Living My Own Love It Or List It Nightmare

Welcome to my home!!!! When I first saw this house it was over my budget but I absolutely fell in love with it. They always say not to buy out of emotion but it was so beautiful my eyes were glazed over. It had so much character and was right up my alley … it ticked off all of the boxes for what I was looking for in a home. The current home owner even had a signed picture of Martha Stewart on the wall. The garden was beautiful with amazing water features that were so eye catching. The outside had so much space and so much potential it was the cherry on top of the gorgeous house itself.

Days after moving in I started experiencing my own Love It Or List It Vancouver hell. At that point in time, my life was so crazy … I was travelling from Kelowna to Vancouver every week for filming. Justin and I were just starting our long distance relationship. My Dad had just been diagnosed with prostate cancer. And I thought my head was going to explode because that’s when everything started going wrong in my house.

First things first, I hired my cousin Charles who runs CW persona contracting to help over see and take care of everything. This story isn’t glamorous but I wanted to share some of the contacts I met and people I used in case any of you bump into any of these similar issues. And well here is where it all began … my entire furnace was completely fried. It didn’t even turn on and it was winter time. SO, I contacted Trane and Ingersoll Rand right off the bat and they installed a new furnace and air conditioning system…just in time for winter so we wouldn’t freeze our butts off.

But it was my bad entirely, I totally overlooked the fact that I live in one of the hottest cities in the country and my house would be scorching without AC throughout the summer and freezing in the winter without a furnace OR a fireplace. As you can imagine, buying this house I was already over budget and I’m instantly having to replace the entire HVAC and all of the components. Thanks to Trane everything was replaced efficiently. While they were up in the attic installing it, I was informed my entire roof needed to be replaced. THAT is when I realized I was living my own Love it or List it nightmare, First of all, I had to contact the Crawl Space Cleaning Bellevue – Clean Crawls because they also informed me I need an insulation removal .

I had to make the decision to either sink a whole shit load of money into my house that I would probably never get back. OR I would have to sell my house. I had such an attachment to this house and it was my FIRST house … SO as you can see … I decided to over extend myself and just make my house into my ultimate dream home instead.

I replaced the roof with this product called Decra. What I loved about this roof is the fact that it’s actually metal but it’s made to look like cedar shingles. It has a lot of character and texture but it’s extremely durable. It has a 50 year warranty and will probably last longer than the house itself. I get so many compliments on the roof still to this day … this roof is the shit!!!!

And well … while I was at it I decided to rip down some walls. I took out the walls between the kitchen and dining room to extend the kitchen so that it had a view of the lake. I used to have french doors going into the dining room and everything was segregated off into their own separate rooms. Knocking down these walls completely transformed the space into an open concept.

I was so excited my kitchen finally had a view BUT I only had a dinky little window … which definitely didn’t capitalize on the gorgeous view. I was already so in over my head so I thought I might as well replace the window with a full glass folding door system from LaCantina.

Once EVERYTHING was opened up … I realized I needed to fill in the holes in the cabinetry. I called and hired the original kitchen designer Carolyn Walsh and cabinet maker to help with the next steps. I painted all of the cabinets white (they were cream) from Phoenix Kitchenworks and got all new hardware from Restoration Hardware. With the entire island changing locations I also had to replace the counter tops and went with Misty Carrera from Caeserstone. I needed a new sink and went with a Kohler cast iron apron front to match the rest of the white kitchen. My backsplash was replaced with World Mosaic white Moroccan style tiles. And I got vintage chandeliers from Sadie Ann McMurray to finish off the kitchen.

All of these gorgeous photos by: Janis Nicolay

Last but not least … I needed some last minute final details and got everything from my favourite decor store in Vancouver – The Cross Design.

It was such a huge project and it was so overwhelming and felt never ending. The men in my life totally took care of me and made everything so seamless for me. I definitely couldn’t have done it without them.

Check back in the next few weeks as I walk you through the rest of the rooms of my home!!

xo
Jilly