Media shelf solution for small living room

Considering the space we had, these shelves were a gift from…well, Ikea. 
For us, the very best thing about these particular shelves is their depth – 7 7/8". Anything more than that, and we would loose the valuable space. As I mentioned before, we needed something that won't be in the way of getting to the back door that leads onto patio. Having an option to mount shelves on the wall was another great advantage – keeps the floor surface free. As for storage - these won't hold in much, as you can see, but we also don't have much - so works for us - the minimalists:)

Oh, and I just have to thank one very resourceful blogger, Nataliya from “Style-ing with children” for the advise on the shelves (and many others)! We wouldn’t have found them on our own for sure.

Hardwood installation - in progress, other projects - not

This past weekend V’ve started laying out hardwood and it looks absolutely stunning (minus the dust). I'm so glad we decided to go with dark hardwood and paid a little extra for it - nothing beats its sophisticated look. And I'm all up for its demanding maintenance - I love washing wooden floors with few drops of my favourite "Murphy Oil soap"!

If you can see form the image, the walls in the living room got painted white. It made such difference - the whole space opened up right away! Paired with dark hardwood - "win win" situation:)

View from the patio door onto two bedrooms and living room. Ugh, dusty!

Seeing V working hard on the living room made me realize that I have been a total slacker and haven't progressed an inch on my part of the deal: curtains and art. Yes, I've ordered some swatches and did some research on art (post to follow) but I haven't sketched anything and have a complete blank canvas in my mind as far as the art goes. Abstract? Landscape? Still-life? Should I go big and bold or light and minimalistic for our space? As an artist with no definite "style", it's really hard for me to settle on something specific - there are so many options! Maybe I'll wait until the floor is done completely, then an inspiration will strike!

Small living room planning: white curtains

Now that the back door is in, the curtains planning can begin.
Since window coverings play a major role in shaping up the overall look and feel of the room, I’ve decided to go with white curtains for our multipurpose room. I’m not really concerned with blocking the light or privacy, as the window and the door are facing trees but I am concerned with the fact that I want the room to feel more open and spacious. Busy pattern, or any pattern for that matter, will not help with that. Plus, I just can’t decide on what I want - flowers, graphic stripes or geometric shapes - the selection is just mind blowing, so I’m making it easier for myself and just going with solid white. I’ve seen few living rooms with white curtains and loved it.

I also found that I really like this option:

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Bordered drapes.
White on top, dark on the bottom – seems like a more practical option than all white, since curtains tend to pick up the dust on the bottom. I don’t think I’d go with the width suggested on the images, but I like this option a lot. These are the parings I’m considering: What do you think of this idea? Which colours do you prefer?

Let there be light!

Ever since we moved into our little semi, we’ve been dreaming up a day when we have enough $$ saved to change the back door. Not only the original wooden door looked ugly, it was blocking all the light coming into the room in the colder months when the door remained closed (please ignore the ugly curtains): In the summer, we had it open to let in the sun and it was taking up much needed real estate (not crazy about the cheap screen door either): At first, we wanted to combine the window and the door and install a big, four panel patio door, so basically the whole wall would be one big window. But even with somewhat reasonable quotes, the installation of something this big would have required a few major modifications to the overall wall construction and a redesign of our already well built deck (the door leads to the deck). Considering other projects in a queue, we’ve settled on a simpler option – change the existing door with an all glass, European style balcony door: I love how the room got lit up right away: As you may understand, this door required a bit of a wait, since it was made and shipped from Germany. Like three months wait. But when it’s something you really know will work for you, the wait is all worth it:) I can't wait to see it all dressed up in pretty drapery!
But that's a totally different post.:)

Small living room planning: media shelve

If we are both fine with not having a traditional dining room, the media “centre” is a must for us. Not because we watch TV THAT much (we actually never owned cable since landed in Canada), but because we do like to watch movies/tv series and an occasional Russian program to stay tuned.

So the plan is to have the TV mounted to this living room wall (hopefully these are the last images of the ugly back door): side view: As you can see from my sketches, the wall is on the way to our back entrance, which we use constantly in the summer to get to the patio and backyard, so ideally, we need something underneath the screen that won’t be sticking out too much but would still be practical enough to keep few necessary items, such as a remote control, photo camera, etc. and maybe an occasional vase with flowers:).

At first, I was taken by the idea of having few Ikea kitchen cabinets mounted to the wall together to form a floating sideboard, like here:

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or here (these aren't from Ikea but you get the idea):

Image via Anne Grice Interiors via Houzz

Pretty neat, right? White+solid wood+as less hardware as possible = my kinda of minimalism. Seems easy to do and V agreed to work on the wood top and match the stain to our hardwood. This option would also mean extra storage. My only concern is the bulkiness of such sideboard for our little space (see sketches above). Even though there are cabinets under 15” in depth available, I still feel that this option might be a bit too heavy for our room. But like V said, we won't really know until we try it.

In case if the sideboard idea won't work, I have a plan B. Which is to build a wall shelve or unit of shelves from scratch that would be the size and configuration we want. Something like this, maybe:

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I love the simplicity of this shelve and no pointy edges. I've already asked V if he would be able to built something like this and he seemed intrigued.

What do you think? What would you suggest?

Small living room planning: dining space

Image via Nicole Lanteri on Houzz

With the living room being in the works and no images to report without making you yawn, I’ve decided to dedicate few posts to talk about issues/ideas that I have for our future "great" room. Even though size is the challenge, I have certain expectations for this room and above all, it has to work for us and our needs.

So let’s start with our dining area situation.

Ever since I came to Canada and got familiar with a single/semi-detached/town-house living, as opposed to "free of condo fees" apartment living back in Russia, I was fascinated with the idea of the whole room/area in the house dedicated to just dining.

In Russia, most people don’t have such square footage luxury, as they mostly live in two-three bedroom apartments (a one-bedroom apartment in Canada is considered a two-bedroom apartment in Russia, and so on). So in most cases, people get the kitchen table out of the kitchen, put it in the living room against a sofa, add chairs from the kitchen (or borrow them from neighbours) on the other side - done. Whole dining room set up in a few minutes. Once guests are gone, the table goes to its original location. Extra chairs get returned to the neighbour.
Life goes on its usual way, until next big party. 


The situation is different here. Homes come with an area already accommodated for family (guests) dining needs. Whether that space is used or not according to its purpose is another question, but having such option in the house made a lot of sense to me.
Until I got a house without such room/area and realized that I actually prefer to be a guest rather than a hostess.:) Once that realization resonated with me, it was easier to let go of a traditional dining set-up or lack thereof. Well, for now anyway.

Living small comes with a compromise. And not having a large room/space to comfortably accommodate four-six people at a time could be one of them. Big parties will have to be held someplace else. We made our piece with that.

Then, I came across this little article. It reminded me of most parties I’ve been to back in Russia and it felt close to our situation.

I came to a conclusion that a folding table would be ideal for our situation. Something that won't be taking up valuable square footage when not in use, but could easily fit up to six-eight people when unfolded.

Image notes: I really like how the room is planned out. Despite of its size, it seems to score all the points: dining area, sitting area, reading area and a bar! It's also got personality without appearing too trendy. Like.

Squeaky floors and some irony

V had to make these openings in order to make the squeaky floor stop squeaking. Apparently screws didn’t work in some spots due to the fact that the joints underneath the plywood were loose and were making the noise, not the plywood.
I took some part in this process too. I had to jump on some spots while V went downstairs to locate the source; it was definitely teamwork:) With the living room in the works, we’ve moved our modest belongings to the extra bedroom:

Soon the living room floor will be same as in this picture. The coffee table needs to be finished. I've started sanding it last fall and haven't touched it since. Furniture makeovers are clearly not my thing.

This set-up will do for now, but I told V that we need to hurry. The dust from working with wood is everywhere, and as much as I try to vacuum and air out the rooms, it comes back the next day.

Funny coincidence happened the other day - I was flipping through some home styling magazine and came across a renovation story about a couple that bought their place but didn’t move in right away. They hired a company to do the renovations first and a design firm to help them decide on finishes. I could only laugh at the irony as I was reading it. I mean, here I am, sitting on my couch in a house that is partially unlivable, with plastic screen instead of the door protecting me from renos dust and I’m looking at this immaculately styled living room with people sharing how they “survived the renos”?! Oh, the irony…
In all seriousness though, we’ve been offered a place to move out while living room renos are in progress. The offer was tempting, I must admit. But we chose to stay. Call us crazy, but this is our reality these days and we think that it’s all part of the greater experience that we're going through together, no matter how messy it might be.:)

Moving on

In the spirit of our bathroom being finished and revealed (by the way, that was super motivating, thank you, everyone who paid us a visit!:), I’ve decided to make up a list of what’s next on the agenda. I find that lists keep things organized, so hopefully this one will help us move along fast and without distractions:

1. Hardwood installation in the living room (in progress). We have installed the floor in two other bedrooms already, but since the living room and the hallway are in the way to our bathroom, they were left to be finished after the bathroom renovation. 
2. Linen closet (in progress). This little nook had been cut in size in order to fit in our PAX wardrobe in the bedroom and was left undone at the time. We were debating whether to keep it at all, but I told V that every bit of storage counts and since it’s already there, we just need to make it work for u;
3. Paint, paint, paint. It’s been a year and a half since we’ve been living with this depressing, half beige half mustardy wall colour (that doesn't look so horrible on the pictures, but really does in real life) and now is finally the time for fresh and crispy white walls;
4. Back door replacement. Our current, solid wooden door with an old screen door needs to be replaced. Not only it’s blocking natural light (it remains closed throughout colder months and blocks the sun), it’s also super impractical. We’ve ordered new door back in May, but since it’s manufactured in Germany, it takes really long time to arrive here. I don’t mind waiting, but I also know that days are getting colder and I really want new door to be installed before winter;
5. Fabric to order and new living room curtains to sew;
6. Media shelve to DIY. Something minimalistic but interesting, something in the spirit of our bedside shelves, something for V to built:);
7. Decide on the dining area. Do we need it at all? Feel like that this topic deserves a new post entirely.
8. Staircase redesign. This project will depend on how the flooring in the living room will go. We’re dying to demolish it to the grounds and install simple, modern staircase. But there is a good chance this may not happen this year. Will shall see.

Only one thing is keeping my spirit up about this picture - no carpet!

Yep, our living room for now:) The niche on the left with just one shelve is our future linen closet. 

V in his "reno position". Who needs yoga, right? Another thing that crossed my mind while taking this picture - if this isn't real love, then what is?

Do you make lists when working on/planning your house projects? Do you find them helpful?