BEFORE & AFTER: GARAGE MAKEOVER

I love looking back at this Garage makeover! I worked on this a few years ago and it was such a functional, well used space. When I bought the property I was excited to have a very large 'garage' on the property. Of course I had big plans for the space and thought I could do the work myself. It hadn't been touched in years and the space was actually divided in two: the front was the garage and the back was a room called a 'summer bedroom'. The summer bedroom had potential but needed a lot of work. The fabric on the windows would disintegrate when I touched it. Here is how it looked:

And here is a picture of the front garage area:

I decided to remove the wall between the front and back spaces to create one large room. The roof also needed to be replaced and my very handy cousin Mike came to help me do the job (he did the entire roof!) and I worked on getting the inside ripped up.

Mike up on the roof:

And this was happening inside:

The wall is down!! It made the space so much larger, brighter and open, I loved it.

Mike still on the roof:

And the next phase was the floor; we did a new inexpensive spruce floor which I painted.

And then I spent one entire summer painting this space. The old barn boards on the walls and ceilings just soaked up the paint. It took many coats of primer and white paint. But in the end it was all worth it and I couldn't have done this without Mike! Here it is getting a mention on House & Home magazine.

http://houseandhome.com/design/cottage-garage-renovation

kitchen before & after: a reno

Recently I posted a dining room 'before and after' in a previous home of mine. Someone was asking about the kitchen that was also extensively renovated. So here is the kitchen reno! The state of the kitchen 'BEFORE' was not so great, it needed to be gutted from the floors to walls to adding new electrical, plumbing, new cabinets, appliances, etc. The wall between the kitchen and dining room was removed and an island was placed here with the sink, dishwasher, cabinets and seating. Here it is before:

 And the renovation begins! It's never much fun to live through a kitchen reno but it was well planned and was a working kitchen again after about 8 weeks.

And here it is once the appliances and cabinets are getting into place:

And finally...the finished product! A few more AFTER shots:

Affordable & stylish counter

A few years ago I was looking for an inexpensive counter top option for a rental property. I wanted it to look great, but the cost was my number one concern. I found this Formica counter, called Travertine Silver, and I was really impressed with how it turned out. It was fairly durable and was a material I wouldn't need to worry about damage with renters. Here it is from the Formica website:

And here is the counter in my rental property, I went with a square edge profile and paired it with dark grey cabinets:

Before & After: dining room

This image above of a dining room (and the kitchen in the background), is an old shot  from my last home in Toronto. Naturally, I embarked on a huge renovation in this house. I just happened to come across these "before" pictures, and I had to share them. I removed a wall between the kitchen and dining room, so the wall in the "before" is the one on the left that was removed. Oh how I love to renovate!

today we're on thekitchn.com

Excited to see my Chester cottage kitchen reno featured on thekitchn.com (of Apartment Therapy) today. This was an easy, inexpensive kitchen update that really just involved taking down a wall and a lot of white paint.  Other than the wall coming down (with proper support beams added to the ceiling).  I was able to do the rest of  the work else myself.  Be sure to check it out here:  http://www.thekitchn.com/kitchen-before-after-a-rundown-cottage-kitchen-gets-a-little-charm-reader-kitchen-remodel-206561 And the original blog post about the kitchen progress is here:  http://www.debnelsondesign.com/?p=1350