This renter up to date her hideous one-bedroom with a hand-painted mural and boob-themed wallpaper

The renters: Shanna Flodstrom, an inside designer, and Tyson Bodnarchuk, an artist and illustrator
The undertaking: A one-bedroom condo in Christie Pits
The DIY finances: Underneath $1,000

In 2019, Shanna and her husband, Tyson, moved from Montreal to Toronto in a rush. Shanna had landed an thrilling new job with an inside design agency and was subletting a buddy’s Toronto condo lower than three weeks later. However discovering extra everlasting housing proved daunting. 

Shanna had heard loads of horror tales about credit score checks and bidding wars, however she didn’t wish to stray too removed from her want listing: a two-level condo within the west finish with a yard for below $2,000 a month. When she discovered a one-bedroom close to Ossington and Dupont that met her standards for $2,200 (together with utilities), she jumped on the chance regardless of the house being, effectively, hideous.

“I form of panic-took it,” Shanna says. “I wasn’t too apprehensive at first. However then I acquired the keys and noticed the place when it was empty and thought, What have I achieved?“ The condo was run-down and soiled, with partitions that hadn’t been painted in a decade and have been stuffed with holes. The principle ground featured a kitchen, a lounge and an workplace, and the bed room and loo have been within the basement. However the basement appeared to have been a separate unit at one level, and it had a clumsy partial kitchenette tucked right into a nook. Although the bathroom was behind a door, the sink was in full view of the bed room. 

“Most of my associates have been like, ‘I can not imagine you took that place—it’s a dump,’” she says. “However I knew I might make it good. I’m actually good at seeing the potential in issues.” As an inside designer, Shauna isn’t any stranger to DIY upgrades. She has up to date each condo she’s ever lived in—roughly 20 to 25 locations over the course of her 20s and 30s—and he or she’s gained new abilities with every one. 

First, Shanna spackled the holes within the partitions and added a contemporary coat of paint to them and the baseboards. Subsequent, the couple tackled the weird structure within the basement. They ripped out the kitchenette and turned the world into Tyson’s artist studio, tucking it away behind a curtain. They determined that the one choice to treatment the “open idea” rest room was to construct a wall. Shanna had achieved slightly drywalling earlier than, and he or she’s the daughter of a carpenter, so she comes by her handiness truthfully. 

Dwelling throughout the road from a House {Hardware} helped. “We have been strolling forwards and backwards with sheets of drywall,” she says. The whole value for two-by-fours, sheetrock, screws, tape, mud, primer and paint was $200. The consequence? Considerably extra privateness. Additionally they changed the beat-up laminate countertop with wooden they stained themselves, changed the tap, added wallpaper designed by Tyson and put in new tile on the wall behind the sink.

The kitchen demanded their consideration subsequent. Shanna envisioned an area with extra character—“I’m actually not afraid to go daring,” she says—so she requested her landlord for permission to tear out the fake-wood laminate kitchen counter and exchange the leaky faucet. The owner provided to pay for the price of supplies ($300).

After ripping the counter up, they found that it was utterly rotten and mouldy beneath. Changing the sink was “a little bit of a nightmare,” Shanna says, as a result of they needed to join new PVC pipes to the outdated copper ones and align the brand new drain in the very same spot because the outdated one. The undertaking, which they anticipated to take a single afternoon, ended up consuming a complete weekend. “Primarily as a result of we’re amateurs,” she says.

Subsequent, they added new matte-black handles to the kitchen cupboards, painted the decrease ones sage inexperienced and up to date the partitions with a shade of terra cotta. Shanna took a black grout pen to the white wall tiles for distinction. The matching black-and-white tiled kitchen island is an IKEA hack: they bought a Förhöja cart ($169), lined it in concrete boards and added white tiles and black grout. At $300, not together with the price of the cart, it was the most costly undertaking in the home.

Shanna and Tyson collaborated on freehand portray an expansive mural within the entrance entrance hallway that includes each of their signature creative kinds: her vibrant swirls and his monsters. A lot of the paint they used was leftover from Tyson’s gig portray bike limitations for the Metropolis of Toronto. To create a work-from-home house throughout the pandemic, they put up a wall of shelving in the lounge, the place they show their assortment of art-and-design books and graphic novels.

The ultimate undertaking was the lounge, accomplished in October 2022. The partitions have been painted white, however Shanna put up a boob-themed wallpaper that she designed (she solely needed to pay for the printing prices: $300), retiled the fireside (utilizing leftover grout and glue from the kitchen replace) and painted it a vibrant yellow. The general impact is whimsical. 

Shanna didn’t hassle asking the owner for permission to color the mural or put up wallpaper as a result of, as she says, “I alter my home a lot that, by the point we transfer, it most likely could have modified 4 extra instances. If we’ve to color it again to white, we’ll paint it again to white.”

The whole tally of the couple’s dwelling reno was just below $1,000. And, whereas they hope to have the ability to purchase sooner or later, they plan on staying within the condo for the foreseeable future. “We’ve been right here for 3 years, and the hire is affordable,” says Shanna. “For now, we’re not going anyplace.”