Diamond in the Rough...?

When Marc and I decided to move in together we both had a decent amount of "must haves" on our list. Never in a million years did I think we'd find a gem like this, which met almost all of them, and after only three different viewings, at that!

This place pretty much had it all...

• Great price
• Enough square footage for two
• Had an outdoor space
• En-suite stacked laundry
• Included a parking spot
• The neighbourhood was perfect - walking distance to TTC, restaurants and bars, shopping, movies, the waterfront, parks
• Around the corner from family and friends
• Etc. etc. etc.

But, of course, nothing is perfect and I knew immediately it would need some work or "warming up". Here is my laundry list of issues with our beloved apartment:

• The finishes weren't very impressive, many super cheap looking
• The walls were all painted in neutral colours (super bland) and weren't very well painted either
• Limited storage space 
• Limited natural light due to a narrow, townhouse type floor plan
• The laminate "hard wood" floors ran the wrong way (obviously not a big deal, but still...)
• The former tenants left the backyard fairly mangy 
• Etc. etc. etc. 

Fortunately we had enough sense to see that the good outweighed the not so good... we scooped it up in a hurry and haven't looked back!

Here are a few "before" photos of the space as we first saw it...

...would you have seen the same potential that we did?

KLI