When we purchased our first home, it was a huge old art deco apartment with amazing features, but literally falling apart. The bathroom was in a state, the kitchen was even worse. Not even mentioning the yellow stained walls and dirty old blue carpet. We really had to use our imagination for the final outcome. It wasn’t really liveable, pretty much everything needed redoing, yet like most first home buyers, our budget was stretched and there wasn’t much left over to renovate.
The first thing we did was make a list of what we ‘must do’, would be ‘nice to have’ and what could ‘definitely wait’.
This was where we could create as big of an impact as possible to make the overall appearance look as nice as possible. Without hesitation ripping up the carpet, polishing the floors and a paint job achieved this.
In addition, the cupboards in the kitchen were in such a bad state that we ended up ripping them all out, keeping only the kitchen sink and the oven. We then bought a portable kitchen island from Ikea to prepare food on and used a bookshelf to store our crockery and classes.
At this point, we were able to move in and the majority of the rooms were complete. If you were in our living room or bedrooms, you would never guess that other parts of the home needed serious attention. It also made us feel comfortable.
Knowing that had to wait some time for the kitchen and bathroom, these were the items that we could add to bit-by-bit as finances allowed.
We had gas installed along with continuous hot water a few months after moving in. From there this led the way to purchase a freestanding industrial style oven that required gas, and then a new dishwasher. These were all still in our ‘temporary’ style kitchen, which made it more functional.
These were the major and costly renovations and we did it in three stages.
About a year after moving in, we installed a new bathroom. We chose to do this first because it was in the worst condition. While the kitchen needed redoing, it was functional and clean.
We then knocked the wall out between the kitchen and the hallway about a year after that, which gave us space to put in a dining table. Interestingly, if we had the money to redo the entire apartment in the beginning, we would have knocked out a completely different wall, which would have increased the size of the already large living room. By waiting and living in the home, we were able to truly know what our needs were, and be a bit more strategic.
The last major renovation was installing a new kitchen. We purchased the kitchen direct from a reputable company and hired our own handyman to install it.
The end result was that we created an apartment with a wow factor with quality designer fittings that cost a fraction of the price.
Written by Mel Chesneau of Styled Canvas
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