Long time, no see! I am in utter disbelief that this is only my second blog post of 2024 and it is nearly September. Unfortunately, 2024 wasn’t the harbinger of new beginnings, inner peace, or a 10-step nightly skincare routine, that I’d hoped it would be. The past 12 months have been the most stressful of my entire life. Some of the stress was of my own making, like purchasing and renovating a heritage home and converting it into a luxury vacation rental and managing my own rental properties in Ottawa, but much of it came in the form of external stressors.
Some of these challenges are ongoing but some of the major issues have finally been put to rest and I feel a weight has been lifted. Sadly, I unwittingly decided to follow in my boyfriend’s shoes and ruptured my Achilles tendon on August 3rd, just days before my 36th birthday. You may recall Michael tore his Achilles tendon in December 2023 and just got back to full functionality last month. Needless to say, 35 was not my best year ever.
One major bright spot amidst the darkness of the past few months was when our home was featured in Apartment Therapy! If you’ve been following our journey on Instagram or caught my blog posts showcasing our high-impact powder room makeover, you’ll know Michael and I have been renovating our 1940s duplex since October 2022. When Craig Kellmann, a photographer for the popular home decor website, reached out in April and asked if I’d like our home to be featured, I nearly fell over.
Naturally, I used the upcoming photo shoot to coerce Michael into tackling the entryway renovation after taking a 10-month hiatus from house projects. In fairness, he was building his own duplex out in Clarence-Rockland from September-February.
For context, this is what our entryway looked like when I took possession of the house:
BEFORE
I can assure you this is, in fact, the same room as pictured elsewhere. It may look unrecognizable because we made some extensive structural changes to the room and altered the colours and materials used throughout.
We busted down the wall and door pictured on the right side of the “BEFORE” picture. On the other side of that door you would find a small foyer, the exterior front door, and a flight of stairs leading up to the second floor unit. As we have a side door with second set of stairs dedicated to our Airbnb upstairs, we were able to remove this door and the entire wall surrounding it. This Instagram transformation video might be clarifying:
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Albeit a small space, this was one of our more painstaking projects. It started inauspiciously when we installed the beautiful CB2 Lamina Flushmount in Polished Brass last year. As you can see, the fixture is a dome comprised of a constellation of glass flowers mounted on brass finials. While the assembly instructions clearly indicated that we should first mount the fixture to the ceiling and then proceed by screwing in each of the 43 flowers, I, in my infinite wisdom, decided it would be far easier to assemble the entire fixture AND THEN do the wiring and mount it to the ceiling.
I quickly discovered the gap in my own logic when I lifted the fully assembled fixture and found it weighed about 40 lbs. As I stood on a chair and Michael perched perilously on a step-ladder, in total darkness (working at night and having had to kill the power to complete the wiring), arms quaking from holding the fixture aloft as Michael tried to complete the wiring and mounting process, I began to regret my cavalier attitude towards the instruction manual.
In spite of its heft, the fixture was affixed to the canopy with only three minuscule tension screws. After Michael had finally managed to get two of three screws in place, he looked into my eyes, now stinging with sweat, and said, “I think you can let go now.” I removed my hands gingerly and we both held our breath, gazing up at the fixture only to watch it come crashing down, smashing three of the finials and slicing Michael’s arm.
Luckily, the homocidal fixture didn’t do any permanent damage but we did have to wait 9 months for a replacement fixture.
SHOP THE ROOM
By chance, we hadn’t made any further progress on the entryway renovation within that timespan anyway. From the moment I purchased the house I knew I wanted to welcome guests with a custom tile mosaic emblazoned with my signature Virtual Happy Hour greeting, “hello friends”. Using penny-round glass mosaic tiles from Céragrès, Michael and I set about templating the words, we used black tiles for the letters and grey tiles for a drop-shadow, with a white backdrop. We spent four hours mapping out the plan in uppercase lettering. The next night, I returned home from work with fresh eyes and decided I hated our first attempt, to which Michael replied, “I’m not doing that again.”
I accepted my fate and spent another five hours undoing our work from the evening before and laying down the letters in a serif font, without a drop-shadow. I found an inspiration photo on Pinterest with a font I liked and did my best to replicate it, using other serif fonts on my computer as a reference guide.
I dotted the “i” with a flower and scattered other mosaic flowers throughout the negative space to use up some of those grey tiles I’d initially intended to use in the drop-shadow. While it was a total labour of love, I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. Thank you to Michael for his patience with yet another nightmarish tile-setting project.
I had changed tack a couple of times on the design concept for this room. Some of the storage furniture I initially wanted to incorporate was discontinued and then I found a stunning rosewood wardrobe on Marketplace that I thought would be perfect. Ultimately, the wardrobe was too large for the space once we tore the wall down and removed the door; we have since decided to incorporate it into our laundry room as storage and hanging space.
Once we removed the wall and opened up the space, I didn’t want to close it off again with storage closets and instead opted for an airy aesthetic inspired by French bistros. The simple blue stripe wallpaper is meant to be reminiscent of the striped awnings typical of Parisian cafés, the vintage high-back Thonet chair is an on-the-nose reference, and the mosaic tile all work in concert to transport you to the croissant capital of the world.
A floating clothing rack and wall-mounted shoe racks help to maintain the airy feel and keep the space clutter-free. A narrow console table by Mattiazzi gives us a spot to drop our keys and leaves ample room above for my favourite piece of original artwork, “The Kiss” by Judith Geher.
The room now feels significantly larger than it did before and the view of the entryway from the living room is much more enjoyable. Now, all we need is a new front door with large glass panels to allow more light into this chic space.
I’d love to know, what’s your favourite element of the redesigned space? Tell me in the comments below.
Love the overall timeless aesthetic and normally havr nightmares about front entryways but am so inspired by how you managed to keep things fresh, stylish and inviting.
Thank you so much! I always feel that entryways are chronically shortchanged on square footage, especially in Canadian winters when people have to climb over boots and bulky coats to get in! Hopefully this layout will serve us well in all seasons.