The Duplex: House Tour

A lot has already changed since Nathan and I moved into the duplex, but I thought I would share a “before” house tour so that people can see the progression of our home projects as they happen. After almost 9 months of living here, we are still absolutely loving our neighbourhood to bits. It’s full of people running, walking their dogs, and playing and laughing in the park. It has serious curb appeal with swings and rocking chairs on the front porches of all the adorable houses, each one different from the next. It is also full of paths just waiting to be explored on our bikes! It doesn’t hurt that a neighbourhood Mach’s store is a short bike ride away – we took full advantage of that during the summer for slurpee runs. I also just recently heard that Remedy Cafe is opening a Terwillegar location literally a block from my house, and I am beyond excited! Remedy is one of my favorite Edmonton establishments, and I can’t wait to become a regular there.

I’m just so in love with this place, and I can picture us living here for a while. I can even picture us raising a family here! This place is full of happy vibes. It’s fun to make it feel like home, and it won’t take much to transform it into a space that feels like “us”.

THE LIVING ROOM

This space is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing, of course, is the amazing natural light that streams through our southwest facing window wall that overlooks the park. The curse? This room is quite long and narrow and requires one entire long wall to stay furniture-free because of the front entryway, the bi-fold door to the coat closet, the door to the basement, the door to the 1/2 bath (open and lit in the second picture below) and the passage into the kitchen / dining room (you can see the dark curtains hanging in the dining room). I’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out the best way to arrange our furniture in this room. We decided not to have a TV in this room, but that also means there’s no real focal point that I have to work with. I think I’ve come up with a solution for now which I’ll share in an upcoming post.

TO DO:

• paint and refresh all walls
• cover beam running across the ceiling in reclaimed wood
• replace all the flooring with wide plank, warm toned laminate or hardwood, starting in the front entry and carrying all the way to the back entry
• replace ceiling light fixture
• bring in some plants (and keep them alive!)
• hang some fun artwork
• get some cozy new textiles to bring warmth to the space

THE KITCHEN & DINING ROOM

Having a dedicated dining room and more of a square kitchen is so great! We have more cupboard space than we had before which is wonderful, but less drawer space which is a challenge. The back porch is currently a laundry room, a pantry, cleaning supply storage and shoe storage. In the kitchen, the back splash is actually made out of some kind of plastic tin-style tiles adhered to the wall with bits of double-sided tape. It was ok for a while, but it’s starting to fall down so a new back splash has jumped to the top of the list!

TO DO:

• paint and refresh walls
• replace flooring
• paint kitchen cupboards
• replace all hardware on kitchen cupboards
• re-finish counters
• replace kitchen ceiling light fixtures
• replace back splash
• find a fabulous pendant light for over the dining table
• take down all curtains, let in the LIGHT!
• create an interesting “feature wall” in the dining room

THE BATHROOMS

The duplex has 2 full bathrooms upstairs and a half bathroom just off the living room on the main floor. The rest of the duplex was painted in fairly neutral colours, so finding the bathrooms painted in various citrus shades during our first walk-through was surprising, and it’s a bit hard on the eyes first thing in the morning after waking up. The half bathroom on the main floor is a great size and a perfect opportunity to have some fun with decorating, which I tackled as one of my first house projects. I’ve had a few friends tell me to hurry up and blog about it, so that will come soon too!

TO DO:

• paint and refresh walls
• replace flooring with some fun tile (hexagon? penny tile?)
• replace toilet in half bath (there’s a bit of a crack that has been sealed with silicone for the time being)
• replace pedestal sink in half bath with something that has a storage cabinet below it
• replace existing toilet paper holders and towel bars with updated hardware
• hang some cute art

THE MASTER BEDROOM

The master bedroom has a half-vaulted ceiling and giant windows facing the neighbourhood park, which made me giddy when we first walked through the house. I love waking up to the view of the neighbourhood with soft morning light streaming in. I’ve never had a ceiling fan before, and we used it quite frequently over the summer when the air was heavy and hot – what a luxury! We’ve got our own master en suite but we don’t have a walk-in-closet, which isn’t the worst but between the two of us, we’ve got a lot of clothes. The majority of Nathan’s wardrobe lives in the closet in the second bedroom upstairs. The master bedroom has become my favourite place to hunker down with a cuppa tea, some treats, and my iPad for Netflix binge marathons because it’s just so darn cozy.

TO DO:

• paint and refresh walls
• take down existing curtains
• replace ceiling fan with a more modern style
• hang artwork

THE SECOND BEDROOM

The duplex we bought was designed by a builder that originally had two layout options for the upstairs – 2 bedrooms or 3 bedrooms. Ours is the 2 bedroom plan, which means that the second bedroom is actually bigger than the master bedroom, but the view isn’t as nice, as it overlooks the backyard and the rear-lane access row of garages. This room became our office, guest bedroom, yoga studio, music studio, and playroom for our niece and nephew all in one, so it’s our “flex space”. This room has also been a bit of a challenge to figure out furniture placement for, and I’ve rearranged it a few times now. One entire wall is a full-length closet with two sets of  folding doors. Eventually, this will be the room for our future kiddos!

TO DO:

• paint and refresh walls
• take down existing curtains
• replace boob ceiling lights

And of course, we couldn’t wrap up the tour without a little moving-day selfie in the new house!