Mudroom Reveal

Our mudroom is complete!  I could jump for joy (and I have) because we do not need to endure another winter of tripping over wet boots in the hall!  We also don't need to store Rudy's stroller in the dining room anymore.  Hurray!

I'm excited to share some photos of our project but first, I want to remind you of how far we've come and why this project was so necessary.

Our house is always a work in progress.  A room is never finished, since it evolves with us.  This was exactly the case in our entrance hall.

As you may already know, our small house did not offer much in the way of closet space when we moved in.  We've had to carefully plan and create our own storage solutions throughout the house.  We worked to add hooks to our entrance hall for storage and we decorated a shoe organizer but there wasn't much we could really do to create more space.  You can read about our initial hallway makeover here.

The photo below highlights many of the deficiencies.  Here were the main issues:

• We didn't have room for many coats.  
• Our shoe organizer was too large for the space.
• That plant got zero light and took a beating from doggy tails each time one of us came home from work.
• While not referenced in the photo, the front door was awful.  It was hung upside down and it didn't let any light in, creating a dark and claustrophobic space.

Earlier this year, we began improving our space by buying a shallow shoe organizer.   We knew that our mudroom would still not give us unlimited space and now we have a space for dog leashes and coats.

I recently shared photos of our new front exterior which you can see below.  We love the look of our new entrance, however the functional aspects of this reno were far more important to us than the aesthetics.  Our contractor followed our plans with respect to exterior finishes, but we had requested that he leave the interior completely blank... including the closet!

Below, I'm sharing another look at the inside of our mudroom.  The left shows the room nearing the end of our renovation and the right shows how it looks today!

The cardinal rule when you're renovating a small space is Plan Plan PLAN!  We need to maximize our space and add storage and there is rarely the room for error that you'd have with a larger house.  Here are a few things we'd like to share about our design decisions.  You may remember some of the accessories from this post.:

• We had our contractor to install mirrored closet doors to make the space feel larger.  I maximized the effect of the mirror with a long, patterned indoor/outdoor runner.
• The old exterior door was replaced with a beautiful glass door which lets light from the mudroom into our entrance hall.

• We hung some cubbies with hooks below them so Rudy has a place to hang her own coats and backpack.  The cubby shelves also give us a place to rest our coffee and keys while putting on our coats.
• A little bit of greenery always makes a space feel more homey.  I bought a Meyer Lemon plant, which is supposed to be tolerant of cooler rooms.  So far, it is still alive.

We left the brick wall exposed and just had our contractor paint it white.  We did add some glamour to the room by adding pretty light fixtures.

• While we may need a storage bench in the future, for now we're living with the bowling lane bench that Corey made when we still lived in the condo.  It has so much character and we still love it.

• For the floor, we chose very neutral tiles with just enough texture so they don't become slippery when wet.

• We kept the walls in the small space white and instead chose to paint the ceiling a pale blue/green shade.
• Our closet is too shallow for a traditional bar for hangers.  We ended up finding pull-out bars online and Corey installed one on each side.  Where there's a will, there's a way!
• Corey also added shelves to store our boots and shoes.

We love that those clothes racks pull right out for easy access!

We are thrilled with our new mudroom.  The extra storage makes day to day life with Rudy much easier and now we have a place to properly get her dressed for the winter without worrying about the dogs eating her hat and shoes while our backs are turned.  ;)

Our Weird Family Room

Remember our disastrous family room from the day we moved in?  The family room addition was one of the things that drew us to our new/old house but it was in rough shape aesthetically.  It was poorly insulated, had cheap laminate flooring, an exposed brick wall (it was an addition to the house) that someone had attempted to paint but had stopped after a few bricks, it was bright pink and it had a sketchy shower in the corner.

One of the previous owners had mobility issues and we think this addition was built as a bedroom.  The shower probably allowed her to avoid the stairs as much as possible.  Initially, I hated the shower but during our bathroom reno, I was grateful for it and so we left it and the room remained untouched and just sort of became a dumping ground for overflow from the kitchen... until recently.

Here are some photos of the room before we started working on it:

Behind the shower is a (formerly) exterior window leading to the kitchen.

It was finally time to fix the ugly pink blemish at the back of our house.  Corey removed the shower and framed and drywalled the window.

We knew the brick was going to be really challenging to paint, so he "Dextered" the room in plastic.

He also removed the laminate and bought a paint sprayer to cover all the old brick.  Yes, we would have left the exposed brick unpainted had it been in prettier condition and not already partially painted.

He used the paint sprayer to prime the walls in white.  We're going to continue our kitchen paint colour into the family room and we also wanted both rooms to have the same flooring. 

We knew the Marmoleum from the kitchen would provide some cushion and insulation but, even after Corey used spray foam around the edges of the walls, the room felt chilly.

Our solution (thanks to a friend's recommendation) was to buy DriCore tiles, which are plastic on the bottom with a raised pattern.  They're great for basements because the plastic side faces down and the air pockets serve to trap heat but also to provide a path for moisture to travel without ruining the floor.  For our purposes, we liked the idea of an additional layer of insulation and we read that it would raise the temperature of the room by about 3 degrees Celcius.

So Corey and my brother laid the DriCore under the Marmoleum and the unfinished room already looks so different!

Here's Corey standing with a rubber duckey in the spot where we were showering last summer!

Soon, we'll be ready to paint.  We have some fun ideas for this room!

Kitchen Progress

It seems that this time of year, I always take a little vacation from blogging in order to work longer hours.  This year is no exception, but I promise that some late nights of work have left me with dozens of half-finished posts so I'm hoping to be publishing them more regularly for a while.

Corey's been making incredible progress on the kitchen.  He's hustling to finish for a party I'm throwing for some of my clients next month and we're super excited to have such good motivation.  I'm really looking forward to showing my clients and friends the progress we've been making on our new/old house!

Most recently, Corey has added the spacers between cabinets and the hardware as well.  Doesn't that brassy gold just pop against our grey cupboards?  

He still has some drywall to touch up but we're so close to being ready that we ordered our paint today.  I can't wait to show you guys the finished product!

Switching Our Switches

You know how some women get crazy over shoes?  Well, in our house, it's cool home innovations that get us super excited.  And what could a Real Estate Broker and an Electrician like more than beautiful high-tech light switches and outlets?

Corey is ready to start covering outlets (he added so many for all our small appliances) in the kitchen and he asked me if I would prefer plain or "fancy".  I had no idea what a "fancy" outlet might look like so he showed me the Adorne collection by Legrand.



I sort of fell in love and now we're slowly replacing all the switches and receptacles in the house with the "soft tap" switches and modern receptacles.  They had a "touch only" option but I like a tap or a click to tell me that I've actually turned on a light.  Corey makes fun of me because apparently the actual light turning on or off isn't enough for me.  I need that click!

There's also an option to add a little light beneath your switches like a night light.  Here's one in Rudy's room:

The switch plates come in an array of finishes but some are a little too crazy expensive for my beer budget.  Still, we decided to use a fun dark blue switch plate in the bathroom for the outlet beside the thermostat that controls our heated floors.

Now, if only we could get to finishing and painting those walls...

But this is a perfect example of a tiny update making a huge difference.  These upgraded switches already make our home feel more modern and high-tech.  As if we should expect to press one and be greeted by a robot butler.  Damn, I want a robot butler.

Let There Be Light! ... In Our Kitchen

Guys, I'm pretty excited to say that our kitchen is in the "finishing touches" stage.  That means spacers, knobs and pulls, cover panels and the odd shelf and the trim that will hide the lights (no idea what it's called) still need to be installed and then Corey can tile the backsplash and we can paint.  Woot woot!


Unlike our kitchen in the condo, this time we really wanted both under-cabinet and in-cabinet lighting.  It gives the kitchen such a wow factor, don't you think?  Because these cabinets are so high, I can't really access the top shelf (even on a stool) which means the top shelf of our glass cabinets will be assigned to purely decorative items (hello, milk glass collection) and the top shelf in the other cabinets will hold items we don't use very often.

It won't be long until our kitchen is actually finished. :)

Choosing a Backsplash for the Kitchen

This post serves as proof that between diaper changes and night feedings, Corey has continued to work on completing our kitchen!  At this point, almost all the cupboards are hung and the doors are being installed.  There's still lots of finishing work to do (like finishing the walls and adding lighting, hardware and spacers) but it's exciting to see it begin to take shape.

Here's a photo of the plan we created on Ikea's website.

Take a look at one of my inspiration images and you'll see the look I am hoping to achieve with the white cabinets on top and grey on the bottom.

Photo from The Inspired Room

One thing I noticed about my inspiration kitchen was that the white subway tile backsplash might not have enough impact for my space.  I wanted something a little more eye-catching like the marble tile behind the tub in this picture, which I found when we were beginning to renovate the bathroom.

After a trip to a tile closeout warehouse with Rudy, we found exactly what I was looking for.

I think this grey and white marble will be the perfect choice against our grey and white cupboards and our white quarts countertops.

Reader Question: Turning Up the HEAT!

I love my little blog hobby.  I find that with busy work schedules, blogging helps us to update our loved ones on our lives and it also provides motivation and a way to look back and see how far we've come.

Fresh Coat of Paint is still a relatively small blog and I'm always surprised (and a little bashful) to get questions from readers whom I've never met.  Sometimes I forget that I don't know personally every person who reads this blog. :)

I always try to respond directly when people email me questions but this was a particularly good one and I thought it might be a welcome change from all the nursery posts.  Here goes:

"Hi Taylor - I am an avid reader of your blog and find it so interesting considering that I am also in the midst of renovating my downtown home.  I'd be interested to know what your situation was when you bought in terms of your HVAC.  Was your furnace a rental?  I know that you didn't have air conditioning based on your blog so I'd be interested to know hoe that purchase process went (in terms of the unit - did you purchase it?)  I'd also like to know about your hot water heater.  This would make for an interesting blog post or comment (at least for me) to hear how another home buyer weathered these pieces of equipment."

Great question and thanks for reading.   This post is a little overdue but, as you can imagine, things over here have been a little crazy!  :)  As I type this post, I have tabs open on my browser researching the following: Christmas gift ideas for my brother, Where to buy mother's milk tea, MLS - I'm supposed to be taking a break from work but I still like to check-in, a Facebook album with a friend's new baby, the Ikea website - since we're still waiting on our kitchen sink delivery, a new home insurance quote, and an email to our dog walker who is "on call" to watch Barkley and Cheetah when it's time for the baby to come.  My head is spinning a bit just typing that!  Still, I hope I'm not too late to help.

I wish I had photos to show from when we toured the house for the first time but we didn't take any photos ourselves until we took possession out of respect for the sellers.  Here are the photos the real estate agent gave us:

Ahhh, the magic of photography.  It looks like our house was in decent shape... maybe in need of some updating but not terrible.  A quick visual inspection revealed the truth and the reason behind the affordable price: It would take a lot of TLC to bring this house up to snuff.  It was exactly the fixer-upper we wanted.

One of the most obvious deficiencies was the lack of heating in the house.  That's right- they had no furnace, no baseboard heaters... NOTHING!  We purchased the house in February and it only appeared on our search after I deleted any search parameters involving heating type.  When we toured it, we noticed that some rooms had up to FIVE space heaters plugged in.  We were saddened by the lengths the family was going to in order to keep warm because it must have been costing them a fortune in hydro but adding heat is a large one-time expense and most people would need to save for it.

When we took possession of the house, we did notice grates in the walls from old duct work.  We also found a boarded up return in the floor of the front hall.

We were hopeful that perhaps this meant that we could save a little dinero by having a company use some of the existing duct work.

Unfortunately, both companies who came to provide quotes explained that it would be more efficient to run new ducts, since codes and sizes had changed.  This also gave us the opportunity to choose where the bulkheads would be, since we would need a couple to run the duct work between floors.

Here's what we ended up with:

We purchased a new furnace and rented a new hot water tank.  We considered tankless but the numbers didn't work out for us.  Both went in our basement with a large trunk, running across the ceiling of the far wall.

We also purchased a new AC unit, and like many city dwellers who either have very little space between their house and their neighbour's or perhaps have right-of-way access or a mutual drive between houses, we had ours installed in the backyard.  Here's a photo of it barely visible behind a vine-covered dead tree, which we need to remove.

Choosing where to run the ducts was a challenge because it meant losing space in an already small house, but we decided that keeping the basement ducts along the far wall meant we would lose minimal space in the room and we agreed to use the space underneath (now too low to walk) for storage shelves.

From the basement, vents were run, both for the actual basement (we will eventually finish it) as well as for the main floor.  Not knowing what our new kitchen configuration would look like, we opted for an extra vent in the family room (at the entrance to the kitchen) instead of committing to a vent in the kitchen floor.

Of course, this took care of the basement and the main floor, but we still needed to run ducts upstairs.  We decided that it made the most sense to run the ducts right up to the attic so that the vents upstairs could be run through the ceiling.  This would make our new duct work minimally visible and leave us with only one large trunk to hide on each floor.  It was a challenging decision because we now had to select two locations (close in proximity but on different floors) to sacrifice some space.

We opted to bring a duct up through the corner of our dining room.  It was already quite a large space and I planned to enclose it with faux built-ins one day.

From there it ran right up through the smallest bedroom, only I requested that it be run along the floor (I'd hide it with a window seat) before shooting up into the attic.

Now, instead of floor vents upstairs, we have ceiling vents that resemble smoke detectors.  We love that they're unobtrusive and I really love that we don't need to place furniture around awkward floor vents on the second floor and we don't have anything on the floor in the baby's room for her to stick her tiny fingers in.

All in, the duct work (along with our brand new furnace and ac) cost us around 12K.  It would have been a little more if we had asked them to cover the ducts but we had our own ideas of how we would hide them and wanted the workers out of the house asap so that we could start our own renos,  I may be regretting that decision a teeny bit now that we still need to hide the ducts... ;)  Oh well, we're learning as we go!