2023: Our House Goals for this Year!

It’s that time of year again – time to plan out this year’s house projects! And with January behind us, we seem to have a better grasp of which projects we can reasonably tackle in 2023.

I am not big on making new year resolutions (why set myself up for failure…) but, every year, I do like to take inventory of all my home to-do’s and try to plan out where we will focus our energy. I made my first to-do list for our current home last year (here) and I think we did a pretty good job at sticking to it (you can find our final review of the year here).

Having now lived here for a full year, I can honestly say my wish list has grown exponentially. Not because there is anything wrong per se with our current space but, rather, because I am always looking at how to better a space (be it aesthetically, functionally, etc.) and since our current home is a new build, it has so much potential. But, alas, while the ideas are endless, the budget is not… So here is what I think we can realistically expect to tackle in 2023…

1) Hallways

There’s something about a lot of blank walls that makes a space feel unfinished; that’s how I feel about our hallways. I am not a fan of displaying family photos in our home – a few photos strategically placed here and there is fine but I don’t want our walls to be a shrine to us. Instead, I am hoping to breathe some dimension into our space by adding wall moldings throughout the home (to create a cohesive look) and will likely hang art in the main areas. I’m hoping to snap some fun photos of the boys this year and will hang those in their hallway.

This hallway is nice but it’s missing a little something on the walls to make the space more lived in and to tie in the other hallways in our home…

2) Playroom

We may have been a little too ambitious to think we could tackle both of our unfinished spaces (playroom and gym) in our first year of living here but I think we have our priorities straight this time around. We use the gym everyday and the potential in there is amazing (I have a long wish list for that space) but we are adults and we can live with the exposed wires and nails for a few more years.

The kids’ playroom is another story… They have a lot of toys in there but, for safety reasons, we don’t want them to be in there unsupervised. So this will be one of the first spaces we tackle in 2023. We already ordered the framing wood and drywall in 2022 and have our electrician lined up but it will still likely be a year-long project before it is truly complete. Next on the budget is ordering flooring, baseboards and trim.

3) Mudroom

The one item that is at the very top of my wish list is the mudroom.

We currently have a dedicated space which I call our “mudroom” right off of the garage. It is in the same space as our laundry room. It has a bench and coat hooks, so it is fine… just fine… It has no storage so in the winter the hats, gloves, etc. are sprawled all over the place and the mess is just repeated in the summer but with beach bags, towels, sun hats and flip flops.

Our mudroom is small – it was supposed to be a walk-in coat closet but we removed the coat closet from the plans and kept the same layout. It’ll be comprised of two walls (since it is open to our laundry area and is too narrow to build out on all three sides). So I will have to be creative but I really think that, when done, it will change the way we come in to our home.

4) Outside

If 2022 taught me anything it was that our outside space will never be “done”. The hope is that each year it will be better than the previous but, with a 2 acre lot and way too many Pinterest ideas, I would be setting myself up for failure if I tried to make this one big project. Instead, we’ll tackle it in numerous very small stages.

The goal for 2023 is to work on the front and side of the house. We are hoping to add an interlock path leading to our front door, add some plants and boxwoods below the windows, plant some cedars along the one side where we have a neighbor and seed the entire lot in hopes that we start getting some grass. Sounds ambitious when I write it all out so I’ll try not to be too hard on myself if we don’t do it all but the desire is there and I think both Paolo and I are committed to make it happen.

5) Luca’s Room (maybe…)

This is a bittersweet “maybe”…

Luca was one when we moved into this home. I decided at the time that I would keep his room simple – I felt that there was no point in creating a nursery but also it was too soon for a big boy room… While I haven’t touched his space, I have a lot of ideas for it. The driving force to design this room will be when he is ready to transition from a crib to a bed. Theo had just turned 3 years old when he started showing signs of being ready to sleep in a bed. Luca is turning three in October 2023 so if he follows in his brother’s footsteps then we may be looking at tackling this space towards the end of this year. But I won’t be rushing him – Luca’s my last little baby and I’m not sure I’m ready to let that stage of life go just yet… (plus, he’s totally the type of kid who will get out of his room at 4am and wreak havoc in our home)…

6) Guest Bedroom

I wasn’t planning on having the guest bedroom on this year’s project list but sometimes unexpected events help shift your priorities… Luckily, this one is a good shift.

When we built the house, I opted to remove the closet in our guest room and just leave the nook (where the closet would have gone) as empty space. I did this because the closet area was pretty wide (for a small guest room) and I preferred to have a smaller built-in closet and a desk area combined.

Up until now, our guest room has only ever been used by my parents who live about 2.5 hours away. They usually come down for only 2 days at a time, so there’s no need for a dedicated closet. But this year, in August, Paolo’s mom will be visiting from Italy! The last time we saw her, Theo was only 10 weeks old, so it will be 6 years since we’ve been together. While she will be splitting her time between ours and Paolo’s sister’s house, I still want to make sure that she has enough storage in her room here to be comfortable.

And as if the above was not already a lot to tackle, I am forever hoping, dreaming, planning of little things I can do around the house, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I sneak in a few un-planned projects onto the list along the way…

But, in a nutshell, this is what we have planned for 2023. Stay tuned to see what we actually get done!

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2022 In Review

I am not quite sure how we got here but, somehow, 2022 is done and now it seems like the wish list for our home projects in 2023 is endless (if only the budget was endless too…).

After living here for over a year, we’ve come to know our space and we definitely have a deeper understanding of what projects need to be tackled first. But, before delving into what is to come, I always like to look back at what we set out to do at the start of the year and what we actually accomplished.

If you missed it, in January 2022 I posted my Home Project intentions for the year – you can find that post here. Now let’s see where we are at…

1. Theo’s Room

Theo’s room was my very first DIY in 2022. We had promised him a big boy bedroom as soon as we moved in to the new house, so I intended to make good on that.

Fast forward to January 2023 and Theo still loves his room (thankfully!!!) and it is still one of my favourite spaces.

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You can see more of Theo’s space (before the rug and chair arrived) in our Home Tour Series post here.

2. Foyer Built-In

Originally, I planned on getting a seat and back cushion made for this space. I was going for a tufted banquette style but the cost for custom upholstery for such a small space was more than I was willing to spend. So I improvised…

I used a Twin bed headboard that came with the wall mounted bracket and covered it in a neutral (but still stylish) upholstery fabric. I made a 2″ seat cushion using the same fabric and added shiplap to the back for some visual interest.

While we rarely enter by the front door, we do need to walk past our foyer every time we go to our boys’ bedrooms or whenever I go in to my office and, each time, I look over at my little creation with pride.

While Theo’s room is one of my favourite spaces for sentimental reasons, my little foyer bench is one of my best DIYs to date!

3. Closet Glow Ups

Calling what I wanted to do to our closets a “Glow Up” might have been a little far fetch… Our closets (ours and the boys) are very builder grade and I knew I wasn’t going to be in a position to tackle those in our first year of living here. So I set out to make them just a little more functional by adding extra shelving (since there was a large space between each shelf).

My intention was also to get an Ikea Pax system for each of the closets with drawers for some more contained storage but Ikea has had a rough year in terms of supply. Every time I thought of getting a unit, the frame and/or the shelves/drawers were always out of stock. So, now, I think we will hold off on buying anything until we’ve designed the whole space (one closet at a time, of course) so that we can have it all fit in at once.

4. Landscape

Talks of landscape consumed most of our summer this year. We had several contractors come out for quotes and each seemed to have a different idea of how we should go about getting grass and hardscape. Ultimately, drainage issues on one side of our house took precedence and we had to hire a contractor to dig, bury a perforated pipe and create a swale.

We brought in several loads of fill to level out some low spots and pruned as many of the trees as we could. We made our first ever brushfire (and a few other ones after that too) and have lined up our trades for (hopefully!) some hardscape and landscape in 2023.

So while lots seemed to happen behind the scenes, our actual lot still looks the same…

5. Phase One of the Unfinished Parts of the Basement

The unfinished parts of our basement are areas that both Paolo and I were excited to tackle but there ended up being no room in the budget for it this year.

Currently, the framing wood and drywall have been purchased for the playroom and we’ve had an electrician come out for a quote – so stay tuned for at least some developments in that space in 2023!

FINAL GRADE: A-

Am I grading myself too generously by giving an (A-)? Maybe to some but I am happy with what we have accomplished in our space this year. In addition to the above list, I installed shiplap in the dining room, built shelves in the guest bathroom, had some fun art projects and invested in all the usual organization essentials that are required in the first year of living in a new home.

My to-do project list seems to grow longer everyday so I find that setting these realistic goals at the start of every year and then looking back on them periodically throughout the year has been really helpful in keeping us grounded. Stay tuned for our 2023 Project List coming out shortly!

2022 : Our To-Do List

For as long as I can remember, Paolo and I have always had something to do in our homes; no space was ever truly done. Now that we’ve been living in our new home for 3 months, the list of projects we hope to tackle grows daily. Realistically though, projects take time and cost money, so it won’t happen over night. In the meantime, to calm my mind and to manage expectations, I’ve created a list of the projects we can reasonably hope to tackle in 2022. Here it is:

1. Theo’s Room

When we sold our last home, Theo was still in a crib and about to move in to his big boy bed. Before I knew that we were moving, I told him we would transform his nursery into a big boy room when he changed beds. He didn’t forget that and kept asking me why he didn’t have a cool room when he moved into his big boy bed at the rental house where we were living during the build. So, now that we are home, Theo’s room is the first on our project list.

First up for his room is going to be to add moulding to the walls. I fell in love with this design by Millhaven Homes years ago and plan on replicating it in Theo’s room. Currently, Paolo wants it to be on just one wall but I’m pushing for a whole room design (mainly because I am not a fan of accent walls in bedrooms). So we still have some plans to iron out but I’m thinking we will start with the wall behind his bed and see how the space feels after that.

2. Foyer Built-In

Currently, our foyer is a blank slate. We have a glass console table that we brought over from our last home; it’s not what I envision for this space but it’ll do for now. We have a coat closet that is in need of some built-ins but it functions well for the time being. What we are missing is a place to sit to take off/ put on shoes.

We purposefully designed a space between the front door and the coat closet where we knew we would eventually build a bench. Since we extended our tile rug into that space, we won’t be building anything on the ground (because I don’t want to ruin the pattern) but we’ll do something simple like this one built by Angela Rose and then glam it up with either wall trim or a custom seat cushion.

3. Closet Glow Ups

One item that didn’t make it on to our wish list (as I knew it would be outside of our budget) was custom millwork in the closets. I never raised the question of shelving and layout options with our builder because I assumed we’d live with the customary shelf/rod standard until we decided to invest in custom closets. To my surprise, when the finishing carpenter was working on our closets (each of the boys and ours) he did a really good job at designing the space and even added extra shelving. Now that we’ve used our closets, the layout actually really works for us. While it may not be our dream design, (and we may very well decide to invest in a custom layout down the road), the current closets work great; they’re just in need of a little extra touches.

Currently, the shelves in each of the closets are spaced far apart. This year’s closet glow ups would just consist of us adding a few extra shelves in between the ones already there and also adding a small IKEA PAX wardrobe to each of the closets for some drawer space.

4. Landscape

Originally, we naively thought we could hold off on investing in landscape until our 5-year mark, which is when we’re hoping to get a pool. However, when we moved in in October, it became apparent that we weren’t going to be able to live with a field of mud in the front and back of our house for all those years.

Our plan now is to break down the landscape into phases. In 2022, the plan is to clean up the trees surrounding our lot, level out our land and bring in the necessary soil to make everything even.

5. Phase One of the Unfinished Parts of the Basement

We made sure to finish part our basement during the build stage to ensure we had extra space aside from our main level. However, our future gym, pool room and play room still need to be framed, install electrical, drywall, lighting, flooring, etc. Since all of the spaces are usable, just not currently pretty, we’ve decided that this is another area of our home that we can work on in stages.

Our intention for 2022 is to frame the walls and install strapping in each of the three spaces. We’re going to hire an electrician to run the wiring for outlets and lighting. And, if time and budget permit, we will get drywall installed and mudded.

That’s what we’ll be working on in 2022. The list may seem short to some but, since this is our home, I want to be sure to leave time to enjoy our space without tools and paint brushes in the way. In between these larger projects, I’m sure I’ll find smaller DIY tasks to tackle that may not have a big interior design impact but that will be sure to bring me joy.

What’s on your list this year? Long or short, the first step is to write it down! Lists give you a reference point to look back on and keep you moving forward!

Custom Home – Month 16: Standing Still AGAIN…

The month of August started so strong. Floors were tiled, then hardwood was installed, then the millwork went in and then the countertops!

All of that sounds amazing but what we don’t talk about is the amount of time the house still sat untouched this month. Tile was done in three days; hardwood was another three days; millwork was one day and counters were in within a few hours. After that, nothing.

We expected trades to be working simultaneously on the inside and outside of the house since we have repeatedly communicated to our builder that our landlord is not extending the lease and we need to move out by the end of September. Still, a balcony needs to be built, covered deck needs to be finished, we haven’t chosen our stucco color, we are missing interior and exterior doors, septic has to be delivered and installed, showers need to be tiled, electrical and plumbing need to be connected, and countless other stuff that could have been done in the days that our house sat empty.

Needless to say that with all of the excitement at the things that we do see come together, we are beyond stressed. We’re trying to remain optimistic but the reality of the situation is starting to kick in and we are losing some much needed sleep over it.

I hope to give you a much more positive update next month!!! Until then, here’s a glimpse of our exterior elevation in its current unfinished state – I am beyond in love with our front door pillars!

Custom Home: The Mistakes We Already Know We Made

The one aspect of building our home that has brought me both comfort and angst is the fact that I know mistakes will be made; they’re inevitable. My hope, in the end, is that the mistakes that we do make in the construction stage will lead to something even better once completed.

While there are certainly little design aspects that we wish we had planned out differently – such as ensuring that our front doors were centred in our foyer – we are choosing to make the best of the design that we have and not dwell on those little things. However, we already know of two “bigger” mistakes that we’ve made that we would definitely do differently if we were to build another house.

Pay Attention to Window Sizes

The first mistake we made was to not pay close attention to our window sizes. Before building, I would have thought that bigger is better when it comes to windows but, now that we have big windows throughout, I really wish I had been more intentional on window sizes. To be honest, when we approved our initial plans, the window locations were shown but not the specific sizes. We actually didn’t know what our window sizes were until after the plans had been submitted to the City for approval and, at that point, we didn’t want to make any changes out of fear that it would delay the approval and the start of the construction.

Even before we started designing our home, I always wanted a breakfast nook off of the kitchen with built-in seating. We actually carved out additional square footage in our plans to ensure we could have that nook. Unfortunately, the windows that were included in the plans for that space span almost the entire wall from top to bottom; meaning, there’s not enough wall space to build a bench. When I first realized this, I actually felt as though I had been punched in the gut… This was the one aspect of our design that we knew we wanted and I never even thought of checking to make sure the windows were at a proper height/size.

So now we’ve let go of the built-in bench design and will get a nice table and chairs instead. It was an expensive mistake to make (as we probably would not have added the extra square footage if we weren’t going to get a built-in nook) and a lesson that I would stress to anyone who is building – make sure your windows fit your vision for the space!

Discuss Your Plans for Your Unfinished Space

Another mistake we made was not sharing our plans for our unfinished space with our builder from the onset. In my mind, I always knew that we would allocate a portion of our unfinished basement to our future gym and pool room. Paolo and I discussed doing a rough-in for a future bathroom in that space so that, later on when we finished the space, we can add a powder room and avoid having our kids or guests walk across our whole basement space to use the other bathroom.

I didn’t share this plan with our architect at the initial design stage since it was something we intended doing a few years down the road. Well, when we knew our builder was working on plumbing and getting ready to pour the concrete in the basement, we reached out to ask that they add a rough-in for a future powder room. The response was a resounding no…

It turns out that when your house is on a septic system, like ours, the size of the system is determined by factoring, among other things, the number of bathrooms in the house. Once the septic size is chosen, it is included in the initial building permit application. If we really wanted to add the powder room, we would have had to have an engineer recalculate the size of the septic, potentially create new plans and submit a request to the City to amend our permits. All of this would come at a significant cost and delay to us. So what could have been a few hundred dollars for a rough-in, would now cost us a few thousand dollars. Needless to say we will not be adding a bathroom in the gym/pool room.

It’s unfortunate, but it is what it is. Never assume you don’t need to discuss your intentions for an unfinished space. There are certain things done at the construction stage that could affect how you could use your space in the future. Another example is to let your builder know if you plan on installing a pool down the road – this may impact the size of your electrical panel, where your septic system is installed, how many trees are cleared during excavation, etc. If you know that you want to add or expand on a space in the future, it is really important to communicate those wishes with your builder from the onset.

I’m sure there will be many other things that we will wish we’d done differently once the house is actually finished and we are living in it but, for now, I feel as though it could have been much worse. The two “big” mistakes we’ve made have just meant that we needed to rethink our intentions for the space but they aren’t going to take away from the enjoyment of the home.

Custom Home – Month 13: Let There Be Light (Sort Of…)

This month started with the installation of all of our electrical wiring. The electricians were amazing to work it – we did a thorough walkthrough before they started and then went to the house every day during the week that they were there to fine tune some of the choices.

Once electrical was complete, we required a building inspection for our framing before we could proceed to insulation and drywall. We were hoping that could all be done this month but it didn’t… There were some issues with our trusses (which is not uncommon), which has delayed our getting our permits and, in turn, delayed the start of drywall.

So… all we have to show in terms of construction advancement for the month of May is this white electrical panel and the yards and yards of wiring running through our framing…

I don’t know why I’m so excited about this but I really like that my electrical panel is white!!!

While the house sat empty for the rest of the month, I used the time to write some of our intentions and prophecies on our framing. I’ve seen this online with other builds and I love the idea of leaving our mark on this house. It’s unlikely that anyone except us will ever see it but I’m still glad to know it’s there.

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Fingers crossed for a much more positive update with Month 14’s review…

Millwork Details to Elevate Your Space

Millwork has definitely been one of the most time consuming parts of our build. In addition to the amount of time spent designing the plans for our millwork, I’ve also spent countless hours agonizing over all of the small details and, still, I am almost certain that once we move in there will be things that I wish we’d done differently. Until then, here are a few of the design details that we’ve included in our millwork plans to elevate the look of our cabinetry.

The Ends of the Cabinets

In our first home, we didn’t add any decorative elements to our millwork. The ends and corners of our cabinets were left flat. With our second home, the majority of the millwork was built-in between walls, so we didn’t have any exposed cabinet ends to consider.

This time around, we have several exposed ends, so I’ve tried to be purposeful in designing those spaces.

In our laundry room, for example, since the end of our cabinet is exposed, we made sure to add some decorative panelling to tie it in to the rest of the millwork. You wouldn’t think to notice the ends of cabinets but when you compare the drawings with and without the finished ends, it’s a no-brainer – decorative panels go a long way to elevate the space.

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  Without panelling

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  With panelling

Pay Attention to the Top and Bottom of your Cabinets

Another added detail that we were conscious to pay close attention to this time around was the top and bottom of our kitchen cabinets.

For example, we have one section in our kitchen where the end of the cabinet is exposed. We decided to add a decorative baseboard to that panel so that it blends in with our kitchen island.

Since we have 12-foot ceilings in the kitchen, we added a 2-foot bulkhead and then 10 feet of cabinetry. In order to make the bulkhead and cabinetry appear seamless (and intentional), we added this modified molding that will close any gaps between our upper cabinets and the bulkhead.

Let Your Counters be the Showpiece

We put a lot of focus on our millwork in the kitchen and laundry room because those were our two largest cabinet spaces where we need our millwork to be functional and, ideally, pretty. In other areas, such as the master ensuite and the Jack & Jill bathroom, we opted to go for a clean and simple cabinet design (no additional detail work) and are making our stone countertops the showpiece of the space.

The boys’ vanities, for example, are just a set of two drawers for each boy (no cabinets); we want the eye to focus on the counters – which will be a 5-inch thick skirted edge – and let the millwork blend into the background.

Custom is Not Always Best

We put a lot of pressure on ourselves when building a custom home to try to have everything created and designed specifically for us. But all of those personalized designs come at cost. There are definitely spaces in our home where we don’t need to invent the wheel. In our guest bathroom, for example, we omitted all custom millwork and purchased a ready-made vanity from Home Depot. We framed the space so that the vanity is snug between two walls and that will help give it the built-in look without the custom-built price.

Store bought vanity from Home Depot Canada

In our case, as in most cases when you’re building a home, millwork was one of the priciest items in terms of “add-ons” for the house. My biggest piece of advice where millwork is concerned is to be intentional, purposeful and resourceful with each space. In addition to the above tips, consider making a wish list of everything you’d like and then work with that to create your space. For example, I knew early on that my wish list items for our pantry and mudroom were too expensive to fit in to budget at this time. Instead of settling for less, we decided to completely omit those spaces from our current millwork plans. We allocated the funds for those spaces towards finishing the kitchen, laundry and bathrooms the way we want them and we’ll tackle the pantry and mudroom down the road. If there’s an area of your house that you really want custom but it’s not currently in the budget, consider not doing it all for now. I’ve often heard that “imperfect action is better than perfect inaction” but I don’t believe that applies when building a home or renovating a space. Personally, I don’t believe in spending money on things I don’t love, so I prefer to do nothing until I am ready to make it my everything.

Tips For Choosing Your Cabinet Hardware

Our home is still a ways from being finished but, as is customary, we have already had several design meetings with our millwork company to finalize the drawings for all of our cabinetry. And, this week, we finalized everything!!! So now comes the fun part – choosing the jewelry for our designs (i.e.: the hardware).

When we built our second Production Home, we asked Mattamy Homes to omit all of the cabinetry hardware and opted to install it ourselves after moving in. The reason was simple – we didn’t like anything that Mattamy was offering. At that time, I did quite a bit of research on different hardware styles, finishes, sizes, placement on the cabinets, etc. While I always liked our selections, I felt I played it safe in that I didn’t mix metals and kept the hardware in each space uniform. This time around, I’m trying to be a little more intentional about our selections by applying the tips I’ve learned along the way.

#1 Review your millwork measurements

My number one (that I have applied to my own home religiously) is to really review your millwork plans. I start by printing the plans (which include the exact measurement of each cabinet and drawer) for all of the rooms where we’re going to need hardware (kitchen, bathrooms, laundry room).

From there, group same size drawers (width wise) and cabinets (height wise) so that you know how many of a specific sized knob or pull you will need for the space. In our master ensuite, for example, we have 6 drawers and 4 cabinet doors that are all around 20-30″ wide (for drawers) and high (for cabinet doors), so it makes sense to order all of the same hardware since the pulls will look uniform throughout the space. In our laundry room, however, I have a mix of 10″ cabinets, 24″ drawers and even 48″ upper cabinets, so a one-size-fits-all hardware would not work there (my 3″ bar pull might look good on a 10″ cabinet but it’ll feel flimsy when opening our 24″ drawers).

The internet is full of resources for what size hardware works best on different cabinetry sizes. I personally like this latest one from Schoolhouse Living – it is simple and clean and the size options are universal.

https://www.schoolhouse.com/blogs/how-to/how-to-choose-the-perfect-cabinet-hardware

#2 Finishes – same same but different…

There’s a lot of literature and opinions about mixing hardware and compelling reasons for and against doing it. I personally have never mixed metals before; having knobs and cups in one space was about as adventurous as I got in our last house. But this time, since we’re building fully custom, I’m throwing the conservative rule book out the window.

While I want to mix things up, I still want it to flow. In the laundry room, for example, I am aiming to maintain a cohesive look by mixing different hardware designs that are from the same color family. So our large cabinet doors will have polished nickel latches, while the pull-out drying racks and other drawers will have more detailed bar pulls in the same polished nickel finish.

Laundry Room Hardware Selections

#3 Texture vs. Design

Our current rental is a typical builder-grade Mattamy home. They used the same handles, in the same finish, throughout the entire house (kitchen and bathrooms). While it certainly is uniform, it also falls flat. So another way that we’re having fun with our hardware selections is by using different hardware shapes and sizes for different spaces.

The boys’ vanities, for example, are a forest green color with 5″ stone countertops. We want the countertops to be the focal point but still want interesting hardware, so I opted for simple black bar pulls that have a textured finish for added interest.

#4 Make a list of your selections

My final tip is something we are doing for all aspects of our home’s finishing choices (tile, lights, hardware, paint, etc.). While I love everything I am choosing right now, it’s inevitable that at some point in the future I will want to change things up and one of the easiest ways to spruce up any space is to swap out hardware. The one limiting factor with hardware is that you have to buy the same size or else you’ll have to contend with patching up holes in your millwork. And in the age of online shopping, you can’t always bring a handle to the store to compare, so by keeping a list of your hardware choices, ideally with an online link that provides a description, you can easily get the specs for your hardware to order different (but same size) ones in the future.

In our case, we will also have spaces that aren’t yet completed (such as our pantry) that I will eventually want matching hardware. By keeping a detailed list of our selections now, I can simply refer to the links later on to order additional knobs and pulls.

When you’re building a house, there are many big budget items, such as millwork, that consume a lot of your time and reflection. By the time you are picking hardware, it is not uncommon to be suffering from decision overload and to not give this aspect of the build the detailed attention it deserves. But you need to remember that hardware (and lights and tiles) is really what makes the space. While you might have paid a lot for cabinetry, a shaker door is a shaker door; dressing it up with the right hardware is how you can elevate the baseline. So if I can offer any advice when building your home, it is to really analyze your hardware selections by considering some of the above tips.

Making our Design Choices Fit our Family

In our previous Production (i.e.: tract) homes, we inherited whatever floor plan the builder designed and basically worked with what was there. We’ve never had a dedicated mudroom, a proper foyer, enough outdoor lighting or even a garage large enough to fit two cars. While our homes never lacked square footage, we were still required with each home to adapt to the space. So when we were designing our custom home, our main goal was to ensure we create a space that fits our family and not the other way around. We learned pretty quickly what wasn’t working for us in our past houses and, below, are some of the design changes we made this time around while building this home with our family’s needs in mind.

No Sink in the Island

Photo credit: Monika Hibbs

I feel like this first choice is a controversial one with two distinct trains of thought – you’re either team for sink in the island or team against…

In our previous homes, the sink was always integrated in the island. We were definitely team “FOR” sink in island until we lived with it for a few years. The counter around the sink was always wet from splatter and the space never looked clean.

So this time, the sink will be by the window! Our island is smaller than our last (also a design choice since we found we didn’t need another 9-foot island) and we think it’ll now be the perfect size for hosting (whenever we can host) and for our little family, plus it’ll make keeping the kitchen looking clean that much easier.

Toilets with Concealed Trapways

Ok, so maybe jumping from the kitchen to the toilet is not the best segue but I am actually really excited about this choice! Have you ever bent over to clean all of the creases in a standard toilet? Yes, so you understand! Now imagine having two little boys with their own bathroom and you will WISH you had a curve-less toilet – one wipe across and done!

Luca is obviously still way too small to start thinking about how often he will “miss the bowl” when learning to pee standing up (and, lets be real, all the boys/man in my house will forever have moments where they miss the bowl, even after years of practice…) but Theo is at the age where he thinks its fun to try standing. He’s got pretty good aim but there are times where I wonder if there was more that landed on the floor than in the bowl… So toilets with concealed trapways, while slightly more expensive than the standard ones, was a non-negotiable for me this time around!

Joint Mudroom and Laundry Room

This choice came as an unexpected “non-choice” for me. While we’ve never had a dedicated mudroom, our laundry rooms have always been a decent sized, designated space. So when we started drawing out our floorplans, I had always envisioned two separate rooms but budget and square footage constraints meant that we had to combine the two.

When we were planning out our layout, Theo was not even three years old and hadn’t yet discovered the world of sand, dirt, mud and puddles. Fast forward 18 months and I literally have to get him to undress outside our current rental home before he comes in because of how filthy he is! Add to the fact that, eventually, Luca will be joining the mess and I am now so grateful to know that they can come in through the garage straight into the mud/laundry room and put away their dirty clothes before even entering the main living space.

Inspiration photo by Kate Marker Interiors

Cold AND Hot Water in the Garage

Paolo has always enjoyed detailing his car. He puts on his headphones and spends hours scrubbing every crevice of his car (and I usually get him to do mine too!), then, he tops it off with pressure washing the outside at the end. Last summer, since we were all stuck at home due to the pandemic, Theo also started spending a lot of time outside amusing himself with different water games. The one con with any of our outdoor water activities (aside from watering the grass) was that the water was always freezing cold!

So this time around, when we discussed plumbing with our builder, Paolo’s first request was that the hose bib in the garage have both hot and cold water! His hands won’t freeze when he’s washing our cars, Theo’s lips won’t turn blue when playing with his water table and, as for me, I’ll be able to hose down my children (see point above!) when they come home messy without feeling as though I am torturing them!

Access to Basement from Garage

This last one was not a must but a strong want for our family. Given Paolo’s shift work schedule, he sometimes comes home in the middle of the night and is not yet ready to go to sleep. We decided to add a staircase from the garage down to the finished basement so that he can go straight down to watch TV after work and not risk waking the family (and the dog!) by walking past the main living space.

We also figured, from watching how my nephews (aged 21 and 15) go straight to the basement of their own house with their friends, that Theo and Luca will one day appreciate being able to go straight downstairs with their buddies without having to engage in the always awkward parent conversation that would be required if they all came through the front door…

While I’m sure that even with a custom home there will be things that we wish we had thought of or designed differently, I am really excited for the lessons we’ve learned in past homes and the opportunity we now have to make this house fit our family’s needs.

Custom Home – Month 12: Frustrations

TWELVE MONTHS! A FULL YEAR!

We’ve come a long way in the last year but we are still nowhere near the finish line… And that, in part, is the source of our frustrations this month.

• 

  April 2020

• 

  April 2021

Since February, very little work has been done on the house and the work that has been done has taken twice as long than expected. For every day that there was someone working at the house, there would be another 3-4 days where the house sat empty. Despite being disappointed each time we went to the house to find that nothing had been done, we hung on to hope that we would somehow still close on schedule.

Then, April 7, 2021 marked our “120 days until closing” timeline. For those who are building or even just applying for a mortgage, you know that mortgage rates in Ontario can be locked in as of 120 days prior to closing. So I wrote to our builder to confirm that we were still on track for the August 4th closing. That’s when we first learned that we were likely looking at closing in mid-September…

I can’t say that I am surprised by the delay – we are in the middle of a world pandemic after all – but we were still naively holding on to hope that we had somehow escaped the labour and supply chain shortages that everyone is experiencing these days… Alas, we didn’t. So, we were frustrated by the news of the delay but we understood…

And then, by mid-April, our frustration turned into panic. When we told our landlord that the closing date had been pushed and that we would be renting for an extra month, he told us we could stay until September 30 at the latest because he is planning on selling the house in the Fall (we don’t blame him, it is an insane seller’s market at the moment)… So now we don’t have a closing date and we will need to be out of this home by the end of September.

We’ve let our builder know our current situation and are just holding on to hope that it will all come together. Taking possession of the house in August is off the table but there’s still a chance for a September closure. In the meantime, it’s going to be a stressful 4 months… In the end, we know that it will all be worth it; it is just hard right now to see the forest past the trees…