Posted by:Aleksandra Oleksak

Here is my 3rd and most recent project. I was really excited about this house for a few reasons, to start off, I saw a lot of potential here and I knew I could get creative, 2nd, it’s on a street and neighbourhood that I was dying to move into, the Junction Triangle and lastly because I had some time in between my last project and this one and I found some great furniture and pieces from scouring antique markets as well as purchasing some items from Salvage Interiors and Renee Elliott from Eat.Live.Shop. I couldn’t wait to put everything together.

Upon first glance this project intimated me as I was about to embark on the biggest project I have ever done. It was basically a total gut job and I wasn’t sure at first if I wanted to take it on, but I figured I had good experience under my belt and I also wanted to challenge myself. But before I show you the house, I want to share some things I learned along the way:
Aleksandra’s Tips:

• Buffer your budget-whatever your reno budget is, always leave room for the unexpected, when working with old homes, like we have here in Toronto, there is always something you will either have to fix or replace, in my case it was the furnace and AC, which were not cheap!
• Ugly things always lurk behind walls-when you are gutting a house and/or taking down walls, you’re most likely to find problems you did not expect or budget for, most common, but not limited to, is plumbing not done to code or interfering with your current design plan and knob and tube wiring. Once found, you cannot just leave it, you MUST fix it! This is what happened to me, I didn’t budget to re-wire my whole house, but when my electrician found knob and tube wiring all over the house, it had to be ripped out and replaced, even though when I first looked at the house I saw an electrical panel and not a fuse box, oh well, c’est la vie!
• Hire specialists-although general contractors are jack of all trades and may give you a better quote because they are doing all the work, throughout the project this may back fire on you for several reasons. If your contractor gets sick, the project comes to a hault and may not meet your deadline, the project will not move as fast as you anticipated as one person can only do so much and contractors can become overwhelmed, which further delays you. Lastly I’m a strong believer of being great at one thing and not mediocre at several things
• Communication is key-don’t be afraid to speak up and let your contractors know when they are doing something wrong or something you don’t like, remember this is your money, risk and investment. Also make a list of everything that needs to be done in your home and set realistic deadlines for each task so that everyone is on the same page. If the contractor is consistently not meeting your deadlines then have a sit down and find out why, are your deadlines unrealistic or are the contractors not fully committed to the tasks at hand? Remember communication is key with any relationship, whether it’s personal or business
• Supervision is a must-giving your contractor free rein on YOUR project is not advisable. Make sure either yourself or someone you know, is always dropping by the home to note progress and to let your contractors know someone is always watching. If you have extra time, find an excuse to be at the home for extended periods of time each day, as from my experience people tend to work harder and take less breaks when you are there working too
• Shop around-this is only if you really have extra time on your hands, shop around for materials, I’m not referring to dry wall or nails, but the major stuff, like tiles, toilets, sinks, finishes like faucets, light fixtures, etc. There are so many discount or “end of the line places” and a lot of the big box stores also do price matches

I’m figuring by now that you are sick of reading, so here are the before and afters of my home.  This home is a semi detached featuring 3 bedrooms and 2 washrooms, one legal front pad parking and a finished basement. Let me know what you think!

Before…exterior

After…exterior

Once again, curb appeal is very important and this house was suffering, I’ve been seeing a lot of cedar on the front of homes, so I wanted to try it out here. This home got a new cedar porch, trim painted black and cedar accents. Also cedar gives off a nice smell. Lastly some landscaping, done by moi, did this home justice.

Before…living room

After…living room

Love the exposed brick that was uncovered! New oak hardwood floors, light fixture, dry wall, paint and window coverings

Before…dining room

After…dining room

Here I had some walls knocked down to make it an open concept main floor from the living room right through to the kitchen. New oak hardwood floors, dry wall, paint and light fixture from Homesav (love that website)

Before…main floor/staircase

After…main floor/staircase

Since the home is only 15.31 feet wide, I wanted to give the illusion of a bigger, airy space, this was accomplished by making the main floor open concept as well as knocking out the wall separating the stairs from the dining room and building a custom banister. Since this wall was load bearing we also added a beam where the wall used to be to keep the house sturdy…I think this was a success and one of my favourite things I did in this home

Before…kitchen

After…kitchen

Since the kitchen was narrow and dark, I decided to add a window above the kitchen sink to bring in some more light. New oak hardwood floors, pot lights, tile backsplash, custom built kitchen with pantry, stainless steel appliances and granite counter top with undermount sink completed the look of a modern kitchen

Before…3rd bedroom

After…3rd bedroom

I had the kitchen ripped out and turned this room into my home office, it could also double as a nursery if needed. New oak hardwood floors, light fixture, drywall and paint is what this room needed

Before…main washroom

After…main washroom

This washroom was a big eye sore and a challenge for me as it was very tiny and not functional at all! I had the bathroom completely gutted so I could start from scratch. It took days of sitting on that bathroom floor and drawing out different scenarios of how to put it back together until I finally came up with this design. I bought a brand new mini tub, toilet, sink and mirror with extra storage space. I used white subway tiles in the shower area and porcelain tiles on the floor. Some new paint and light fixture completed this space.

Before…2nd bedroom

After…2nd bedroom

Here, there was not much to do, new oak hardwood floors, dry wall, paint and light fixture

Before…master bedroom

After…master bedroom

Like I said before, I love accent walls in the bedroom and here is no different. Since I did a light grey (grey is so in right now) colour throughout the house, I decided to do the accent wall in a very dark grey colour. In this project I was trying to weed out my Ikea furniture but had to stick to a budget. I wanted to get a new bed frame and headboard and the one I wanted was $1000, yikes! So Renee from Eat.Live.Shop gave me a great idea, she told me to find a cool door, paint it and hang it on my wall as a headboard and that’s exactly what I did here, it turned out a lot better then I expected! Also since this is a master bedroom and I have a serious shopping problem, the dinky closet space was not cutting it, so I had a big closet built and used mirrored doors to make the room seem bigger. New oak hardwood floors, dry wall, paint and a chandelier, which I’m seeing everywhere in bedrooms, completed my bedroom oasis.

Before…basement

After…basement

The basement was pretty scary! It was chopped up into 2 bedrooms, I decided to tear down all the walls and make it all open concept. By the time new dry wall was put up and pot lights and carpet were installed, it turned into a cozy place to hang out

Before…extension
.
After…in progress

I don’t have a true “after” picture of the extension, but this will give you some sort of idea of what I did. Once again, to bring more light into the house I had the door torn out and replaced with a sliding glass door, also I reduced the extension to half it’s size because it was in rough shape and it would have cost more money to fix versus tearing down the rough part and working with the rest. The extension got new oak hardwood floors, drywall, paint and a light fixture and is used as a breakfast area.

Before…backyard

After…backyard

The backyard was a jungle and was not a true extension of the indoor space. In order to turn it into an oasis, I had the whole backyard cleaned up, sodded, added new plant life and a new fence on one side…what a difference.

In the end the project was a success. I received multiple offers and sold 115% over asking price, what more could I ask for. I’m sure the buyers will love raising their new family here in this great neighbourhood. I already bought my next house and will be closing on it very soon. Can’t wait to share the whole project, step by step.