So Ian & I have wanted a dog forever. Did we buy a house for a dog? Most definitely yes. My dad calls her the $200k dog. As much as I'll always want to travel, and I want to live elsewhere, I'm accepting (okay, I'm working on it) that we have to spend some time in life right here right now. Evie makes that more tolerable :) ... don't worry Evie will have her whole own post. But it's funny because we bought the house because we were drawn to how it looked: paint colours, flooring, layout, etc. They weren't ones I loved, but I didn't hate them either! I always knew I wanted to replace the kitchen. But when my father in law, Dave, saw the stars and said they were awful and that he would replace them (he's an extremely talented stair designer/creator/what are these things officially called??) and so I snowballed. I essentially did renovations to make the house up to snuff to be deserving of the stairs and kitchen. I hope you enjoy looking through our before and afters! So many people helped us. Luke helped us move, along with Scott and Donna, who also loaned time to help with flooring & furniture building, Andrea & Adam who helped with demo and painting (and various Adam projects throughout the house), Haley with our coffee table, my mom who flew in from Calgary to do our backsplash, Kim who painted with me with 12 days and did a bunch of other jobs, and Dave, the true MVP of this whole project, who did everything else in only 4 short weeks. You guys all helped create our first home.

This was the living room before, and below is it after...

This is the table Haley Schmuland & I tried to build on our own... would it have turned out totally different if Adam Ward hadn't jumped the rescue and saved us? Who can say? (but yes, yes it would look totally different hehe).

Then there was the dining room... which you can only see in the background because I apparently skipped that room.. hehe.

But the after is great haha..

Then there was the upstairs bathroom..

The after (including new toilets from Noelle & John!!!! Did I ever think toilets could effect my life so much? No. Do they? YES!!!).

And of course, the stairs that started it all. They were treads that had carpet ripped up and then were painted brown over. To say they transformed is an understatement..

Dave owns Artifex Stair Co and to say he's talented is truly an understatement! He designed them based on a piece of our laminate (and knowing my general love for things white & modern) and included some super cool edgy stainless steel into them. Again, never thought I could love stairs so much but here I am....

The downstairs was mostly a coat of paint, except for the bathroom of course, which I mean - the paint made a big difference! Purple is dark and gross, and we made it bright in there! But we added a new vanity and toilet as well :)

And the after..

And then of course the office with the goooorgeous custom desk Adam Ward built. Seriously. I showed him an idea for design on Pinterest, ask for certain dimensions.. and he blew all expectations. If you guys need something custom. Hit him up.

And last, but certainly not least, the kitchen! The cabinets were a cherry birch that had been painted over dark brown, the backsplash was a sticker with laminate counter tops and dated tile on the floor. The kitchen felt dark and small...

The beautiful cabinets and counter were done by MCK and the adding of the appliances and make sure everything was finished and that our kitchen functioned was Dave, and my mom did the backsplash :) it's my big, beautiful white dreams..