“We knew we were in for a big renovation, both inside and out, so every year we set a new goal and a new budget for what projects we wanted to complete that year,” Natalie admits, explaining that the entire renovation budget for the house was $50K for both the exterior and the interior work.

Natalie says they DIYed quite “literally everything except for any electrical or plumbing needs,” admitting that her dad also helped a lot with the renovations, installing all the new hardwood floors and all the tiles in both the house’s bathrooms.

“We’ve saved a lot of money along the way by doing everything ourselves and sourcing salvaged material whenever we can,” Natalie continues. “Just about any supplies we need, I try to find it on Marketplace or salvage yards first. Although we’ve since surpassed our initial budget over the last four and a half years, it’s surprisingly not by much and likely only due to me changing my mind 1,000 times on our designs!”

While Natalie says plenty of the projects in their home could be categorized as renter-friendly, the biggest challenge of renovating this house was “reworking the layout of our main floor. We knew on our first walk-through of the house that we would need to alter the layout. It was really closed off and had an extremely small inconvenient kitchen with NO dining room,” she writes, explaining that they ended up relocating the kitchen across the house, turning an original bedroom into a dining space.

“It was extremely challenging taking on this reno, not only for budget reasons, but because our old kitchen needed to become the new and only guest bedroom in the house,” Natalie continues. “The old kitchen was only roughly 7 feet wide by 11 feet long, so it makes for a very tiny bedroom. But in doing so, we gained our dream kitchen, a dining space, a bigger bathroom, and a now super cozy guest bedroom. It was hard making the call going from a three-bedroom house to only a two-bedroom, but these changes better suit our lifestyle!”

Of course, as with many renovations, there were surprises. “We initially thought we would fully finish our renovations in two to three years and here we are almost five years in, still going! We’ve definitely learned to tweak our timelines as we go (and our budget too, ha!).” Follow along with Natalie’s home renovations on her Instagram account, @natalieapaquin.

• Living Room & Dining Room — BEHR “Whisper White”
• Living Room Trim — BEHR “United” Semi-Gloss
• Guest Bedroom — BEHR “Dark Truffle”
• Kitchen Cabinets — Custom Color
• Primary Bathroom — BEHR “Off White”
• Primary Bedroom Trim — BEHR “½ Moss Lagoon ½ Bonsai Trunk”
• Upstairs Office Cabinets — BEHR “Dark Truffle”

• Wallpaper — Sandberg Wallpaper “Olof Sandstone”

• Sofa — Peppers Upholstery
• Rug — Vintage Rug from Ebay
• Armchairs — CB2
• Coffee Table — Etsy
• Lamp – Crate and Barrel
• Curtains — Two Pages

• Rug —Etsy
• Light — Etsy
• Table — Facebook Marketplace
• Chairs — Target (Discontinued)

• Rug — Vintage Marketplace
• Pendant Lights — Etsy
• Kitchen Hardware — IKEA
• Faucet — Wayfair

• Duvet Cover — Simons
• Pillows — Simons

• Sink Faucet — Amazon
• Makeup Mirror — Amazon
• Vanity Mirror — Wayfair
• Wall Tile & Floor Tile — Sierra Flooring

• Sink Faucet — Amazon
• Curtains — Wayfair  
• Wall Sconces — CB2 (Discontinued)

Thanks, Natalie!

This tour’s responses and photos were edited for length/size and clarity.

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