Home renovations: making your house a home

Once you’ve made a down payment, taken out a loan, and paid that ironic “welcome tax,” the last thing you want to do is blow your entire savings—or what’s left of it—on renovations and decorations. But you don’t have to.

Unlike Ryan Petsche and longtime girlfriend Dominique Quirion who moved from an apartment to their own home in Beaconsfield last July, most people overlook simple and cost-effective changes that can make a big difference like painting and lighting. “For the longest time we lived in an apartment,” said Petsche, 30. “It’s not yours so you don’t really care about the color because you know it’s temporary, whereas right away we’re repainting to make [the new house] feel like it’s our own.”

Painting and lighting are no-brainers in terms of putting color on the walls, said Joanne Padvaiskas, owner of Wow! Great Place, a decorating and design firm based in Pointe Claire. “They are the cheapest and most effective ways of changing the look and feel of a place and can create visual interest in the room when the architecture is lacking.”

Choose straight, classic, stainless steel track lights with small, non-descript track heads. They will bounce light around in a space, light up cabinets and countertops, and can be dimmed to create a mood and ambiance if you have people over for dinner, said Padvaiskas.

The benefits of track lighting are that you only need one electrical box to light a whole room and the fixture attaches on the outside of the ceiling, whereas if you wanted to install recessed lighting you would need much more than one electrical box, and the installation would be more complicated. “You can still have your hand-me-down furniture, but make it look a little bit fresher…by adding overhead or track lighting and taking out fluorescent boxes,” said Padvaiskas.

But whether exploring paint or lighting options, the most important thing to do is to make a game plan. “One of the biggest pitfalls is jumping in…rushing down to the paint store,” said Carol Southey, president of Carol Southey Homes, a specialist in residential design based downtown. “Maybe you’ve inherited a beautiful Persian rug from your grandmother and you want to use it but the wall color is wrong. Before changing the wall color, ask yourself whether that same wall color will work if you buy a new sofa or a new rug.”

Since decorating a home is “like a domino effect,” finding a great decorator is almost a must for figuring out how to make changes before you’re able to really rip out the kitchen, said Southey. “A simple preliminary consultation will easily pay for itself because it helps you plan,” said Southey. “That way each step that you take you’ll make the right decisions.”