BEFORE & AFTER: SMALL SPACE RENO

Back a couple of years ago I was renovating a small apartment above my office. This was an extremely small space with a tiny bathroom, kitchen and two small rooms. As soon as I saw the space I knew I wanted to open up the wall between the two small rooms, to make one larger room as the main living area. This would help with light and would open up the whole space.  Also, I was able to lift the old linoleum floor and uncover the original wooden floors underneath. My Dad helped me lift the many layers of old flooring, you can see the floor removal on the right hand side of the first picture. Here it is as the floor is coming up and the wall starts coming down.

Great to see the light is starting to come through from the other side.

Finally opened up! Love seeing through to the other side.

Here it is opened, now time for drywall, lighting and paint.

Here it is painted.

And here are the results! The space was featured in House & Home small space issue in September 2012, see the spread here: http://www.debnelsondesign.com/?page_id=48

Bedroom makeover: before & after

This bedroom went through a basic cosmetic makeover- mostly involving paint. I removed the old carpet and found there were original floors underneath that had been painted. I updated those with a new coat of black oil paint and finished the walls, ceiling and trim in white. I added linen roman shades at the windows, but for some reason they aren't up in this shot. Here it is before:

And the after shot with a spool bed:

The image above the bed is currently for sale in Great Village, Nova Scotia. It's an old charcoal sketch signed and dated 1874.

A room transformed with paint: before and after

I'm a huge fan of paint as the most affordable way to drastically change a room.  I'm always talking about 'paint makeovers' and how much you can do with paint.  Hopefully these pictures back up my claim. The living room shown above is the same room as you see below, but with furniture.  I wanted to show how it looked without any furnishings and decor.  This way you can really get an idea of how the paint changed the room.

It was also very affordable, I did all the work myself, so my only cost was paint.  I personally removed the carpet and old drapery (in a day) and then painted the walls,  ceiling, trim and fireplace in white and the floors in gloss black.  At that time you could still buy oil paint, so I put black oil paint on the floors that stood up pretty well over time.  The floor paint was smelly and needed a couple coats with a day to dry for each.  Over time, the floor paint did chip in places here and there (mostly because I would drag furniture across it).  I did consider a lighter colour paint on the floor but at the time I wanted the contrast of black.

Here's how the room looked when I bought the house, with wall to wall carpet.  BEFORE:

And the empty painted room and fireplace: AFTER: