My bedroom is FINISHED!

I'm so happy. My room is finally done. It was a lot of work but the room is painted and ready for me to move my furniture in. My mom came over yesterday and helped me edge the entire room and then last night I finished the second coat of paint.

On Saturday I was ready to throw in the towel. I had painted the one wall dark grey (the colour is called Elephant Skin and it's Behr paint). When I went to take the tape off all the edges of the paint came off with it. Huge chunks of white were all around the edges. So, distraught, I called my mom who told me she would come and edge everything for me since she can do it without tape. So that's we did on Sunday. She came over, edged everything - fixed my dark grey wall and I rolled all the other walls (the colour is Behr paint - Silver Moon).

I love the final look - I think the colours look great together and give the room a modern feel. Next I have to figure out the window treatment for the room since it gets a lot of light all day long - I'm thinking white wood venetian blinds to block the sun and then curtains on top but we will see.

Bedroom Walls

As of yesterday my bedroom walls are glue-free! I'm only a couple steps away from being done... all I have left to do is:

1) Scrub all the wall with TSP to remove any glue residue. Oh I also need to rinse them after so essentially I need scrub the room twice. Ian and I started this task yesterday - we got 3 walls done and it is a lot easier with 2 people since one person scrubs with the TSP and the other person follows and rinses the walls. However, it is still a really labour intensive project and took a lot of time...

So I wrote the first bit of this post in the morning. This afternoon Elena and Danielle came over and we finished scrubbing all the walls in my bedroom. Amazing! It was so much easier with 3 people and went a lot faster - I am eternally grateful to Ian, Elena and Danielle for helping me with this horrible laborious task.

So now (updated) all I have left to do is in the bedroom is:

1) Caulk/repair all the crown moulding and baseboard

2) Plaster/fix the walls

3) Sand the walls

4) Paint the ceiling

5) Paint the walls

GTs.... but I am one step closer to moving into my room!

Housewarming Present

I got a housewarming present in the mail from my friend Kristina. I love getting mail and I love presents so it was very exciting!

It's a chalkboard - it's in my kitchen. I think she bought it in Sweden when she was there with her mom. Anyways I love it - thanks Kris! xo

Craig's List

I was in Washington when I got possession of my place so my dad picked up the keys for me and went over while I was away. The first thing he did for me was to take down the ceiling fans in the two bedrooms and the kitchen and replace them with lights they had left over from their condo.

Old lights:

New bedroom lights:

New kitchen lights:

In addition to taking down all the fans he also took down the chandelier that was in the main room. Instead of throwing the fans and light out I decided to put them up on Craig's list. Originally I was just going to put the fans up because I thought no one would want the light - but after I put the fans up and realized how easy it was to do I decided to add the chandelier as well - on sale for a whopping $10. Turns out people wanted it - within 2 hours of putting the chandelier up I had three emails. I ended up selling it to some girl who sent her boyfriend to pick it up the next day. He met me in my lobby and I gave him the light - awesome. Ironically I have had no emails about the fans so I will probably need to decrease the price. That's ok I'm in not in a rush - they're just sitting in my storage locker.

Wallpaper & Moving

So I moved in on Monday. The move wasn't too bad - I had gotten rid of a lot of my stuff so there wasn't a ton of furniture. I definitely need to do some shopping.

The weekend prior to moving in my Mom and I tore down all the wallpaper in my bedroom. Tearing down the wallpaper took about 20 minutes. It came down really easily in big sheets. The problem is there's a thick layer of wallpaper glue coating all the walls - every square inch is covered in it. It's intense.

So on Sunday my mom, our friend Mike and I worked on the walls. We tried everything. First we tried wetting the walls and scraping off the glue. Which worked but was super time consuming. So then my mom went out and bought T.S.P - which is this chemical wall cleaner. We tried that on the wall and when we tried to take the glue off it took the wall with it. So we scratched that idea. In the end we ended up using water, vinegar and a lot of scrubbing. The three of us worked for hours and in the end we finished three walls. With a lot more still to go.

On Monday I moved in. My mom, dad, brother and I moved everything in about 6 hours which wasn't too bad. I had given a lot of my furniture to my brother so there weren't that many big pieces. By the end of the day I had my bed set up and most of my furniture in place. The first night in my new condo was a little surreal - I couldn't believe that this place was actually mine.

Guest Bedroom

Big room, it has nice French doors and there is also a closet you can't see.

This is the hallway leading away from the guest bedroom. The door on the right is the master bedroom, the door halfway down on the left is the powder room. At the end of the hallway on the right is my front door and the hallway to the left leads to the living room.

Bathroom

My bathroom doesn't need that much work. I need a new faucet, some additional lights and to remove the wallpaper. But I can live with the tile for now.

However the old-person bath attachments do have to go

Master Bedroom

The bedroom is completely covered in wallpaper. It was also really dark because there was no light - only a ceiling fan. The doorway Ian is standing in is my closet and it leads to my bathroom.

My bedroom has a walk-through closet that leads to my bathroom which is great - two huge closets for all of my clothes. But the closet area also has wallpaper...

Balcony

I have an amazing balcony. It's huge, it runs the length of my condo - and it's covered with tile which I love.

I also have a fantastic view - and since I overlook a cemetery no one will ever build in front of me :)

Kitchen

Eventually I will need to completely redo this room. But it's totally fine to live with for now.

Main Room

I love my parquet floor!

My mom and I are in my kitchen. My dad and my real estate agent are in the main room when you are looking out from the kitchen (the wall behind them is covered in wallpaper).

Hello Homeowner!

So I bought a condo. Crazy. It's 2 bed, 1.5 bath and its about 1400 sq. ft. I love it. It's right on the subway line and it has 2 parking spaces. Not to mention it's totally in an old person's building. Pretty much everyone in here is at least 60 - I am one of the only "young" people in the building. But it's a great investment. All it needs is a little TLC - which I am totally prepared to do.

I got to go in for a visit after I bought it and the next couple posts are the pictures from that day. It gives you a good idea of what I'm up against - which is A LOT of wallpaper.