Do-it-yourself Makeover: This renter up-to-date her hideous 1-bed room with a hand-painted mural and boob-themed wallpaper
The renters: Shanna Flodstrom, an interior designer, and Tyson Bodnarchuk, an artist and illustrator
The challenge: A one particular-bed room apartment in Christie Pits
The Do it yourself spending plan: Less than $1,000
In 2019, Shanna and her partner, Tyson, moved from Montreal to Toronto in a rush. Shanna experienced landed an thrilling new work with an inside style business and was subletting a friend’s Toronto apartment considerably less than three months later. But finding extra long term housing proved challenging.
Shanna had heard lots of horror tales about credit rating checks and bidding wars, but she didn’t want to stray far too considerably from her would like checklist: a two-amount condominium in the west close with a backyard for under $2,000 a thirty day period. When she identified a one-bed room close to Ossington and Dupont that satisfied her standards for $2,200 (like utilities), she jumped on the prospect in spite of the house staying, very well, hideous.
“I kind of stress-took it,” Shanna states. “I wasn’t far too nervous at very first. But then I acquired the keys and observed the spot when it was empty and imagined, What have I finished?“ The condominium was run-down and filthy, with walls that hadn’t been painted in a decade and were loaded with holes. The principal flooring highlighted a kitchen area, a dwelling area and an business office, and the bedroom and lavatory had been in the basement. But the basement appeared to have been a different device at just one stage, and it had an awkward partial kitchenette tucked into a corner. Nevertheless the bathroom was guiding a door, the sink was in full look at of the bedroom.
“Most of my buddies ended up like, ‘I simply cannot think you took that place—it’s a dump,’” she states. “But I realized I could make it wonderful. I’m genuinely fantastic at viewing the probable in things.” As an interior designer, Shauna is no stranger to Do it yourself upgrades. She has up to date just about every condominium she’s ever lived in—approximately 20 to 25 destinations in excess of the training course of her 20s and 30s—and she’s attained new capabilities with each a single.
Initial, Shanna spackled the holes in the walls and extra a clean coat of paint to them and the baseboards. Upcoming, the pair tackled the weird layout in the basement. They ripped out the kitchenette and turned the spot into Tyson’s artist studio, tucking it absent guiding a curtain. They decided that the only alternative to treatment the “open concept” bathroom was to make a wall. Shanna experienced performed a small drywalling before, and she’s the daughter of a carpenter, so she arrives by her handiness honestly.
Living across the street from a Dwelling Components helped. “We were walking back and forth with sheets of drywall,” she suggests. The full cost for two-by-fours, sheetrock, screws, tape, mud, primer and paint was $200. The consequence? Considerably extra privateness. They also changed the beat-up laminate countertop with wood they stained on their own, replaced the faucet, additional wallpaper made by Tyson and mounted new tile on the wall powering the sink.
The kitchen demanded their interest next. Shanna envisioned a space with additional character—“I’m really not afraid to go bold,” she says—so she asked her landlord for authorization to rip out the pretend-wood laminate kitchen area counter and replace the leaky faucet. The landlord made available to pay for the price tag of supplies ($300).
Just after ripping the counter up, they found out that it was absolutely rotten and mouldy underneath. Replacing the sink was “a little bit of a nightmare,” Shanna suggests, mainly because they had to connect new PVC pipes to the previous copper kinds and align the new drain in the actual exact place as the previous a person. The undertaking, which they envisioned to take a single afternoon, ended up consuming an overall weekend. “Mainly because we are amateurs,” she claims.
Upcoming, they additional new matte-black handles to the kitchen cupboards, painted the reduce ones sage environmentally friendly and up-to-date the walls with a shade of terra cotta. Shanna took a black grout pen to the white wall tiles for distinction. The matching black-and-white tiled kitchen area island is an IKEA hack: they procured a Förhöja cart ($169), lined it in concrete boards and added white tiles and black grout. At $300, not including the expense of the cart, it was the most expensive project in the house.
Shanna and Tyson collaborated on freehand portray an expansive mural in the entrance entrance hallway that incorporates both of those of their signature creative designs: her colourful swirls and his monsters. Considerably of the paint they utilised was leftover from Tyson’s gig painting bike limitations for the Town of Toronto. To make a function-from-home area during the pandemic, they set up a wall of shelving in the living place, where they screen their assortment of art-and-design and style books and graphic novels.
The ultimate job was the living area, done in October 2022. The walls were being painted white, but Shanna place up a boob-themed wallpaper that she developed (she only experienced to pay back for the printing charges: $300), retiled the fireplace (working with leftover grout and glue from the kitchen area update) and painted it a vibrant yellow. The overall impact is whimsical.
Shanna didn’t hassle inquiring the landlord for permission to paint the mural or place up wallpaper due to the fact, as she claims, “I change my household so a lot that, by the time we shift, it probably will have transformed four extra moments. If we have to paint it back again to white, we’ll paint it back again to white.”
The whole tally of the couple’s dwelling reno was just underneath $1,000. And, though they hope to be in a position to acquire at some place, they program on remaining in the apartment for the foreseeable long term. “We’ve been listed here for 3 years, and the hire is affordable,” claims Shanna. “For now, we’re not going wherever.”