Our First Home

Welcome to our first home...

These pictures were taken by a professional photographer (hired by our realtor) when we put the home on the market in 2011 (so this is why you'll see an absence of family photos and personal accessories).

We lived in the middle unit of a block of six townhomes. You can see the interlock and garden that we installed ourselves.

As you enter the home, you'll find the front hall closet and powder room to your left. In the powder room, we changed out the light fixture, painted over the white walls, and added a few decorative accessories.

 

From the front hall, you'll find the stairs leading to the basement and the upstairs. The kitchen is to the right, and the living room and dining room are at the back of the house.

We didn't make any upgrades through the builder in the living and dining room other than the hardwood flooring. We decided on a dark maple flooring in a 3 1/4" plank.  We kept the home neutral - taupe, cream, and espresso brown - to maintain a more modern look. We also painted over the standard white walls provided by the builder.

From the living room, you are able to see into the kitchen by way of the arch cutout that we upgraded through the builder. We liked the idea of making the main floor more open than what was standard on the floor plan.

In the dining room, we added a floor length mirror hung horizontally to make the room appear larger and reflect the light.

We focused most of our upgrades in the kitchen. We decided to upgrade the cabinets to a dark colour, upgrade the backsplash tile and have it installed on a 45 degree angle, upgrade the laminate countertop to a faux granite, install ceramic tile flooring, and upgrade the cabinet hardware. We also added a corner upper cabinet, pots and pans drawers, an over-the-range microwave (which meant making changes to the cabinets above it), added a full gable beside the fridge, and extended the cabinet above the fridge to 24" deep.

The kitchen was fairly large. In a 1,742 square foot townhome (and the smallest from that builder), the kitchen was the largest at 10'x11'. It wasn't big enough for a real eat-in kitchen, so we added a small bistro table and a pair of chairs (this table and chair was actually a patio set that we got on clearance. We swapped out the tiles on the top and added thick cushions on the chairs).

 

The master bedroom stayed white for the four years that we lived there. Definitely not by choice. We never got around to painting the bedrooms and bathrooms after we painted the main floor and basement, so it stayed the standard white for four years. Here, we DIY'd an upholstered headboard, and painted the IKEA Malm dresser and nightstands black and added hardware (the dressers were then redone for our daughter's nursery. You can see the reveal here).

In the ensuite, we upgraded the laminate countertop, installed ceramic tile flooring, and upgraded the cabinets to the same chocolate brown that was in the kitchen.

 

This townhome had three bedrooms, so we made the two extra bedrooms into a spare room and a home office. 

We did the same upgrades to the main bathroom as we did to the ensuite. 

 

The basement in this home wasn't very large - a mere 400 square feet, but it worked for us. (Please ignore the small frame above the couch. A hockey collector's picture hung there before but we needed to remove the sports-themed accessories that lived in this room when we decided to sell the house).

In the backyard, we installed an interlocking patio and small garden. Unfortunately, we never did find much time to sit out here and enjoy it. Plus, living in a townhome you always felt like you were dining with your neighbours.