Craigslist Find: Storage Ottoman

A little while ago I was on the hunt for a coffee table for my apartment. My search led to a pretty sweet, custom-made ottoman with built in storage. Score! $50 later and it was mine.


What I love most about it is how versatile it is. The top is hinged, and has a very spacious storage space inside – I use it for extra throw pillows and blankets.

The colour and height are close to that of my love seat, so if I’m having a lazy TV-watching day (which is pretty much every Sunday), I can push the two pieces together creating a double loveseat chaise. I have been known to sleep out in my living room on this makeshift “chaise” on more than one occasion :)

With the addition of a tray (I got mine for 50% off at Indigo), it could be used as a coffee table/foot rest – this was actually my original intention, but I didn’t like the way it looked in my living room. I think a more petite/slender coffee table would look better in here.

I currently have it pushed up against the wall, opposite my love seat. I use it as extra seating and with the cushions along the back and the one on the side, it’s pretty inviting! People always tend to gravitate toward that seat. I currently have a tray on my ottoman – contents include 10 or so home/health mags, a candle oil diffuser thing, and a plant that I bought from Ikea 2 years ago. Side note: It came in the tiniest little pot and I’ve re-potted it two times! That plant is down right flourishing in my care and I could not be more proud!! 

Emily-Jane

So...My Old Apartment Is Listed on Craigslist

My uncle, a real estate agent, came over on Saturday and informed me that the house Kevin and I were living in is still on the market (I already knew though because I check it regularly on MLS), but that our old landlord did get an offer for the house. That offer fell through. My uncle asked me if I thought he would re-rent the upstairs apartment in the meantime. I'd checked a while ago, but not recently, so I went onto Craigslist (the method our landlord used when we found the apartment) to do some sleuthing. 

Guess what? He's got it listed. What a shocker....

$925 / 1br - 650ft² - Bright, clean, recently updated 2nd fl. apmt, Central A/C, all-inclu.

This listing is for an unfurnished, UNbasement ;) clean, bright and quiet apartment on the 2nd floor of a house. There is hardwood throughout with a separate entrance off the main hallway.

Rent includes all utilities, cable with most specialty channels, hi-speed Wi-Fi internet. Sorry no laundry facility but there is a Laundromat literally 2 minutes walking distance.
Ample street parking and permit is $14/month from the city.
This apartment is well-suited for a young professional who enjoys quiet M-F evenings but comes alive on the weekends. ***Rent for couples is $975; 1st and last months rent required upon signing.
Not suited for families.

HA!

There is so much wrong with this listing!

650ft² 

I measured the apartment while living there to make as accurate as possible a floor plan on floorplanner.com. If you include everything (stairs, closets, space taken up with counters, etc), the apartment is 504 square feet. I don't know where he came up with the extra 146 square feet...

Central A/C

The kitchen didn't have a working vent and the living room had little/no insulation on the exterior walls or floor. We had fans/heaters going about 10 months a year.

Hardwood

The kitchen is poorly installed laminate and the rest was hardwood, but was original and in desperate need of replace (re: stained with a bad shellacking job). People regularly told us they felt like they were on a boat because the floor was so crooked.  

Separate Entrance

I don't know how he's gonna get around this one... The entrance is most definitely shared.

When Kevin and I first saw this listed a couple years ago, he had it posted at $925. Then he lowered the price to $825 a few weeks later, so we went for a viewing. We knew the place was small, but we also knew that it was temporary and that we'd be able to save a bunch of money towards a down payment - and we did exactly that. (It also included laundry, but we had to walk through his unit to do it... which I admit, must've sucked for him, but we set up a schedule with him and only did laundry on Monday nights).

I know I sound like I'm ragging on my old landlord a lot, but I just don't get this guy. When I told him last year that Kevin and I bought a condo, he asked if we planned on staying until it was built and I told him we definitely would. He seemed relieved not to have to find new tenants. But then a few months later he told me he wanted to put the house up for sale, so we gave notice and left. Living in a space where you constantly have strangers walking through is not fun. He told me his intention was to sell the house and rent an apartment downtown with his friend. 

Whaaaat??...

If I owned a duplex house, and had secured tenants in one of the units, I would just get tenants for the other unit if I were planning on becoming a renter again. I never asked him, so I'll never know his reasons, but doesn't it seem weird that he's selling to become a renter?

Anyhow, long story short: He listed the house way too high (according to my uncle and all the real estate agents that came by for the open houses) so it hasn't sold yet and now he's looking to re-rent the upstairs unit again, but this time for 18% more than we paid and not including laundry anymore...

If he wanted more rent, he should've just upped the rent a bit while we were living there - that's totally reasonable and to be honest, we expected it! Because now, even if he gets the higher rent ($975), he's already lost 3 months of rent since we left (including October). So over the next 12 months, assuming best case scenario (he gets a couple in there for $975 starting Nov 1st), he'll be down $675. If he gets a single person in there who would pay $925, he’ll be down even more with $1275 in lost rent.

Date	Our Rent	New Rent (Couple)	New Rent (Single)
Aug-11	$825	-	-
Sep-11	$825	-	-
Oct-11	$825	-	-
Nov-11	$825	$975	$925
Dec-11	$825	$975	$925
Jan-12	$825	$975	$925
Feb-12	$825	$975	$925
Mar-12	$825	$975	$925
Apr-12	$825	$975	$925
May-12	$825	$975	$925
Jun-12	$825	$975	$925
Jul-12	$825	$975	$925
Aug-12	$825	$975	$925
Sep-12	$825	$975	$925
Oct-12	$825	$975	$925
TOTAL	$12,375	$11,700	$11,100

I know it’s not a huge amount, but I’ve always been taught a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush!

P.S. Feel free to laugh if you thought this because I totally did: Maybe he hated us and thought we were horrible tenants and this was all a huge ploy to get rid of me and Kevin... 

Favourite Nooks

I had two favourite areas in my apartment: The view from the living room door and the view from the bed. 

I loved the  view from the living room door because I got to see my pretty mirror (a Craigslist find) and my shelf (the very first thing I ever spray painted) with the candles and bamboo plant (that Kevin gave to me when I started my current job).

I loved the view from the bed because I could see the lamps (Craigslist) with the shades I recovered, the French provincial dresser (Craigslist) that I painted (in the tiny bedroom and it took me days), the lamp shade that I bought from Ikea and added to the gross brass wall light fixture (that I spray painted black) and the French door (Craigslist) that my Dad helped install and cut a thin strip from because our door frame is crooked.

Unfortunately, I never did take a picture from that angle - but I sure did appreciate it while lazying around in bed on the weekend :-)

These areas will be missed!

Do you have an area in your house that makes you smile or that you're proud of?

If I Were The Landlord Series - Part 1

This series of posts is going to be a total bitch-fest for me. Several things in this apartment have bothered me during our 2 year stay here. I want to use this series to talk (re: bitch) about them, but also give suggestions of how I would change them. Feel free to give your input! I would love to hear other people's suggestions :-)

Let me start by saying that our apartment is a 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom, detached 1920's house in Toronto that has been split into 2 units. The second floor (where Kevin and I live) has 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, an eat-in kitchen and a living room. The wall-to-wall measurements equal 500sq ft. And we have 9 foot ceilings in each room except the living room (8 foot).

This is our refrigerator. It looks skinny in this photo, but it's a standard size. This "nook" that houses our refrigerator used to be a closet because our kitchen was a bedroom before the house was converted into 2 units. 

If you're thinking, "That awkward empty spot beside the fridge (that is in desperate need of a storage solution) looks awfully familiar..." it might be because you read this at Young House Love. 

{via}

Imagine their stackable washer/dryer are my refrigerator. This is exactly the kind of storage I would've added if I were the landlord of this house. Some time last year, I even checked Craigslist for some upper cabinets (you can always find them for cheap from people who are renovating their kitchen and want to get rid of their old cabinetry), but I didn't want to spend the money or time working on a project that I couldn't take with me. I considered asking my landlord to foot the bill and I would have done the work, but I don't have enough tools to make this from scratch.


Don't you think Sherry and John's storage solution would've worked so well in my space? What would you have done if you were me? As is stands, we didn't make use of the space at all and just kind of stacked items on top of the fridge and in the space between the fridge and the wall. 

How I Doubled My Counter Space in a Rental

My apartment has 24 inches/60 cm of usable counter space for food prep. Pathetic! I don't know how I didn't notice the lack of kitchen storage and lack of counter space when we came for a viewing...

When we first moved in, I wanted to get a counter height kitchen table, which would have doubled as extra counter space. I scoured Craigslist for one, but the best value and best designed one I found was the UTBY table from Ikea. 

Kevin was not into that idea at all. He wanted a more traditional table (re: 30inches high or so with regular height chairs) so my UTBY table was scrapped. We ended up with a "regular" four person solid wood espresso table that we NEVER use... am I bitter I didn't get my UTBY? Just a bit!!

Anyways....

I still needed extra counter space, and one day I noticed that my baking sheet rests perfectly in our single sink and my cutting board rests perfectly in my baking sheet. It doesn't make for the most stable surface (re: don't use it for cutting hard vegetables!), but it added about an extra foot of space. I mostly just used it to rest food on.

I also bought the NORBO wall-mounted drop-leaf table from Craigslist for $10 and added that to the end of the counter.

 

It's a little deeper than my counter, so I asked my Dad to cut it to size. Ultimately, we ended up just leaving it as is - this way we can bring it to the condo with us and use it there as a laundry folding surface or something. The one I bought came in black-brown, but it's no longer listed on the Canadian Ikea website.

With the baking tray/cutting board and the folding table extended, my total counter space adds up to 66in/167cm...that's 42in/106cm more than I had before! 

And it's all easily removable :-)

When we move, we'll have to fill in a couple holes at the side of the counter, but that's easy to do. I admit it's not the most elegant looking solution, but it's pretty functional, can fold away out of site, and I can take it with me! That's the most important part when it comes to rentals: Don't spend money on items you can't take with you.

Do you have any creative ways to add counter space? Or do you already have huge counters? In which case I'm jealous!

Bedside Tables

I was searching through Craigslist when I came across these tables:

I think they're the same, except for some reason the hardware is different - maybe they were used in 2 different rooms...

I want them!! And I want to do this to them (à la Kerry) and add these Anthropologie knobs to them

Wish me luck that the seller didn't already get a million people emailing about them and I can buy them :-)

The price is only $10...for both!

Cabinet Door = Smooth Like Buttah

Two weeks ago I blogged about a cabinet that I bought from Craigslist that I was attempting to refinish. I've had some issues with it so far, which were frustrating me (I'm not the most patient person...) so I thought I'd blog about them and show you an after shot that makes me very happy!

Here are some photos of the cabinet as I bought it:

It is a heavy, solid piece, but there was a lot of damage to the top, as you can see in the photo above. I felt confident that the stains could be sanded away, making restaining possible.  So I got my equipment ready 

and sanded down the tops and sides. I was surprised at how many of the marks came out with a little sanding! But no matter how much I sanded, I couldn't get out the red stain.

I tried restaining the top and sides anyway, even though I knew the wood wasn't even. The red stain was still visible, as demonstrated below :( 

I thought about getting a darker stain, but then decided that painting would be the way to go... but what colour?? It's so hard to choose! I was stuck between black and white (I know, they're not really colours at all, are they?) but I finally decided on white. The door to this cabinet was a pain in the arse to sand. I don't know why I thought sanding lattice would be even remotely fun. The first run with sanding and then spray painting didn't work so well. I let the door sit for a while before I took a second stab at it. The process went as follows:

• Sand down the whole door - focus especially on the rough areas where the paint cracked in my first painting attempt
• Spray a light coat of white primer, let it dry, then lightly sand it
• Spray a second coat of white primer, let it dry, then lightly sand it
• Spray a light coat of white glossy spray paint, let it dry, then lightly sand it
• Spray a second coat of white glossy paint and let it dry for a full day
• Jump up and down with joy because your lattice door is so PUUUURTY now!!

I just started painting the body of the cabinet. I'm hoping to have a full before and after reveal for y'all by the weekend. 

Snap, Crackle, Pop!

I bought an interesting looking cabinet from Craigslist a few weeks ago with the goal of refinishing it. My first attempt (although honestly, I didn't think I'd need more than one attempt...) didn't exactly go as planned. I've only spray painted the lattice door so far, but unfortunately the paint didn't dry well at all! I didn't use primer before painting it and I think that was the issue. I spent about an hour yesterday sanding the door back down smooth and I'm gonna start again with a coat of primer or two before I start painting.

Once the cabinet is done, I'll post up some before and after pics and explain my process, mistakes included!

Stay tuned...