Save My Reno: Lainie and Brian's Eclectic Main Floor Reno
This episode was a wild one.
I don't know what was in the water, but when all four of us got together, at least one of us couldn't help but break into song and dance. Between the "D-E-M-O" chant, Lainie and I's dance-a-thons (there were many), and our cabinet-removal competition (which wasn't shown, but which Lainie and I won), we were all a little loony.As far as different-looking goes, this episode definitely wins the award for most dramatic transformation of the season. We not only removed every wall on their main floor, but we flipped the kitchen location completely. Missed this episode? Watch it here!
Their main floor used to be a segmented into three or four spaces, but we completely opened it up so the living, dining and kitchen were one big room--and the trick to pulling that off was going with the same flooring and wall colour throughout. The only design challenge was injecting personality (which this family had a ton of). The vision was to create an eclectic space that stoll had flow front to back, balancing loud and bold with subtle and sophisticated.Lainie was my energy-twin and, early-on, we discovered we had similar taste, so designing with her was a dream. Everything I suggested she agreed to. And she wasn't afraid to have fun which made my job very easy. We must've spent a few hours in The Salvage Shop in Scarborough, so 90% of the things we got up to didn't even make it to air. Just know we had fun ;)
Keeping all the walls white, we went with a light, putty-meets-lavender cabinet colour and stuck to neutrals for all of the larger, more permanent features such as the countertop and sofa. We then peppered in colour through fun patterns, hits of navy (in the banquette and accessories) and lots of brass (which we carried from the cabinet hardware to the light fixtures). The resting space was soooooooo pretty if I do say so myself. And the cap it all off, they popped all of us champagne and wrote a super-nice card (which I kept and have in my office).
Yup. Here we are again being goofs as per usual.Another design note was that we also opted for tons of texture wherever we could: the two-or-three-tone backsplash has tons of variety and veining, we added applied moldings to the wall in the banquette for an architectural detail, and threw in lots of pattern play, from leopard print and ikat, to chevron and polka dots (all Tonic Living). The cane chairs and retro drum pendants are two of my favorite touches in the kitchen.
I was also super happy with how this huge end cabinet turned out. Rather than going with the pre-fab here (which would have meant a big filler piece on the left AKA wasted storage), we created our own out of thick MDF painted in the same colour as the cabinets. Initially, it was completely open, but the more I thought about what might be in the cabinet (ugly things you may not want on display), I thought the idea of a barn door slider that covered and exposed just one side at a time was brilliant. Painted in chalk paint, it's also a functional message board--or canvas for my sub-par lettering ;)
Like this space? See even more before and after photos here!
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