello all and welcome to what promises to be the beginning of a very thorough plan on how I hope to decorate our new house. We move out and hand over the keys to our old house next weekend and then put all of our things into storage and move in with my very gracious parents until we get our new house at the end of November. I have almost three months on my hands to sit and stew and re-arrange floorplans and moodboards-which is both terrifying (for those around me) and delightful as this is my favourite part-the what could be phase! In the what could be phase it's often hard (at least for me) to be realistic about budget. I want to get everything done right away and I want it to be a chance to make everything new!

Here is our my list of things that need to be done right away and things that I want to do over time:

Boring things that we need to right away:

• Roof and windows (this to me is so boring, I guess windows are more exciting than a roof at least there are things to consider like frame colours-which I'm sure is the more expensive option)

Things that I think we also need to do right away because they are crimes against design:

• Popcorn ceilings
• Remove red wall-to-wall carpets in bedrooms and find temporary flooring options
• Remove plastic wood-grain closet doors in bedrooms
• Do something to the kitchen to take it out of early 90s 

Things that I admit do not need to be done right away:

• Continue hardwood floors upstairs and maybe into kitchen
• Remove wood railings and replace with glass panels or metal railings
• Redo all of the bathrooms
• Replace wood burning stove with a cool hanging modern pod fireplace and replace tile surround
• Probably this is the place for the kitchen redo 

I think I'll save the kitchen for a post of it's own because well, it deserves it in all it's 90s glory, and even thought the pictures of it make it somehow look nice, it is NOT. 

Back to the overall plan, the not boring part... Chad and I had been stalking looking at a few homes in the area of our new house. We visited an open house of a similar model and I did not really like it. The house hadn't been opened up like ours and the owners had added all these extra tiny rooms-like a kids loft (which I'm sure the cats would have loved). I happened to get my June copy of House & Home Magazine and saw the 70s split-level renovation of Jill Kantelberg's house. It was everything I wanted my grown-up house to be: neutral, lux, curated and interesting. 

Check out the video here. I think the caption pretty much says it all:

See how talented antiques expert Jill Kantelberg took her 70s home from dated to dramatic. Get her tips and tricks for cool, multicultural living. 

Jill Kantelberg discusses how she designed her home by blending elements of history, compromising with space, and incorporating trends from all over the globe.

I mean how does one even get to be an antiques expert? It sounds like the kind of job you imagine for yourself as child, after you've already scratched off marine biologist! After I drooled over these photos for awhile, it changed my mind about the house we saw and opened my eyes to the potential it had. When our new house came on the market it was easy to say yes. 

Fast-forward to today and I went searching again for these images. I still have to agree that it is stunning but I just don't know if I'm a subtle colour person. I mean look at the images of my old house-not subtle. As much as I'd like to start fresh with all new white, taupe and beige furniture I couldn't afford to and I'm not sure that it wouldn't bore me after awhile? Looks like I'll have to work with my existing pieces at least for the time being. This doesn't mean that I can't still pull inspiration from the fabulous stair railings, the light fixtures, the art work and the hits of black. 

The above sofa, coffee table and rug will stay. The new house has an interesting layout so we're going to have two living room spaces. This means I'll be using the retro sofa and chairs that were in our basement and probably pulling another rug from somewhere. The room that is currently being used as the dining room will be a living room since the eat in kitchen is huge and the smaller room near the wood stove will be a cozy second sitting area. 

I'll save you the floorplan and moodboard for another post, lord knows I enough time and ideas! Given that I'll be using my existing furniture, here are a few perhaps more realistic inspiration images for someone like me who loves colour.

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It's always so helpful to pull inspiration images. Sometimes you know what you want but just don't know you know it, if that makes any sense? As you can see I have a definite love of boldly coloured chairs. With a neutral sofa and rug (yes, I call a black and white striped rug neutral), this should be a fun decision as to what colour to reupholster the tub chairs. The next steps are to narrow down my choices, review the to-do list with Chad (i.e. inform him of his projects) and start working on a floorplan and a moodboard to see how all my choices will tie together. First though I have to work on moving and saying goodbye to our first large-scale reno project-wish me luck!

Goodbye Old House, Hello New House

Well this certainly is not the next installment of our trip to Ireland. Would you believe me if I said it's almost done? Ha, I thought so! At least this time I have a valid excuse and some exciting news in the saga of our never ending house sale.......IT'S SOLD! I'm not angry at you anymore little house. You and your coziness and all of our blood, sweat and tears will be very happy with a new family. Happy with people who appreciate your new kitchen and 'paid more than I should have' light fixtures and black feature wall that nearly killed me while painting on a ladder. Now that I'm not angry at you, I can reminisce about how much we learnt about renovation, about design and about yard work (okay not that one). I thought I'd share my favourite set of before and after photos from our feature in La Presse  since they conveniently put them all together in a grid.

BEFORE

AFTER

And just in case you aren't sick of the house, here is the full house tour along with some of the stages of the renovation.

My other exciting news is that in the same week we sold our house we also bought a house. That's right, we bought a house in Ottawa! Break out the exclamation points! While I'm slightly sad that I can't earnestly browse the real estate listing anymore (as evidenced by my Real Estate Room Reno series), I am thrilled that we found a house we could agree on. This is often difficult when one person likes beautiful stately old homes and character filled bungalows from the fifties and sixties and one person prefers characterless, soulless boxes from the eighties to present day. It's not to say I wouldn't like a brand new house, it's just the brand new houses I like are usually architecturally interesting, custom designed houses that cost a fortune. The house we compromised on, cause there are always compromises, is from the eighties but it has an interesting open plan design-win for both of us. Now this house does still have some things that are stuck in the eighties,like seashell sinks and kitchen cabinets that while appear to be modern in the photos actually have metal trim that dates them to I'd say at best the early nineties. All of this is workable and I think you'll agree that the bones of this house are good. Here she is in all her eighties glory:

I've obviously already started a secret Pinterest board that I'll share with you once all my plans are in order. Aren't you excited to come along on the ride of renovating this place? This time it will be at a slower pace as we have a few boring major fixes to do-ughhh windows- but boy do I have plans for this place. Glass railings, a hanging pod fireplace, oh and getting rid of that horrible red carpet and the eighties bathrooms and repainting the exterior-I'm thinking black! We are also super excited to be trading in yard work for pool maintenance. I'm going to have a long time to stew this over as we have three months between our closing date and the move in date. Get ready for my plans for every room and maybe I'll finally finish the round-up of our trip to Ireland.