Laundry Room Decor Options

ARCTICdeco.com: Laundry Room Decor OptionsNow that we have our stunning new stackable, energy efficient Samsung washer & dryer (in a lovely charcoal grey) , we are rejigging the laundry room to make better use of the space in there.

Originally the room was laid out with side by side appliances as you can see here… (more…)

Pascale’s Chic Bathroom Reno

ARCTICdeco.com: Guest Post PascaleI’m very excited to introduce you to Pascale Arpin, who is ARCTICdeco’s first guest blogger! Pascale is a brilliantly talented artist, teacher, and all round lovely lady who came to Iqaluit in 2011 from her home city of Ottawa. She came to Iqaluit out of curiosity and has made this community her long-term (we hope) home. She’s done some incredible work on her first home and major fixer-upper, including this incredible bathroom reno – which puts my little renovations to shame, might I add. She too has begun documenting her reno journey on her blog Cold World Reno, so be sure to bookmark it for exciting future updates. 

Now sit back and enjoy her story. (more…)

Kitchen & Living Room In Progress

ARCTICdeco.com: Kitchen. Living Room.DuringAfter having been away for work over the last couple weeks, J has been diligently working on the kitchen and living room renovation to get the walls up and plastered. If you remember the living room earlier there was a half wood-panelled wainscotting wall that I really wanted to get rid of.

After pulling off several of the panels, however, we realized that they weren’t just nailed into place, but also reinforced with industrial glue – so that when pulled off the wall they took half of the drywall with it. Once it was started it was too late to stop (though we’ll be thinking twice before tackling the hallways). We removed it all and then stared at the mess of a wall that was left over. We then had a choice of either trying to plaster over it and take a LOT of time trying to make the wall look smooth again, or tear it out and re-drywall. After having some contractors come and take a look, they strongly recommended we re-drywall, and so it began.

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My kitchen gave me tennis elbow: How to refinish kitchen cabinets

ARCTICdeco.com: My Kitchen Gave Me Tennis Elbow!It has been quite a week. My last week of ‘vacation’ and I’ve been going 9+ hrs solid each day on the bloody kitchen, but we’re seeing some progress finally.

Let me start by saying, if you are ever contemplating whether to buy new kitchen cabinets or refinish your old ones, think very hard on it before you commit. Because after this week, I’m wishing we just spent the rest of our savings and bought a whole new kitchen. As much as I researched the process for painting kitchen cabinets, I couldn’t have imagined how laborious, tedious, boring, and strenuous the whole process would be. (more…)

Bathroom ‘During’ Renos

ARCTICdeco.com: Bathroom During RenosIt’s been a very busy week. We’ve managed to nearly finish the powder room downstairs, but have yet to install the final light fixture – hence I’m holding out on posting any of the after shots. Nonetheless, we’ve made great headway on the kitchen and the upstairs bathroom renovations – which are also missing a few last fixtures before the final shots are posted. I’ll follow up with a post on the kitchen progress soon. (more…)