ah the early 1900s when the tallest building in toronto was only 15 stories high a bad
day in traffic pretty much consisted of only horses and carriages and this home
began construction obviously there's no footage of that moment but here we are we bought a house
dan and i started looking for a home even back when i was pregnant but it can be a long hunt when
things are expensive but she's here she's very much unavailable to come to the phone right now
because she's super under construction but i did record some footage back when we got possession
from it i think you'll get an idea of why we're making all these changes so i hope you enjoy
the home is located in the queen west area of the city of toronto previously vogue magazine included
queen west as one of the 15 coolest neighborhoods in the world this is a fact that local real estate
listings love to include when they run out of things to say this home appears on archival
fire insurance plans from the late 1800s so the house is very likely over 100 years old welcome to
the empty home tour this is a two-story home the current setup is so that the main floor and the
upper floor could be used by two total strangers as independent units and hence that's why we just
went through like a big heavy door the main floor has two bedroom areas there's a galley kitchen a
living room and a bathroom we'll come over to the front bedroom it's got a nice sunny window
a fan which i'm sure we will discover why that is necessary once warmer weather comes in these
old homes and a closet so you can easily see how someone could enjoy this as their bedroom space
previous resident used it as an office for us we will be using it as more of a living room space
all right i'm going to take you over to the living room area the living room area has
these two hilarious windows that are not the same height from where they start or where they
end i'm not quite sure who planned these out but it's pretty funny and the living room currently
has a bathroom attached to it so since this is an independent rental unit this is the previous one
are you done sweetie this is the previous residence shower
toilet vanity sink all that jazz my favorite feature being the hollywood lights cute little
three-way mirror vanity another fan in this room as well a door that leads to the basement
darkness for now there's a laundry unit down there we imagine that this home has gone through a lot
of renovations during its time and so at this point i think very few of the original details
are very noticeable but there's a few you can find in the kitchen so one over here is
this wayne scotting detail it's really nothing glamorous but i think this is like a bead board
style which is on the simpler side of victorian area victorian era wall features back then wayne
wainscoting was pretty much used for insulation as well as extra protection for water damage hence it
being in the kitchen but nowadays most people just add it as an aesthetic feature like beadboard is
such a simplistic design i think most of the times when it was put in it wasn't even meant to be seen
i don't think we'll be keeping it i also have neglected to mention just how truly green this
kitchen is the green countertop green painting in the shelves one giant green wall there was a lot
of love for green oh and if you come and turn around this is the other more victorian detail
that remains as well this doorway casing with this bullseye corner block i've been trying to
brush up on my interior design terminology this is one of the probably most signature
items on this main floor that's still standing and the last one to see is this back bedroom
the echo in this room is the least noticeable because it has lovely carpet gray with all sorts
of discoloration and chaoticness going on and i'm standing on it in my bare socks so hopefully these
are all good choices another fan in this room so becoming suspicious with the number of fans here
and what that might mean for summertime the plan is to open it up to be a place for entertaining
cooking while keeping an eye on marla and also letting more natural light flow through the home
with the walls removed the current bathroom would be right in the middle of the living room so we
are moving that to the side as a smaller powder room we're excited to open up the stairwell and we
want to add a back exit so there's a shorter path between our parking spot and the kitchen all right
upstairs these are definitely the original stairs i don't think the carpet is original and oh more
interior terminology this new all post is very likely original along with the entire staircase
railing this millwork is apparently a very common victorian era thing our home is definitely built
in the victorian times but it lacks a lot of the really elaborate detailing and so we just have
decided that whoever built this home was either on a budget or had similar tastes no idea the upper
floor consists of two bedrooms one bathroom and one room in the back that is currently being used
as a kitchen but technically counts as a third bedroom this is the largest bedroom in the home
i don't know if you can hear the creaky floors but that's very original we really love this little
window co closet is pretty small minimalist life i'm down for it sometimes it's a thing with
hardwood floors if you want to change up the color you can sand them and repaint them
but i think this one is all the way down to its nails and so either we have to embrace the color
that it is because it should not be sanded anymore or we'd have to completely redo the flooring
and that is a decision we are leaving for a later time next bedroom is a little bit smaller it's got
this super cute two-door detail these big blocks of wood which the previous owner left behind and
told us that they have been custom fitted to go on the floor underneath the bed to make the bed level
in this room because like many old houses this room and whole house is slowly tilting down
one little step watch your step we have the bathroom we've got one of these little
old vent covers down here which i find so fascinating this is also a very original feature
these baseboards nowadays you pay extra for them to be this thick because nowadays we just
want to save money and have as little material as possible so we'd like to keep that the last
room is currently a kitchen it's also currently being used as a laundry situation this is like the
room that really does it all for you our favorite thing about this room though is that it has a back
exit takes you across a little bridge and onto a rooftop patio we'll be using that in the summer
time for barbecue and fun and hosting and my last favorite feature of our upper floor is a
skylight currently covered in snow this feels like an homage to our current studio loft
that also has the skylight but this skylet is even better because it has two little latches
so i think we can go up there we will definitely figure out that situation
we'd like to add an ensuite bathroom and the back bedroom will be redone into my sewing
studio we will definitely also try to figure out a ladder setup to get to the skylight
and the rooftop patio will be its own project once winter is over
in the last year we basically tried every meal kit that we could get our hands on at least in canada
the reason we did that was because it was such a good choice for helping us adjust to becoming
parents as soon as marla entered our life we just lost a whole bunch of time that we used to have
available to go to the grocery store to plan our meals the tendency to just get take out or get
delivery increased but it just felt so bad because it's hefty on your food bill and the meal kits was
a fun experiment we got to see if we actually had a favorite and we did and then i was so happy when
they offered to sponsor this video it is hella fresh in case any of you have never tried a meal
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the delivery and seeing the beautiful recipe cards and i got my whole collection right here
we've kind of gathered our like greatest hits collection that we can remake whenever we want and
from cooking these week after week you start to get the hang of a lot of kitchen fundamentals like
what staples should you always have in stock what types of textures and flavors pair well together
i now have basically memorized how long it takes to bake all sorts of different types of vegetables
because i've done it so many times it's kind of the cooking level i dreamed of achieving where
i just had more innate knowledge instead of every time feeling like i had to look a recipe
out honestly for me it's like an at-home cooking class the teacher has prepared the ingredients
prepared the recipe marla's awake we get to enjoy the final product and because of that
every week i also really love going inside the website to pick the recipes i'll purposefully
pick ones that have ingredients i've never tried techniques i've never done before it's
like the closest i've ever been to cooking school and i'm loving it today we are making
beef and roasted red pepper ragu with spaghetti but actually before starting i will always
put the recipe up here with some magnets so it's really really easy to refer to a pasta
is probably one of the easier recipes that they have but we always include one really easy recipe
every week so that in case we're really tired or really short on time there's still a simple
option the other thing i like to do is to remold the bag into a little countertop waste bin which
makes meal prep go a little easier one more thing i like about this recipe is it contains something
that's also marla friendly whether it's carrots sweet potatoes any other type of ingredient that
she can feed herself i'll just leave a little bit off to the side so we can all enjoy together
for us hella fresh has helped meet so many of our goals we wanted healthy we wanted home cooked we
wanted fresh ingredients and we're getting all of that and we've made meal prep so fast and easy on
top of that the recipes are so tasty there are so many recipes to choose from so you don't ever feel
stuck making the same thing over and over all of their produce gets from the farm to your doorstep
in under a week it's very fresh since everything is pre-portioned it is cut down dramatically on
our food waste which feels really good from a sustainability perspective so many times where
you throw out food waste that's gone bad from your fridge and you just feel bad because you
paid money for it and then never ever got to enjoy it now instead virtually no food waste enjoying
fresh food and learning new things all the time which i did not think i would have time to do
if you want to try hellofresh go to hellofresh.com use the code wendy16 you'll get up to
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currently my in-laws are on hello fresh my best friend is on hellofresh we're like
swapping recipes telling each other our little tricks that are making the whole thing even more
fun and enjoyable and overall i'm just grateful how many times thanks to hellofresh we have had
happy and non-stressed meal times because it was just really easy to put together
hello here with marla she's enjoying her lunch today on the menu it's mozzarella and i've got
some toast and strawberries for her too and saku is here i love it when all us oh can i fit us all
i love it when all those three girls gather today i'm super excited because on the weekend
we found out i don't know why we didn't think that these exist but there's a door store in toronto
that sells antique doors and our house has an antique door but it opens in the wrong direction
so we want to get a door that opens the correct direction but it also would be nice to sell our
antiqua door to them also feels exciting to get a secondhand door i just think the older doors have
so much more character and interesting history to them so we're gonna go check out some doors
i've gotten a quick tour of the door situation most of the ones on this side open to the left we
want those ones that open to the right this place is so cool we got columns chandeliers gorgeous
large frames lots of mirrors little corner chair classic vintage pieces mantels you could like
make a fake fireplace that's a diy idea oh my gosh look at this one wow this place is nuts
this one here for example is pretty much exactly the size we want
12.50 i'm gonna try to pull it out and take a look
this one also basically the right size it's a little pricier
makes sense because the stained glass window is so much bigger
and it's got more wood detailing down below the wood also feels nicer
you