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Langley reporter renos done… finally

Here’s the third and final installment about an average gal’s home reno experiences.
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New materials were complemented by vintage items, such as an old light fixture, a 1949 stove, other old appliances and dishes from bygone days.

Close to the end of my home renovations, the light went on for me.

I’m the customer from hell.

Of course, now that the kitchen and bath renos are done, I’ve learned my lessons.

‘Oh, can you just add this, modify this, replace that?’ – that kind of stuff must drive professionals crazy. My bad.

I thought I was ready for renos, having most of the materials, or at least having settled on them, and the contractor would find all the fiddly bits (that’s a technical term for supplies such as pipes, nails, screws, etc.). Nope, there’s so much more that goes into home renos than I realized.

And I thought I was using a mixture of common sense and financial common sense. But every decision and ‘little request’ has consequences. When I couldn’t find prefab walls for the tub surround that fit a 72-inch tub, I went with glass tiles. That meant extra work and time.

Even during demolition, there’s discoveries and decisions that impact the overall project. We didn’t expect to find five layers of flooring and about eight times as many floor staples as required. I became quite proficient at removing staples over the course of a weekend.

Then there’s supply order delays and supplier errors to be factored in.

And you don’t always get what you pay for.

To get a vintage look, I used reproduction arborite, a design commonly known as cracked ice, but it’s also known as mother of pearl. Many of us have vintage pieces with the Formica brand surface that came in many cool colours. I have my parent’s green kitchen table.

Now this product is reproduced in grey, yellow, and red. It was one of my few pricey splurges, a special order. While I love my red countertops and backsplashes, the red ‘cracked ice’ does not come close to what the old product looked like.

For my reno, I incorporated some old hardware – bakelite door handles, vintage pulls, a chrome toilet paper holder from the 1940s, glass towel bars, vintage light fixtures…

Using these sorts of materials have their own challenges. I needed one more bakelite drawer pull than I had and you can’t just head to the nearest big box hardware store for another, so I will be assembling fiddly bits from various sources to fake one up.

I said in the first installment of my home reno saga that this wasn’t going to be one of those six or seven figure jobs that wins awards and gets glossy spreads. But, I love the results.

Okay, so the big question everyone asks – what’d it cost ya?

The tally for supplies, plus way too many restaurant meals (it turns out to be really tiresome trying to make interesting food with just a toaster oven) minus the fiddly bits left over from assembling the cabinets that I was able to return for a refund, etc., etc, and the damage was only about $36,000.

Here’s the first two installments of this adventure:

- March 22

- April 19

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New materials were complemented by vintage items, such as the Roto-Broil toaster oven and rotisserie from the 1950s, and bakelite door handles on a custom built corner cabinet. The kitchen counters were also edged with metal banding.
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New materials were complemented by vintage items, such as an old light fixture, a 1949 stove, other old appliances and dishes from bygone days.
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Glass shelves, even in the cabinets without glass doors, were used to allow better visibility of items on upper shelves.
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Custom shelves on an angled wall allows the space to be used to display vintage appliances.
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The kitchen sink and window are lined on both sides with vintage-style shelves.
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The kitchen sink and window are lined on both sides with vintage-style shelves.
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And fter
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Kitchen before.
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New materials were complemented by vintage items, such as a 1940s era toilet paper holder.
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New materials were complemented by vintage items, such as glass towel bars.
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Art deco-inspired bathroom
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A vintage-looking light fixture adds illumination to the tub and toilet area and is also a bathroom vent fan.
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Heather Colpitts

About the Author: Heather Colpitts

Since starting in the news industry in 1992, my passion for sharing stories has taken me around Western Canada.
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