FAMILY NEST BEFORE TOUR: ENTRYWAY & HALLWAY

To finish off the super exciting (!) Before Tour of the main floor, here is a sneak peek of the entryway and the hallway. I'm usually a big fan of mixing prints and patterns but that wallpaper was unfortunately just too much. It did however coordinate really well with the living room's metallic blinds (see here if you've missed this little treasure), which proves that creating a continuous flow throughout the house is a true classic design rule.

FAMILY NEST BEFORE TOUR: BEDROOMS

Continuing on with the Before tour are the bedrooms. There are three bedrooms on the main floor, two identical bedrooms and one principal bedroom.

Each bedroom had narrow and deep closet space but offered good dimensions for an efficient layout and corner windows that let in lots of natural light.

FAMILY NEST BEFORE TOUR: BATHROOM

Here is the main floor bathroom in its Before state. I hope you like blue.

FAMILY NEST TOUR: FAMILY AND DINING ROOMS

Continuing on with the Before Tour are the dining and living rooms.

Both rooms are quite spacious and have big windows. If you can't see the windows, they're hiding behind the metallic vertical blinds. That's right, metallic. vertical. blinds.

This is the tired-looking beige fireplace with some shelves on the front wall. Floors seemed ok at first but they had lots of nails and holes in them and cracked a lot.

FAMILY NEST BEFORE TOUR: KITCHEN

It's been more than a year now that Alex and I finished the renovations. We had a great experience and realized that what attracted us to fixer-uppers is working with constraints. We liked the challenge of dealing with existing structural and aesthetic constraints and finding a creative solution to create a functional and pretty space. We learned so much about renovations, but also on how we worked as a team and our individual and complementary strengths.

For me personally, it's a little like Cher in the movie Clueless. Makeovers 'gave her a sense of control in a world full of chaos.' Perfect project for my type A personality.

So here we go with our nest makeover, the first of many hopefully.

First up on the Before Tour is the kitchen, la pièce de résistance for any busy family.

This was the only counter space available in the kitchen and half of it was taken up by the microwave. The cabinets were falling apart, but the natural light from the big windows was amazing.

FAMILY NEST: FINDING THE ONE

'Anh oi, em thich'

Those were the exact words I told my husband Alex while we were visiting the dark and humid semi-finished basement of house visit #432. In Vietnamese, it simply meant 'Honey, I like it'. But what I really meant with my wide-opened eyes, and what wise Alex quickly understood, was 'Honey, we gotta get this house, it's our home.'

Here's the basement where I felt the spark. Round-wood walls, swiss chalet windows, holes in the ceiling and bad linoleum floors. It's charming right? You could close your eyes and smell the potential (or humidity).

The Basement