5 years. A 4 year old. 3 addresses. 2 hearts. 1 lifetime.
5 years ago today on a rainy afternoon, perched on a cliff at the edge of paradise, I married my best friend. Although we'd been together as a couple for many eight years prior, that day was the beginning of a new chapter for us.
All framed up!
We've walked you through the main floor, as well as the upstairs, so now we figured it's only fair to show you how it all came together from the outside.
What a difference a year makes…
We're blogging from Barbados today as we're on vacation celebrating Tash's grandmother's 90th birthday. The other night we decided to pop by one of our favorite spots on the island for an impromptu dessert. Tapas Restaurant is a great little place that you can sit right on the water's edge and enjoy the fantastic food and ambiance.
Design Week: The Dreamhouse Revealed
Well Design Week is coming to a close. In case you missed it be sure to check out the rest of this week's posts. We first took you through our search for inspiration, then outlined how we focused in on our full wish list and created our look book. Today we're finally revealing The Dreamhouse on paper as we go through Kevin's design and it's evolution from rough sketch to colour rendering.
Design Week: The Look Book
Once we got through the initial research, we took a more in-depth look at the photos we had compiled. What we figured out is that overall we love modern contemporary architecture and we want our house to reflect that in its design both inside and out. That said, we'd still like to maintain a bit of neighbourhood charm because let's be honest, we're not trying to create an art installation in the middle of the suburbs!
Design Week: The Inspiration
Today we're kicking off Design Week - or probably what will become the first of several recurring 'design weeks' as a project like ours just has so many different phases of the design process. This week we'll be focusing on the architectural design.
Done and done!
It's been a while since we blogged, and lots to update you on. Specifically what happened with the seller after the inspection... Well of course - he was anything but reasonable. Essentially our agent Mike went to him with our inspection report of what could potentially add up to $25,000 in repairs - and his response was "I won't come down one more penny." That said, we know that the renovation plans we have will address most, if not all of the issues the inspector raised. But the bottom line is, ultimately we're buying THIS house, in it's present state, and regardless of our future plans for it we shouldn't have to absorb all the cost of any repairs that it needs going in.
This might be the one…
So after expanding our search area, we've found an interesting property in the West Shore neighbourhood. The house itself isn't much to look at. In fact it probably hasn't been updated much since it was built in 1962. Now in saying that we don't mean the cool 'retro chic 60s', we mean circa 1962 textured plaster walls, parquet & vinyl floors, avocado tub in the bathroom - we're talking full on time machine the second you walk through the door. Not exactly what you might envision us looking for in our dream house.
Chasing the dream
Being that we're young creative professionals it sort of fits that we'd be attracted to the urban contemporary loft aesthetic. The problem being, the 'urban contemporary loft' generally comes with inner city living - downtown core, smaller square footage, higher prices, etc - which is fine when you're in your 20s and focused on your career. When the time comes to raise a family though, you tend to re-evaluate the things you want in a home; things like proximity to schools and family, having a backyard, and overall wanting a bigger living space.
Welcome to The Dreamhouse Project
So what is The Dreamhouse Project?? Simply put, it's going to be our all comsuming labour of love over the next year. We started this blog to document the journey - our ups and downs, musings and random thoughts on