Finally! I made it across the finish line of my DIY condo renovation project – Wohoo! From a project management perspective, I blew my timeline. I originally thought I could pull this reno off by Feb 28th, but that date came and went. and then March slipped by…Well, It’s May , but the condo is listed 🙂 – win!

It was fun. Here is a quick reprisal of what I accomplished. This was a very inexpensive condo renovation. As you can see from the before and after photos. it doesn’t take a lot of money to make a big difference. And this is no TV show reno. Just a real person, doing a real reno, on a budget, with a whole lot of DIY tossed in.

If you want to  check out the whole process. Here are all the posts, in backwards order. Be warned they are from early in my blogging career, and the pictures are less than fabulous.

• Almost at the Finish Line

• Condo update for March

• Rennovating Greg’s Condo

• Master Bedroom

• Stone Finish Counters

• Epoxy Counters

Kitchen

This was the largest part of the DIY condo reno project. Here is the starting point. Note the pink counter tops, mint green walls, crappy vinyl floors and peeling cabinet doors.

The counters were painted with Krylon Stone Texture Finish Spray Paint and coated and sealed with Envirotex lite epoxy. You can check out the posts here and here. Greg replaced the sink and tap. The plastic covers on the cabinets just peeled off, super easily actually, and I painted those with Behr Frost on the uppers, and Behr Silver Bullet on the lowers.  I laid the flooring directly over top of the vinyl.

A fresh coat of paint on the walls: Behr Graceful Grey, my FAVOURITE paint colour. New laminate floors: Shaded Oak. I tiled the  backsplash myself.  I could not convince Greg to swap out the appliances, except for the fridge, which was destroyed and we took to the dump. The one thing I did do, was to paint the top plastic piece of the stove, as it had yellowed substantially, and it looked terrible. Did you know that you can do that? Just be super careful not to go outside the lines! Otherwise, it’s an easy fix, for old appliances. Check out how much better the stove looks just from  painting over that piece of yellowed plastic. Yay!

Living Room

In the living room, we didn’t do much renovating. Mostly just cleaning. Shampoo the carpets, wash the windows, scrub the blinds. freshen up the trim paint. And mostly de-cluttering and staging. Clean and tidy is key when selling. And with regard to bang for your buck, cleaning is about the best bang you can get…next to painting. If you don’t believe me just check out the difference in the Master Bedroom below.

I hate to show you just how gross the carpets were. But this attests to the power of just running a steam cleaner over the carpets. lt’s kind of like using an eraser!!! Look how amazing the carpets came back, and I thought they might have to be replaced!

De-Cluttering

The living room had way too much furniture for the space. We rented a U-pak storage container, and started hauling stuff out.  There was just too much in the room. Less is more. We didn’t even paint the living room, with the exception of one wall, which had some patched areas on it. If you have too much stuff in your condo or house, it will look like it’s not big enough to potential buyers. Do all of that decluttering and tossing NOW. Not after you move. For the stuff that you want to keep but that is making your space look small. Rent a portable storage container, haul you stuff out to it, and when you move, they will deliver it to your new home. Brilliant!

The Bathroom and Den were also just a matter of cleaning, de-cluttering and staging. These are not the big selling features of my DIY condo reno. And I won’t include them here.

We upgraded the existing laminate floors which ran through the entry way and into the dining area. Previously, it was the beech variety and was dirty, chipped and showing gaps. We used the same Shaded Oak flooring that we did in the kitchen. For the dining room, I added a new area rug under the table, and cleaned and staged.

Dining Room

After

If you want to see how I did the counters click here. The Master Bedroom is my ‘piece de resistance’ of my DIY condo reno. I’m super happy with how this turned out.

Master Bedroom

Go here: Master Bedroom Reveal for my full Master bedroom post and to see how I pulled this look together. You can grab the bedding here.

Costs

My budget for this project was between $2000 – 3000. I spent just over $2200 for this whole renovation. Pretty cheap really.  The value added was in the tens of thousands. We listed this on a Thursday and it was sold by following Tuesday for $22k over asking!

That is 10x what I put into it!!

You don’t need to spend a ton of money to make good money. Just use your money wisely. And anything that you can do yourself is money saved. Here is where the budget went for my DIY condo reno:

Kitchen

• Flooring

• Tile for backsplash

• Stone Spray Paint and Envirotex for counters

• New Sink

• Kitchen Faucet

• Paint

Bedroom

• Paint

• Bedding

• Lamps

• Mirrors

• Curtains

• Fur Pillows

• Supplies for headboard

Cleaning

• Steam cleaner (rental)

Staging

• • Rugs

  • Coffee table (IKEA)

  • Dishes (IKEA)

  • Wine glasses (IKEA)

A lot of the item that I used to stage Greg’s condo were from my condo. So you can always borrow things to stage the place for your photos, when you are listing.  In this case there was only about 5 days that the property was listed.

Thanks so much for stopping by my DIY condo reno! I hope you have found some inspiration to reno your own place, and put that profit in YOUR pocket, for your next place. Do the pieces that you feel you can do well yourself. Painting, cleaning and de-cluttering don’t require a lot of special skills, and make a huge difference!

Now that the condo is sold!!! the next step is packing and getting my place ready to sell. And SHOPPING for our new home!!!!! Where I know there will be MORE PROJECTS….ya think??

 

 

 

 

 

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