Renovation Report: 21.04.2026

Hello Friends and Welcome Back!

After nearly a month in the new house, I'm excited to announce that we finally have an internet connection set up! That means, for the first time, I'm actually posting from my new home!

But since that only happened over the past weekend, I was forced to take a little unplanned break last week.

Unfortunately, my part of Southern Ontario has seen a lot of rain and melt water over the last few weeks, and some of that water made its way into our basement. It wasn't so bad for us, nothing got damaged and it's pretty much all dried up now, but it was wet enough that I didn't want to leave it unsupervised to hunt down an internet connection elsewhere.

And I hope all of you have manage to stay above water too!

Now that I have home wifi, I'm excited to be sharing something new this week; a first look at the sewing studio in my new house!

The Sewing Studio

We are currently two weeks into renovations, so the room doesn't look like this anymore, but I wanted to start with a look at the room as it was when we first bought the house!

I was a little preoccupied with moving in and unpacking at the time and didn't take any of my own photos, so here's some from the real estate listing:

Most of the room is a little dated—the walls are all wood paneled, the ceiling is both tiled and popcorned, and only one of the windows opens—but it has such great potential!

I especially like the big window, which will let in so much natural light while I'm sewing!

Planning the Process

With this as our starting point, there were some changes we knew we wanted to make, as well as some things to check up on.

Before making any changes to the room, my husband and I drew up a diagram to make sure we were on the same page about the renovations. On the left is the room as it started, and on the right is our plan for updating the space:

There are a few changes we wanted to make to the framing of the room; we moved the location of the door, moved the closet opening to the other side of the wall so it's accessed from our bedroom, and we took a little space out of one corner of the room to use as a coat closet at our front door.

With those changes planned out, we also knew we wanted to take down all the wall paneling and ceiling tiles so we could assess the condition of the wiring and insulation behind them.

Let the Renovations Begin!

The first weekend focused on tearing down the wall paneling and bringing debris to the dump. This is the fun part because you get to break things!

Our last house was much older and had a lot of lath and plaster walls, so by comparison, tear down in our new home was way faster and a lot cleaner!

Throughout the following week, we cleaned up the studs by pulling out any nails and staples, replaced discoloured insulation, and framed in the new door and closet placement!

Unrelated to the sewing room, we also installed a pump in the basement since this was the week the water was at its worst.

The following weekend, we had an electrician friend help us check and update some of the wiring.

Someone in the past made some interesting decisions, so turning off power in the sewing room has also turned off the overhead lights in the living room. Good thing we have lamps!

We also started looking into replacing the window!

After taking some measurements, we've consulted a few different businesses about what options and prices are available, but haven't made a final decision just yet.

That brings us to now!

Obviously there is still some work left before the sewing studio is usable, but I'm excited about the progress we've made so far and can't wait to see the room continue to come together!

And now that we have our home internet set up, I'm hoping to be a little more active on social media moving forward! Maybe I'll even find some time for more stitching soon?

Until Next Time Friends!

~VA