DIY

Anyone who has ever done a home renovation project, whether it be for the kitchen, bathroom, or living room, will tell you that it didn’t quite go as planned.  Always expect the unexpected.

Our initial ‘idea’, to put it loosely, was not the end result and I am so happy for it.

When Big Boss and I bought our condo, the living room was up front and the kitchen in the rear.  

The living room was long but not very wide.  So there wasn’t much configuration we could do with the furniture we had.  

We had just bought a sofa for our old condo from Crate and Barrel.  It is a mammoth and one I had waited 3 years to buy. However, we got lucky and were able to purchase the floor sample at a very reduced price.  All it had was just one little stain barely visible. 

What is great about it is that it’s super comfortable and sits comfortably a family of 4. Also, you can sleep on it if you have to as it is wide enough and the slip covers come off easily to wash (in case of some uncontrolled drooling). 

Replacing this sofa was not an option because it answered our needs.  This is why we needed to come up with a renovation project for our living room so that we could actually enjoy and be comfortable in.

Our initial renovation plan for the living room

Originally, we had thought and planned on taking down part of the bearing wall in the living room to at least try to make the space appear wider, more open.

However, during our house warming party, before the destruction, one of my friends made a suggestion. Why I hadn’t thought of that, I don’t know.

Possibly the thought had crossed my mind but because of all the work it entailed, I brushed it off.

Instead of taking the wall down from the actual living room, take the one down from the bedroom adjacent to the kitchen.  Turn the bedroom into the living room and the old living room into a bedroom. Ta dah.

Once my friend put it out there, there was no turning back and so here we are, 9 months later, with a brand new baby living room. It was the best decision EVER and totally made sense.

Living room or dining room

Since dining rooms are becoming OBSOLETE, at least they have in my life since I became an adult, the living room needs to be close to the kitchen or at least not on opposite sides of your house. 

Dining rooms are a waste of space especially if you have room in the kitchen to eat.  I mean, unless you are the Queen of something, you will use that space like what, 4  times a year?

We had struck gold in our last condo because the whole kitchen-dining-living area was open. It was a lot more practical to live in.  This was especially the case for us because of the kids and our dog and to receive the occasional guest(s). 

I just couldn’t imagine myself receiving guests in this new condo with the way the floor plan worked.  Imagining our guests in our tight living room sitting next to each other on the one sofa, trying to have a conversation while I was at the opposite of the house getting things ready made me cringe. 

By relocating our living room to the back of the house where the kitchen was at would make it easier for us to receive guests and give us more room to live-in.  Most importantly,  I’d get to be with my family while still tending to my mommy duties.  SPACE IS IMPORTANT.

How to take down a wall

This project was not meant to be done right away.  However, since I wanted to get the kitchen done, I had to make this project our first priority because of all the dust it was going to create.

If I had known beforehand that we would be tearing down this wall, I would have waited to redo our kitchen floor.

We barely survived but amazingly Big Boss and I pulled through.

The whole process was a nightmare especially when you do all the work yourself (except tearing the wall down) while working full time, taking care of kids, baby Nouki, etc.

Renovation projects can really put your relationship to the test. HERE, you will find ideas of exercises you can do as a couple to overcome some of these problems, based on a book I read.

Hire a professional

Since tearing down a bearing wall to install a beam is structural, it is highly recommended, no, MANDATORY, to get it done by a professional. 

Between the engineer and contractor, we had to shell out $5000. 

We had an engineer draw the plans and hired a contractor to take down the wall, put up the beam, move electrical outlets, take scrap out and replace drywall where need be.  This is what cost the most for us. 

Living room renovation

After the contractor did his thing, we took care of the rest. What did that entail exactly?

We removed the bedroom closet and pantry doors. Removed not 1 but 2 coats of wallpaper, hilariously fun. 

Removing wallpaper

The best way to remove wallpaper without buying products: use your finger nails for the first layer. Ok, I’m just kidding but I did do it that way at first. 

Then, apply a sponge or paint roller that you have dipped in warm water onto what’s left of the paper. Only do small sections at a time. Once your section has been soaked, use a scraper to peel the paper off. 

Expecting the unexpected

Unless you are doing some renovation in a brand new building, you will stumble onto things you hadn’t foreseen.  If you think that it will take say 2 weeks for you to bring your renovation project of the living room to completion, double that.

We had a hell of a good time removing very thick and wide wood moulding glued to the wall installed prior to the wood ceiling.  Therefore, after the wallpaper was removed and so was the moulding, we had to replaster the parts of the wall. 

Taking the wall down, installing the beam, and removing the wallpaper took us a good 3 weeks to do.  

Since our living room was originally a bedroom, there was a closet.  We had to remove the linoleum flooring that was in the closet.  Of course, underneath the linoleum was not the same flooring as our living room.

Once everything was removed from the walls (and floor), we started priming EVERYTHING.  This included the wooden ceiling and part of the floor where the bedroom closet used to be. 

Setbacks

We got set back a few days because of the drain that was going through the wall.  I already knew that and had made my peace with the fact of having a column in the middle of this open space I wanted to create.  

Our contractor thought that it might have been possible to move it, so we had to wait for a plumber to come and look at it.  

Everything is feasible when you have time and money.  We didn’t, and it wouldn’t have been worth it because it could have been like opening Pandora’s box. We would have had to go and open walls up in the condos upstairs….bla bla bla…all I was seeing right there and then were more dollar signs adding up and I wanted to be smart about this.  

So we kept the column which gives our beam even more support.

Dressing up your walls

Paint, paint and paint. I love accent walls.  

Even though I can’t seem to bring myself to do a whole room in  just one colour and by that I mean anything but white, I can’t bring myself to have all white walls either. 

Although, for example, I enjoy looking at a Scandinavian inspired space and I do find some quite exquisite, I just can’t picture myself living in it.  It doesn’t represent me, who I am.  I need some colour, even if it is just a grey.

For ideas on how to dress up your walls on a budget, I tell you about it HERE.

Accent walls

For the renovation of our living room we used one main accent colour. It’s one I had never used before so I wanted to try it out.  I have to admit, and this usually never happens, I was starting to second guess myself, did I pick the right colour? It seemed a bit too punchy. 

While I was looking back at my notes and my research, I realized that yep, I had found another colour I liked more.  However, since I had done my material board a few months back I stuck with it and forgot to change it. 

So after two coats of paint here I was, wondering, hmm is this what I want? Had I wanted to, I could have changed it.  However, that meant extra cost for the change of paint and extra labor (our own). 

Finally, I really like the colour as it works well with the other accent wall opposite it in the kitchen.  I might change it one day, after all its just paint, but for now, I’m going to enjoy it and finish off ALL the other projects before making changes. 

I added a mirror as an accent piece to my accent wall which I found at Zone (on sale). Since I felt the wall was missing something, I found a little poster while traveling to Vietnam which I thought would make a sweet addition.

Can you have two accent walls?

Since ONE accent piece wasn’t enough in my living-room, I used other non-white colours.  

I fell in love with the grey I used in Blondie Bear’s room, which gave me an idea to create an accent niche for our TV.  

However, I couldn’t reuse exactly the same grey as it didn’t work well with the lighting in the space, so I picked another one, similar but different. 

It is a strong grey but it doesn’t fight off my accent colour which is what I like and wanted. They actually work well together. 

To dress up, even more, our TV niche wall, I had some of our photos printed on canvas from this company. They were easy to make and it was fast delivery. 

The only draw back is that they don’t have a little hook in the back to install. It makes installing a little tricky but doable if you are handy.

How to dress up structural items in your room

I had to ‘dress’ the elephant in the room: THE DRAIN, the beast, the column…that thing in the middle of the space. We couldn’t just pretend it wasn’t there, so I decided to acknowledge it with more paint.  

Since I was missing the birthday wall we had in our last condo I decided to implement it on the BEAST.  All you need is some chalkboard paint. That’s it, folks. 

We use it to indicate what items are missing from the kitchen and who is getting a year older.  It also ties in nicely with the existing black kitchen ceiling.

The rest of the walls are either white or pale grey (walls with windows).

Beam me up Scotty

Well, this was not originally part of the plan. The beam was supposed to be just white, I know right? 

While I was looking at our gutted ceiling and at our new support beam which was an orangey/red within the space, I thought hmmm, that actually looks cool, works well with my kitchen bar stools.

Since I already had a red paint sample picked out on my material board which was just there to represent my stools, this was a no brainer. 

Big Boss didn’t shy away from the idea, he is colour blind anyways. He trusts me. So we went ahead and highlighted our beam with red paint. It was really a pain to paint.

Living room flooring

We kept the existing original wood floor as is.  A cherrywood transition strip was installed between the kitchen cement tile and the living room wood floor.  

We got very lucky with the stain we picked as it pretty much matches our existing floor.  Again, I eyeballed it in the store, just like in Ikea, guess I still hadn’t learned my lesson from renovating Blondie Bear’s room. 

However, this time I didn’t mess up, but I do admit I tried to match stains with a picture of the floor on my cell phone. Ya, I did that! 

As for the TV niche floor, we just primed it and painted it white.  It had been hidden under linoleum but it also had some cement strips.  It gives it a rough industrial look to it, which I like, and works well with our metal/wood TV stand.  I got it in one of our local stores on sale. Bois & Cuir often have some sales which are really worth the wait because their prices are through the roof. 

West Elm Rug

As I am, according to Big Boss, a big fan of area rugs, I bought one from West Elm (on sale) to bring comfort to our living area. 

West Elm is great but the prices are heavy, but you know, sometimes you have to get something that you really like. I had a gift certificate for the store and they were having sales, so it was the perfect time to get the rug and later on my coffee table, also on sale. 

The only problem with West Elm, while living in Quebec, is that it doesn’t have a website so you can’t order online nor check out their line. 

So if you stumble on a picture of said coffee table on a blog or Instagram and if they don’t physically have it in-store, then check out their US page.  Find the product, call up your local store, and order it that way. If you can, pick it up yourself at the store and save on delivery cost.  

The rug is made of wool and yep it is white, crazy I know! They say that it sheds for 3-6 months, try more 9 months! We already had Nouki shedding and at one point we didn’t know who was shedding more our Nouki or our rug. 

How to clean a natural white rug

As our rug is natural, it is however very easy to remove stains. 

Just a few weeks ago, Nouki got really sick on it and I am talking doodie kind of sick. Half of the rug was covered in runny doodie. It was awful and smelled so bad! What a great way to start your day! To top it off, it was still Winter, not the best time to try to clean a rug outside. 

Anyways, quick research on the Internet and the solution was as follows: 

• Use paper towels to pat down as much as you can. 
• Pour baking soda on the stains which also helps eliminate odors. We used 3 boxes!! 
• Let it sink in 10 minutes. 
• Then spray (we just poured) a half and half mixture of water and white vinegar. 
• Use a gentle brush and brush over the mixture covering the stains.
• Hose it down and have it hang dry.

Lighting a Living Room

As with any room, lighting is important.

For now, we haven’t really addressed that issue.  This would entail hiring an electrician and redoing our ceiling, plus the cost of new lights.

So for now, I just replaced the existing lighting fixture with one I found at Ikea. It gives a more organic feel to the space in our living room. 

Funny enough, since I installed it, I have been seeing it everywhere.  Recently I had lunch at Venice Montreal and they have so many of them! Speaking of which, if ever in Montreal, definitely check them out!

Planning a renovation soon?  In order to keep your costs down when hiring a professional, see what you can do on your own and what you can delegate.  Labor is what costs the most in any given project, aside from materials. 

Despite the cost of the renovation of our living-room due to the removing of the bearing wall, we are so happy that we took care of this project the first year we were in our condo.  

This is the space in our home where we spend the majority of our time and the fact that it is an open space, makes it a lot more breathable.