Right from the start, before we even moved into our house, we started our DIY home renovation journey. We continued that journey for the last 15 plus years and I don’t see it ending any time soon. Below is a list of most of the renovations we have done to the inside of our house. Each renovation will have its own post describing in detail how we did it, what tools we used, what we learned and in some cases what we would do different if we could do it again. Hopefully you will find some useful information to help you with your own DIY renovation journey.

Kitchen

• Kitchen refresh – This was done when we first moved in. It included new tile flooring, new counters, new sink and faucet, new appliances and painting
• Full kitchen renovation – This was a complete kitchen overhaul, including removing a wall, replacing all of the cabinets, adding an island, new wiring and lighting, new flooring, new counters, new sink and faucet, adding a vent, and new appliances. This wasn’t a complete DIY renovation as I hired an engineer to assess removing the wall, an electrician for the wiring and lighting upgrades, and a company to install the new counters. The rest I did myself.

Flooring

• Remove old carpets on main floor- This was done when we first moved in as the carpet was very old and the previous owners were smokers
• Install hardwood floors on main floor – This was my first time installing hardwood floors and I learned a lot

Bathrooms

• Basement bathroom – My first bathroom renovation. There was a rough-in for a shower so I built my own tiled shower stall, including plumbing, tiled the floor, painted, installed shelving, replaced the toilet, switched the light fixture and replaced the vanity. Many lessons were learned that I applied in later renovations.
• Main bathroom – One of my favourite renovations. This involved replacing the bathtub, tiling, replacing the plumbing, tiling the floor, replacing the toilet, adding a new countertop to the existing vanity and painting. I also learned some lessons here but hopefully won’t have to revisit them, but I am happy to pass them along to you.

Main floor Bedrooms

• Refreshing rooms – This mainly involved painting and lighting changes. All the bedrooms already had decent hardwood floors so we have kept them.
• Replacing doors – All of the bedrooms had bi-fold doors, which don’t offer the most privacy, so I updated all of the doors to standard doors.

Basement Bedroom

• Full bedroom update – This room was a combination bedroom/workroom with a partial wall separating the two parts. I used the workroom part as my home office for a while but when our oldest wanted more room, we decided to make the space into one large bedroom for them. This involved removing the partial wall, removing all of the wood panel walls, removing the drop ceiling, insulating everything, adding some network drops, drywalling the walls and ceilings (with taping and mudding), installing laminate floors, painting and updating the light fixtures. The entire family pitched in with this one so it was a lot of fun.

Entryway

• New laminate flooring – This was done quite a while after the hardwood flooring on the main floor, so we decided to go with laminate in a colour that was close to the same.
• Wainscoting – There was a chair rail that ran around the middle of the wall so we decided to add wainscoting below it. It gives the house a more cottagey feel which is what we want
• New closet doors – There were ugly bifold doors on the closet so we replaced them with mirrored sliding doors

Others

• Crown molding – We added crown molding around most of the main floor, the entryway and down the stairs to the basement
• Painting – Every room in the house has been painted at least once
• Closet organizers – The closets in the bedrooms are small, so we added organizers to maximize the space

There may be others that I have missed but this should give me plenty of content to work on for the next while. Please check back as I add links to this page for the posts I add. Happy renovating!