![]() When the dread day comes to sell the house, shelving will fill the niche.įor now, my bass reposes near an oil painting by my artist father (Joe Lasker’s works are available at Liss Gallery in Yorkville) depicting my 18-year-old self and that same bass that was a high-school graduation present from my parents. His innovation does double duty by freeing up real estate on the living room floor while displaying my circa 1790 Tyrolean bass as a beautiful sculptural object. Inside the ground-floor bulkhead housing the fireplace, Alan put empty space to use by inserting a new platform and recessed niche. ![]() As well, the closet was given a waterproofed floor, and plumbing, electrical and exhaust connections for a stacked washer and dryer that will enable the upstairs and basement to function as separate units. Your toes latch onto the circles even when the tiles are soaking wet, making it physically impossible to slip.Īlong the second-floor hallway, a new closet was built between the master bedroom and main bathroom in space found by Alan. New flooring for the bathroom and shower was an easy choice: penny-round tumbled porcelain tile, the most slip-proof surface money can buy. I’m still amazed that they could shlep that 300-pound marble desk slab up the stairs. And here I’ll pay tribute to my renovators, Mike Peck of Toronto-based Silverfox Renovations and Alan Martin, my partner in David Lasker Photography when he’s not busy with construction. The leftovers furnished the shower curb and niche, a new tchotchke shelf atop the fireplace extension in the living room, and a new wow-factor work surface for the office desk in my third-floor man cave. My 45-square-foot slab was shipped to Stone Art in Concord, where they cut holes for the vanity-top sinks. The product was marked down because the quarry in Spain had closed and only eight slabs remained, adding exclusivity and snob appeal to the purchase. Its butterscotch random swirls create an illusion of three-dimensional depth. Googling stone suppliers in the GTA, I stumbled upon a material I’d never seen before: Vintage Royal Crema marble, at Marble Trend in North York. Having settled on a cool colour palette for the walls (green for the tiles and pale-blue paint for drywall), I wanted a complementary, warm-toned stone for the vanity. ![]() Caesarstone had played a starring role in my 2013 kitchen renovation, but for the bathroom, I wanted the real, natural thing - not man-made quartz composite. Still, I needed a colour pop somewhere and opted for the vanity top and backsplash. For a bathroom, as the late Ontario premier Bill Davis said about his government: bland works. So, I decided against Calacatta or Carrara marble, say, with their honking big, dark veins on a light field. A bold pattern that looks great on a showroom sample gets exponentially bolder as its area increases. This drove my choice of frosted-glass sconce lights flanking the mirror, the recessed ceiling lighting and the matte, faux-burlap finish for the porcelain tiles on the walls. That dictated my choice of finish - polished chrome: eternally popular, readily available - for metal bathroom items such as the towel rack shower jets, door frame, towel racks, toilet-paper holder and tub faucet. hello Amazon, Bath Depot, Home Depot, Ikea, Lowe’s, Rona and Wayfair. ![]() Amazon translucent paper plus#Now the new bathroom lifts my spirits with its thermostatic shower big enough for two and with jets fore and aft, plus a rain shower and wand a heated floor and towel rack a thermostatic tub faucet and a floating vanity.ĬOVID lockdowns, trucker blockades and persisting supply-chain disruptions meant buying supplies online from selections in stock. The sliding, mirrored closet door, trimmed in a brass finish, were seemingly filched from a budget motel. The shower was a tight squeeze for one adult. The bathroom’s burgundy ceramic tiles on the floor and around the unused whirlpool tub, screamed early 1980s. Amazon translucent paper upgrade#It was the most tired-looking room in the house, since doing an upgrade in the kitchen. ![]() Plus, the main bathroom on the second floor was greatly in need of an overhaul. (I was principal bass in the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.) As well, I wanted to and add back-to-back rows of shelving in the centre of the basement to relocate some of my 23,000-LP vinyl collection from upstairs. M y priorities were to create a separate basement apartment, put in an ensuite bathroom in the principal bedroom, and find a graceful way to stow my big double-bass vertically instead of laying it down on the living room floor where it takes up a lot of space. The upgrades - costing $81,000 for materials, labour and upgraded lighting plus additional electrical outlets in every room - were done during the pandemic. ![]()
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