Hi, I’m Elena and
welcome to my sweet digs. Feel free to come in,
but please take the shoes off because I spent mad money on this tile. I’m a content creator here
in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I’ve recently made a career change. I used to work in the courts,
but now I’m a full time content creator. So I do brand styling. I’m working in my own home
environment, so I’m my own boss. My only other boss is the sunshine. I like to shoot in natural light. So different rooms in my
house get light at different times, so I kind of work around that schedule. But I think that brands
appreciate when I take my time and I can really
produce something beautiful. My husband and I,
we’ve been here since 2015, so almost six years now. Once we found this house, I was so excited because it was right under
our budget, which was $400,000. As everybody knows,
that’s big down payment, lots of taxes, so it took us a strong four years to save
up enough money to get into this place. This neighborhood
is called The Junction. The reason why it’s called The Junction
is that two major rail lines cross here, and we do live very close to
a train so sometimes we do feel it. But we have great bars, great restaurants. We love riding our bikes around this area. That’s one of the main things
that we do all summer long. So starting off in our entryway,
we had to build this room from scratch. It wasn’t here before. So we added this door. This is actually a door
that we made into a glass wall, added some glass panes on top. And we broke the bank on this tile. I love it. It’s cement tile, but I really wanted a black and
white feel to match the bathroom, so we added in this little maze tile. So come on into my living room. This area is just a
really comfortable space. This is where we just chill out. I wanted to make a
really inviting, cozy space for all our friends to hang out, watch TV. We play a lot of games in here. Next to the TV, I wanted
to create some open shelving because I don’t really like
the way a black TV looks. So detract your eye from that, I like to display my books,
some of my vintage items. This phone is really cool. I got it second hand. It’s a rotary dial phone, but it’s not
hooked up, so you can’t call your mom. This is just a nice open area
where we can display all of our stuff. I kept the neutral
tones going in this room. We have pillows,
blankets, everything to make… you can feel cozy and comfortable. The couch is amazing. It’s so, so sleepable. I take naps on here all the time. And this little sofa here,
it’s actually a pullout bed, but the funny part is we got is for free. My sister found it on the side of the road. So with the mind of sustainability, we actually have most of our furniture
from vintage stores or second hand. It brings beauty, it brings function,
and at the same time we’re reusing. So to me, it’s a win, win, win. So this is our staircase. It’s a bit controversial with
the fact that it has no banister, but I really love the open look. We repurposed the treads and
we added some new elements with the stringers and the brackets. So let’s head on up. So welcome to our bedroom. This is a very open, bright space. We have skylights and a big window. So this is definitely the
brightest room in the house. Most of my plants are in this room because they get the light
and they absolutely love that. So you don’t always have
to spend a lot of money. We have made tiny, little
purchases that have made a big impact. Some of my largest plants
were only about $20 or $25. We have huge cacti in the house
and I found them second hand. Our bed was made by my husband. I showed him a picture and
he was able to recreate it. I love all the rounded corners
in here, we have the huge rattan fan. I also wanted to make the
room super cozy and comfortable, so we've brought in a lot of textural
items like the rug, the chunky throw. I love tassels. And just a lot of the same neutral
colors that we use downstairs to keep the cohesive vibe going. We always opt in for crisp white bedding. This is the Ikea Kungsblomma duvet set. It's made from sustainably sourced cotton, we just love the whole vibe with our room. So this is our bathroom. I really wanted to capture
an old world look in here, so we went with brass
fixtures and subway tile with really thick dark grouting and I love, love, love that look
of the black and white. We have a standup shower
but we don’t have a bathtub and that’s something that I really miss, so our future plans are to
have a bathroom downstairs where we can have a bathtub. Another one of my favorite Ikea
products is the Klockaren shower curtain. It's beautiful, it's white,
it has a great pattern on it which totally matches in
with my black and white bathroom and it's made from recycled polyester,
so it can be recycled a bunch of times, which ends up being
great for the environment. So come on into the kitchen. Even though we've been
renovating our home for almost five years, we’re still not quite there yet. As you can tell, we got
a work in progress here. I wanted to complete
a lot of products that I want to bring in. I have a mind to sustainability. So instead of a sponge,
I have a dishwashing brush. Instead of paper towel,
I have a lot of reusable towels. So it's just a lot of little
things that will end up making a big impact
towards the future. I'm really excited to
show you guys our formal dining room. This is exposed brick, it was here before and we tore off the plaster to expose it. It was a real messy job but we got it done. And we wanted to add
some brightness to this room, so we painted it all white and sort
of ombred out into the natural color. And one of my big splurges for the
house was this art piece right here. This came all the way from Morocco and it's from a fiber
artist named Laurence. We have another piece
above our sofa from her and I just love the colors, it
works perfectly with our house and the texture is like simply amazing. So there's a bit of a story
behind the dining room table. I wanted a stone piece
and it took a while to find it and I ended up finding an amazing price but it had to come from
Quebec, so we got this delivered. We love how the travertine table and little marble accents
on the lighting work together. The two pieces are kind of
retro and they just vibe perfectly, we just love how the whole
room has come together. My husband is super handy. We actually have a nickname
for him, it's Bob the Builder. So we have some very
unique pieces in our home that he has made
by hand from scratch. He ended up making
this piece custom. I looked around and nothing was
really working with the sizing here, it's quite a narrow walkway through there. So we used plywood,
we also added some paint and made it smooth with a clear coat. So we have a hinge, a little push and it folds out like this
so that it doesn’t hit anybody. When you're doing things yourself, you have control over
the materials that you use and we can make those
decisions that will help us reach the goal of sustainability. So we actually converted our
second bedroom into an office space for me. This is where I sit, I do a lot of my work, answer emails, edit videos and photos. I wanted to create
a really beautiful space, something that would inspire
me to create something nice for my clients, and this is where I work. Over the course of the renovation,
which has taken five years, we both were working full time,
so it was really, really tough, a lot of sacrifices were made, working evenings, working weekends, but we have come a long way. If you were to see the
before pictures of our house, you’d be shocked. None of this was here before, we took the whole thing down
to the studs, so complete gut job. That’s why we were able to afford
this house in this neighborhood. We've put so much love into
our home and the end result, really it's going to be all worth it. Thanks so much for stopping by
and checking out my sweet digs. Bye.
