Family Room Renovation

Our family room used to be the previous owner's dining room... here is a picture of the room when we went through the house for our pre-closing inspection in April 2011...

Our family room renovation began in the Winter of 2013 and Larry spent several months stripping the wallpaper and restoring the walls to enable him to paint the room. He did this wall restoration after his work day and on the weekends. We were guided by our designer Tim Badgley of Acanthus Interiors, located in Port Hope, Ontario.

As you can see from this picture, we used the room as it was being renovated with a mixture of furnishings, at times the room was a storage room and at other times it was a party room, however once the paint, drapery and sofa were in place the room started to be our favourite spot to relax in. One of the features we truly appreciated were the two shelves inserted in the wall on either side of the door leading into the kitchen. We found glass doors for these shelves in the basement however decided not to use them  as it limited the use of the shelves. Larry repainted these units and we replaced the wood shelves with glass ... we have thought about adding pot lights overhead however have not done so yet.

The accessories have been fun to collect, some art from Quinn's Flower Shop in Cobourg, camel and book ends from Glam in Port Hope.

As the room became our family room, in the summer of 2013 we installed a TV with a sound system and that further added to our home entertainment options. After months of searching for some finishing pieces of furniture we added a wonderful antique unit, a large open buffet and two incredible antique chairs from England.... the room became a mixture of modern furniture, with interesting antiques and great technology. Finally in the winter of 2013 we grounded the room with a great dark grey berber carpet with a nice suede border in a darker grey and added a funky mirror over the antique buffet.

The horse was purchased at Glam in Port Hope, mirror from Acanthus, antique buffet from Brighton Antique Shop and wall sconces came from our previous home in Toronto. The buffet is a large piece and just the right scale for our family room.

And we have a few final touches to completely finish the room ... Tim has recommended two small ottomans for the bottom of the King and Queen (throne) chairs and we are looking for a few additional pillows to compliment the colours in the room.

Notice the beautiful plaster molding in this room; it was a feature that made us fall in love with this house. It carries through to the kitchen which makes us think that room was not a kitchen in the original design especially since we have an old wood oven built into a wall in the basement. Intriguing old house. Some fun with a few Ken Danby prints found at the Waddington's Auction House in Cobourg.

This has turned into a true family room where we gather with the kids, friends and one another to relax and shut out the world for a few hours. Thanks for visiting. xo Donna

Our Bedroom Makeover...

Our bedroom renovation began in December of 2013 - one morning Larry woke up and decided it was time to rid the room of the old red wallpaper. Here are two photos of the room as it looked during our home inspection in April 2011.

As the wallpaper came off, or perhaps I should say some did and some didn't, we consulted with friends  and our designer Tim Badgely of Acanthus in Port Hope as to what to do with the walls. Larry found many cracks, a combination of drywall and old lathe and plaster and he was not sure we could restore what he found under the wall paper.

We decided to stop the wallpaper removal and put up new drywall in the entire room. This was no small feat and we were greatly helped my a local craftsman and within a week we had new fresh walls and a lot of clean up as a result.

Here are a few photos of the new drywall going up.

You can see the lovely molding at the ceiling and the trim that comes down the wall. We moved the trim up higher than it was originally to give more space for the new drapery hardware. We were pleased to use the drapery panels that were in the room originally as they were of a wonderful quality, fully lined and in our colour scheme. After an expensive trip to the dry cleaners the panels came back to life.

 We chose bedding from Acanthus and their team made the bed skirt and matching shams. We found a funky carpet in Peterborough and our wonderful chair also came from Acanthus.

The room has been completely revived and we love waking up to the sunny colour.

We are still on the hunt for a great picture to go over the bed and the fireplace may someday be enhanced with a gas insert but in the meantime candles work well.