After 14 months of renovations, we are finally ready to move back into our Toronto Victorian home!
RENOVATING MY TORONTO VICTORIAN HOME - EPISODE 9!
The moment we have all been waiting for! After 14 months of renovations, Adam and I have finally moved back into our Toronto Victorian home!
Shortly after returning from my wedding planning trip to Italy, our painter Ariel finished painting our house and packed up his stuff, which meant Adam and I could start focusing on cleaning the house and moving back in. In this episode we are going to be sharing the big reveal of our Toronto home renovation and everything we still have to do!
For those that are just tuning in, when Adam and I purchased this property as our first home, we knew it needed some work. The house had been divided into units with a ‘new-ish’ kitchen on the second floor and a very old, very small kitchen on the main floor.
Initially, Adam and I thought we would wait before doing any renovations; settle in, learn about the house, figure out its quirks, save a little money and then start the planning process. But soon after we moved in, we realized many of our appliances were broken and needed to be replaced. This ended up being the small nudge we needed to get the ball rolling. Seven months later (and just in time for Adam’s birthday), we received our building permit and were ready to get started!
P.s. If you are interested in seeing/revisiting what the house looked like prior to renovations, you can go check out my ‘pre-renovation house tour’!
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Before we could think about moving back into the house we first had to give it a deep clean. After 14 months of renovations, the whole house was covered in dust (especially all of the stuff we stored in the basement) so we spent the first week cleaning every nook and cranny before packing up the car with our personal stuff and finally moving back in.
HERRINGBONE FLOORING
Seeing the house sparkling clean for the first time was magical but pull up the protective ram board to reveal my new white oak herringbone flooring from Chestnut Flooring with the added brass inlay border, was a dream come true.
It had always been my fantasy to have herringbone floors so when Adam and I realized the house needed structural work to reverse the sagging on the main floor, I was ecstatic about the possibility of having to redo the floors.
Traditionally, herringbone flooring was made of hardwood oak but these days you can get them in engineered oak and they come in many different sizes and colours. Narrowing it down to the appropriate size was exceptionally hard given the size of the space. Too large and you don’t notice them, too small and it’s all you notice. In the end, Chestnut Flooring helped us find the perfect size plank and colour to add warmth back into the space. Seeing them now span all the way from the front entrance to the kitchen crittall door at the back, makes my heart skip a beat.
OUR REFURBISHED CAST IRON RADIATORS
I’ve said it once and I’ll say it a thousand more times, ornate cast iron radiators are like jewellery for you home. If you love Victorian style houses as much as I do, you would understand my desire to want to keep traditional elements like these beautiful cast iron radiators even when undergoing an extensive renovation. Not only do I think they add a pop of glam to the main floor but they work incredibly well at reducing moisture and expelling heat during colder winter months. Now, having moved back into our house I really get to enjoy the beauty of my cast iron radiators and I can’t wait to create focal points around them.
If you love Victorian homes or are just looking to refurbish your radiators, I highly recommend checking out Ironworks Radiator Inc in Etobicoke. They have an extensive stockyard of Victorian radiators located at the back of their shop and their inventory is always changing. They also work directly with Castrad Radiators in the UK to import brand new cast iron radiators in various styles including more modern, sleek silhouettes like the two we have installed under the twin windows in the kitchen.
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KITCHEN RENOVATION PROGRESS & UPDATES
Progress on our kitchen renovation has unfortunately come to a halt. Right before we were set to have the stove installed (our final piece of the puzzle) the inspector looked at the vent hole and said it didn’t pass code. Little did we know before buying our hood vent that a 10 inch duct would not pass code given the parameters of our lot. The good news is, we found something that can be retrofitted to our cabinet hood but the bad news is, it could take up to 10 weeks to arrive. In the meantime, my stove lives in the dining room and Adam and I have to use the bbq to do all our cooking.
Other then that though the crown mouldings from Parsiana Design and the navy blue kitchen cabinetry from Domani Design Group look spectacular. Every time someone walks into our house they always comment on how beautiful the kitchen mouldings look against the slim shaker cabinets and how the brass inlay boarder sparkles against the the white oak herringbone flooring. I am thrilled with how the kitchen is turning out and I honestly can’t wait to see it complete once our La Cornue stove is installed.
STILL SO MUCH TO DO!
In addition to our kitchen not being completely finished, there are still so many things that need to be done around here. The bar cabinets have been measured and we are waiting delivery and install. The powered room needs to be tiled, same with the front foyer. We still need to figure out what we want to do with our fireplace. The hidden linen closet on the second floor needs to be completed. The bathroom pocket door isn’t finish being installed and trimmed out nor has the underbelly and side of our new custom staircase, but I know we will tackle these items in time so I’m not going to start sweating the small stuff.
Adam and I also have plans to start renovating the basement in the fall after our wedding, which will include some underpinning so there is definitely no shortage of work around here!
MASTER BATHROOM RENOVATION REVEAL
Inspired by the marble checkered pattern seen in the hallways of Palace of Versailles and incorporating my favourite colour blue, our master bathroom is currently our only functional bathroom. Although not honed marble like my inspiration, I just love how the blue and white checked floor tiles turned out and how well they compliment the veined porcelain slabs we chose for the shower walls. To help further pull the room together the large white oak wall mount vanity with a white quartz counter top matched our shower curb perfectly and the chrome faucets, tub filler and shower fixture turned out to be the perfect ‘polished’ detail to bring the room together.
When Adam and I first moved back into the house the shower glass wasn’t installed so we were taking a lot of baths! We also had ordered two new wall hung arched medicine cabinets for over the vanity but quickly realized they would protrude to much over the faucet to look and feel right. Thankfully I found these beautiful irregular shaped mirrors with a bevelled edge online that once installed, gave a modern twist to an otherwise traditional Victorian style bathroom.
Two weeks after we moved in, our shower glass also finally arrived. Installation took a good part of a day but I have to say it was worth the wait. The glass walls go floor to ceiling and the door swings both inward and out. We went with Chrome hardware so everything matches the newly painted cast iron tub we originally had in the basement and I really think it gives our master bathroom this feeling of grandness it was missing.
ARRIVAL OF MY MOSAIC VICTORIAN TILES!
Within the first few weeks of moving in I also received the best news! The Winckelman Tiles I had ordered had finally arrived and their local distributor here in Toronto, Deco Tile had called me to let me know I can pick them up!
The octagon mosaic Victorian tiles I had selected were even more beautiful in person! Once the car was loaded up we headed over to Deco Tile’s showroom on Tycos Drive to select the perfect grout to match. Honestly, this part was quiet challenging because so many colours would have worked well with these tiles but in the end I settled on a warm off white called Biscuit.
I can not wait to install these tiles in the powered room and front foyer and think they will really compliment the black and white custom staircase we just had installed.
Thank you so much for joining me today and for checking out my new Toronto home renovation series on YouTube. I am super excited to be modernizing a Victorian home while still keeping the charm of an old Victorian house. If you have any questions about my Victorian house renovations, what it’s like to live in Toronto or need recommendations for Toronto contractors, hit me up in the comments below!
Before I sign off, I’d also like to say a big thank you to Domani Design Group, Chestnut Flooring, Parsiena Design, Ironworks Radiator Inc and Winckelman Tiles for partnering with me on this project. I’m so excited to be working with such great companies on our Toronto home renovations but want to reiterate that, like always, all opinions remain my own.
Until next time,
- Soheila
