Creating a Sense of Nature and Intimacy: Our Home Renovation Experience

As we embarked on our home renovation journey, one of our top priorities was to bring a sense of nature into our living space. We wanted to create a cozy and intimate atmosphere that would make our home feel like a retreat from the outside world. To achieve this, we focused on incorporating plants throughout our home. The addition of lush greenery not only purifies the air but also adds a touch of warmth and personality to each room. From the vibrant hues of our living space to the soothing serenity of our bedroom, our plants have become an integral part of what makes our home special.

Our renovation process was far from easy, however. One of the biggest challenges we faced was removing walls to create an open layout between rooms. We had to put in a new structural beam to support the weight of our homes and allow for this seamless transition. The structural beam was a complex process that required careful planning and execution. A team of 20 men worked together to lift and place the beam, which allowed us to remove entire walls and create a sense of flow between rooms. Despite the complexity, we were determined to achieve a maximum look with minimal disruption.

In one of our bedrooms, we had to leave a six-foot section of wall intact to ensure structural integrity. Instead of letting this wall get in the way, we decided to turn it into a showpiece by installing a stunning backsplash. We chose a unique tile pattern and laid it out on the floor to determine how it would fit onto the wall. The result was a breathtaking focal point that added a touch of elegance to our bedroom.

In another room, we took a risk with wallpaper – yes, you read that right! We went with peacocks, which might seem bold for some, but we loved it and thought it would be perfect for this bedroom. It turned out to be one of the best decisions we made during the renovation process. The blue peacocks added a touch of whimsy and personality to our space, making it feel cozy and intimate.

As we worked on different parts of our home, we found that each room had its own unique character. Our garage, once a storage space, was transformed into a functional haven with a Murphy bed for guests. We also installed skylights, built wooden walls, and learned how to do drywall – all with the guidance of YouTube tutorials. This self-taught journey taught me the importance of perseverance and creativity in home renovation.

In our garage-turned-home-office, we made it our own personal sanctuary. With a beer fridge, additional refrigerator, and plenty of space for plants, this room became our go-to spot to unwind and relax. But what I'm most proud of is the basement Chic area – built entirely with my bare hands over seven weeks. From learning how to put in skylights to installing a TV, every detail was carefully considered and executed.

One of the biggest challenges we faced during the renovation process was maintaining our relationship. We knew that renovating together could be stressful, but by working as a team and relying on each other's strengths, we were able to overcome any obstacles that came our way. In fact, this experience brought us closer together, and we learned to appreciate the importance of communication and trust in our partnership.

As I look around my home now, I feel an overwhelming sense of pride and accomplishment. Our renovation journey was a wild ride, but it's resulted in a space that truly reflects our personalities and style. From the plants that bring us joy to the unique touches that make each room special, every detail has been carefully considered to create a home that feels like ours – a true reflection of who we are as individuals.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enI'm Michael and I'm Liz and this is our renovation story there were a lot of points in the renovation where I want to throw up my hands and say I'm done I'm leaving I'm going to a hotel I cannot stress enough how much I do not recommend living through your own renovation was he positive during the whole renovation annoyingly positive through the whole renovation it's true I've enjoyed the process a lot you enjoy everything a lot it's like being married to a golden retriever that's the best way I could say it the house has sort of some mid-century bones and we wanted to bring to life we wanted to do it in our own way so keeping a really Airy clean California aesthetic and then you can see throughout the house it's not so minimal like a mid-century there's kind of these funky 7s elements with the plants with the textures with some of the carpets and the materials that we brought in we wanted to bring in a little bit more color and a little bit more intentional clutter we did not work with a designer for this so I was doing a lot of the design it's a lot of work it was like making 75,000 decisions on top of like you're already demanding job I love that you can just see everything from the front door you immediately not only see all of the house but you see outside of the house and the pool it's a light outside and the open interior it makes it feel a lot bigger than it actually is this is our living room the space was much smaller the Wall came all the way in next to the fireplace was kind of wedged into the corner you can't like sit around the fireplace unusable for sure so we wanted to do a little work there and preserve it but we wanted to make it more usable so we actually moved that wall back so now there's this nice seating area around the fireplace which is one of my favorite spots and we converted it to gas because now I can just click a button and it's on instead of having to build a f we call it like a conversation pit low-lying furniture and different textures inspired by those like sunken down circles in the living rooms in the' 70s we wanted to really kind of force everyone around a circle to be looking at each other and create a space that has like a sense of intimacy and I love love love coming in and seeing this it's a really inviting area it kind of brings back that midcentury modern feel to it as well as just keeping sort of a modern clean California light aesthetic we really like the fact that the house is an open space but each space has its own purpose so this is creates a really great spot sit together and watch TV or watch a movie dim the lights pull up the popcorn I'm really happy that Liz put some plants to just create kind of a faux experience that you're entering a new area I really love that it also has like these big beautiful windows out into the backyard so you kind of have this like beautiful light headed out back we spend more time here than I like to ad one of the things that I absolutely loved about the house was the pool it's bright it's vibrant so that's something that we definitely knew we wanted to leave alone except that I'm dying to change the way the pool looks because we ran out of money in time Tada where I'm standing actually was the very edge of a very small dining room there's actually a wall right about here I would say and not a lot of space to like sit down and have dinner so took this wall out now we can see into the kitchen if you're in the kitchen getting dinner ready you can also like see the TV or see the game that's on or connect with people in any of the spaces in the house we wanted first and foremost a kitchen that felt more open to the rest of the house we have people over a lot we're kind of like the house where everyone gathers so having a kitchen where our friends could come we could cook and drink wine together I didn't love waiting 2 and 1 half years to get a kitchen that I felt really like comfortable and excited to cook in but it's worth it I remember one particular day coming home after a long and challenging day at work coming into my cold dark Dusty drafty house with tarps where the windows and doors should be and it was probably all of 45° outside and inside my house kitchen was in the garage by kitchen I mean we had a microwave a hot plate and a toaster I microwaved a burrito I walked back into the bedroom where I sat on the dog's bed and the burrito was still frozen in the middle and I started crying because all I had to look forward to was finishing my frozen burrito d to the dish on the floor of the bathroom in the tub go to bed in my cold house wake up the next day and do this entire thing again that was the moment where I just started to lose hope that we were ever going to have a real house with Windows and Doors again which brings us to the kitchen this is my favorite room in the whole house absolutely the kitchen was small and walled off so it was like in the middle of the house and the house is kind of a u around it it's a little door on one side so if you wanted to get in the kitchen you had to go through the whole house and back everything floor to ceiling were these like blue tiles with grout in them grout and no offense to all the tile lovers out there I love me some tile but not where I'm going to cook my food it just felt gross it was gross and I really love to cook so kitchen has a lot of features I always wanted I wanted a big kitchen island that people could stand around drink wine at prep food at cook together that was like build the renovation around that for sure we put in Custom Cabinets we also put in quartz countertops because we felt like they were easy to clean and they're also hard to stain we put in a solid backsplash by the stove our contractor was really pushing us toward tile and grout something like more traditional and we kind of had this Vision to do a big solid piece and it's probably the thing we get complimented on the most when people come in everyone immediately also recognizes what we did which is you can clean it really easily and then we had a little fun like with the appliances the pink fridge plus the Walnut absolutely brings a mid-century modern plus kind of a hip Bohemian style to the kitchen the house embodies Who We Are are entertainment hospitality and I hope people feel the love that is in these walls conveniently enough our open concept kitchen leads into our dining room for obvious reasons food to table this makes it really really nice but even though it's open concept the dining room still feels intimate so we can sit around with our friends at dinner and have a moment around a table which is like one of my favorite things to do it's just nice it's nice that you can just pop back in the kitchen of course if you need something it's nice that if you're in there cooking you're not separated again from everybody out here we wanted to do a lot of finishings that would make it feel like a very distinct space even though it's sitting in an open plan so went very bold with the wallpaper it matches the green of all of my plants it brings a little nature into the room and makes it feel intimate but the plants actually help to find the space too originally the house was kind of quadrant off one of the things we had to do in order to make sure that this all connected and lost all the walls is to put in a new structural beam the structural beam was a whole process in itself it was like 20 men who had to come in lift the beam put it on the ceiling and that's what allowed us to lose entire walls here with just one single beam to really give us the maximum look between the rooms but the flow above needs to feel like you're not having to duck or emotionally duck to enter another room emotionally duck wow all right over here we put in a bar when we wanted to open up the house and do all that structural work with the beam and creating this open living space we had to leave up a six foot section of wall to make it structurally sound so right in the middle we had this challenge of this six foot section of wall and thinking about how can we make it look intentional instead of like something we had to do and we thought why not make it like a showpiece like a bar so picked up this kind of tile pattern then we actually laid it all out on the floor and figured out how it would fit onto this wall and be a really really stunning back splash something kind of unique and different this is the primary bedroom and it's a really big space and this is actually the wall that we pulled in 3 ft so just behind this wall is the fireplace brought the wall in and still this place feels very large another space we took a wild swing with the wallpaper we actually went with peacocks for some reason but it was kind of fun it's a bedroom it's not out in your main house so we thought we could go a little while with the wallpaper in there I don't remember how we settled on Blue peacocks but actually I really love it how does anyone and more plants because Liz loves plants and I do think it actually brightens up the room quite a bit it feels like a very relaxing escape and it's just like a bedroom you just want to like curl up in your pajamas and read a book and fall asleep with yes more plants it makes me happy yeah out in the garage we had to do a lot with a little bit of space out here my wish list was long a storage room because it is a garage and we have to put our crap out there we work out a lot so it had to be a gym I had to have an office space it's where we do our laundry we needed an extra guest bedroom so it's a Murphy bed that we actually installed so for most of the time it's a work from home space for someone who has a loud voice on calls early in the morning that we can just shut him out in the garage you can just flip it to a Murphy bed and it's a really comfortable spot for guests and a nice little spot to hang out am I forgetting anything more plant area more space for my plants and you know probably a place just to hang out and um and be apart from everyone else when you needed to be so however many things that is that's what we wanted to turn that one's Bas too no problem and a beer fridge is always appropriate also another fridge I call this place basement Chic basement Chic it's kind of our little hangout and the thing I'm probably most proud of is this is the room I built with my bare hands everything from the wood walls to learning how to put the laundry in which thank you YouTube for teaching me to putting in skylights everything from the drywall to installing the TV is something that I actually made so over the course of seven weeks and really with the leadership of Liz I kind of took the experiences that I learned from the house and actually did the garage kind of by myself so that was really really quite fun to be able to take the lessons of what was happening inside my house and apply them to the garage and make something that fit all her boxes a lot of cuts some tears definitely some blood but uh it was definitely worth it because I really take pride in it this basement Chic area that is kind of just original Beyond original and allowed us to put our own personality to this garage I know there's a saying that you should never renovate together if you value your marriage or something to that effect but mik can I actually line up mostly on design aesthetic and the important renovation choices so like approaching it as a team makes all the difference I would say this renovation actually brought us closer together I'm just so happy that we were able to build this home together that's really special to me yeah and seeing it like come to life over time this house really like allows us to live the life we lI'm Michael and I'm Liz and this is our renovation story there were a lot of points in the renovation where I want to throw up my hands and say I'm done I'm leaving I'm going to a hotel I cannot stress enough how much I do not recommend living through your own renovation was he positive during the whole renovation annoyingly positive through the whole renovation it's true I've enjoyed the process a lot you enjoy everything a lot it's like being married to a golden retriever that's the best way I could say it the house has sort of some mid-century bones and we wanted to bring to life we wanted to do it in our own way so keeping a really Airy clean California aesthetic and then you can see throughout the house it's not so minimal like a mid-century there's kind of these funky 7s elements with the plants with the textures with some of the carpets and the materials that we brought in we wanted to bring in a little bit more color and a little bit more intentional clutter we did not work with a designer for this so I was doing a lot of the design it's a lot of work it was like making 75,000 decisions on top of like you're already demanding job I love that you can just see everything from the front door you immediately not only see all of the house but you see outside of the house and the pool it's a light outside and the open interior it makes it feel a lot bigger than it actually is this is our living room the space was much smaller the Wall came all the way in next to the fireplace was kind of wedged into the corner you can't like sit around the fireplace unusable for sure so we wanted to do a little work there and preserve it but we wanted to make it more usable so we actually moved that wall back so now there's this nice seating area around the fireplace which is one of my favorite spots and we converted it to gas because now I can just click a button and it's on instead of having to build a f we call it like a conversation pit low-lying furniture and different textures inspired by those like sunken down circles in the living rooms in the' 70s we wanted to really kind of force everyone around a circle to be looking at each other and create a space that has like a sense of intimacy and I love love love coming in and seeing this it's a really inviting area it kind of brings back that midcentury modern feel to it as well as just keeping sort of a modern clean California light aesthetic we really like the fact that the house is an open space but each space has its own purpose so this is creates a really great spot sit together and watch TV or watch a movie dim the lights pull up the popcorn I'm really happy that Liz put some plants to just create kind of a faux experience that you're entering a new area I really love that it also has like these big beautiful windows out into the backyard so you kind of have this like beautiful light headed out back we spend more time here than I like to ad one of the things that I absolutely loved about the house was the pool it's bright it's vibrant so that's something that we definitely knew we wanted to leave alone except that I'm dying to change the way the pool looks because we ran out of money in time Tada where I'm standing actually was the very edge of a very small dining room there's actually a wall right about here I would say and not a lot of space to like sit down and have dinner so took this wall out now we can see into the kitchen if you're in the kitchen getting dinner ready you can also like see the TV or see the game that's on or connect with people in any of the spaces in the house we wanted first and foremost a kitchen that felt more open to the rest of the house we have people over a lot we're kind of like the house where everyone gathers so having a kitchen where our friends could come we could cook and drink wine together I didn't love waiting 2 and 1 half years to get a kitchen that I felt really like comfortable and excited to cook in but it's worth it I remember one particular day coming home after a long and challenging day at work coming into my cold dark Dusty drafty house with tarps where the windows and doors should be and it was probably all of 45° outside and inside my house kitchen was in the garage by kitchen I mean we had a microwave a hot plate and a toaster I microwaved a burrito I walked back into the bedroom where I sat on the dog's bed and the burrito was still frozen in the middle and I started crying because all I had to look forward to was finishing my frozen burrito d to the dish on the floor of the bathroom in the tub go to bed in my cold house wake up the next day and do this entire thing again that was the moment where I just started to lose hope that we were ever going to have a real house with Windows and Doors again which brings us to the kitchen this is my favorite room in the whole house absolutely the kitchen was small and walled off so it was like in the middle of the house and the house is kind of a u around it it's a little door on one side so if you wanted to get in the kitchen you had to go through the whole house and back everything floor to ceiling were these like blue tiles with grout in them grout and no offense to all the tile lovers out there I love me some tile but not where I'm going to cook my food it just felt gross it was gross and I really love to cook so kitchen has a lot of features I always wanted I wanted a big kitchen island that people could stand around drink wine at prep food at cook together that was like build the renovation around that for sure we put in Custom Cabinets we also put in quartz countertops because we felt like they were easy to clean and they're also hard to stain we put in a solid backsplash by the stove our contractor was really pushing us toward tile and grout something like more traditional and we kind of had this Vision to do a big solid piece and it's probably the thing we get complimented on the most when people come in everyone immediately also recognizes what we did which is you can clean it really easily and then we had a little fun like with the appliances the pink fridge plus the Walnut absolutely brings a mid-century modern plus kind of a hip Bohemian style to the kitchen the house embodies Who We Are are entertainment hospitality and I hope people feel the love that is in these walls conveniently enough our open concept kitchen leads into our dining room for obvious reasons food to table this makes it really really nice but even though it's open concept the dining room still feels intimate so we can sit around with our friends at dinner and have a moment around a table which is like one of my favorite things to do it's just nice it's nice that you can just pop back in the kitchen of course if you need something it's nice that if you're in there cooking you're not separated again from everybody out here we wanted to do a lot of finishings that would make it feel like a very distinct space even though it's sitting in an open plan so went very bold with the wallpaper it matches the green of all of my plants it brings a little nature into the room and makes it feel intimate but the plants actually help to find the space too originally the house was kind of quadrant off one of the things we had to do in order to make sure that this all connected and lost all the walls is to put in a new structural beam the structural beam was a whole process in itself it was like 20 men who had to come in lift the beam put it on the ceiling and that's what allowed us to lose entire walls here with just one single beam to really give us the maximum look between the rooms but the flow above needs to feel like you're not having to duck or emotionally duck to enter another room emotionally duck wow all right over here we put in a bar when we wanted to open up the house and do all that structural work with the beam and creating this open living space we had to leave up a six foot section of wall to make it structurally sound so right in the middle we had this challenge of this six foot section of wall and thinking about how can we make it look intentional instead of like something we had to do and we thought why not make it like a showpiece like a bar so picked up this kind of tile pattern then we actually laid it all out on the floor and figured out how it would fit onto this wall and be a really really stunning back splash something kind of unique and different this is the primary bedroom and it's a really big space and this is actually the wall that we pulled in 3 ft so just behind this wall is the fireplace brought the wall in and still this place feels very large another space we took a wild swing with the wallpaper we actually went with peacocks for some reason but it was kind of fun it's a bedroom it's not out in your main house so we thought we could go a little while with the wallpaper in there I don't remember how we settled on Blue peacocks but actually I really love it how does anyone and more plants because Liz loves plants and I do think it actually brightens up the room quite a bit it feels like a very relaxing escape and it's just like a bedroom you just want to like curl up in your pajamas and read a book and fall asleep with yes more plants it makes me happy yeah out in the garage we had to do a lot with a little bit of space out here my wish list was long a storage room because it is a garage and we have to put our crap out there we work out a lot so it had to be a gym I had to have an office space it's where we do our laundry we needed an extra guest bedroom so it's a Murphy bed that we actually installed so for most of the time it's a work from home space for someone who has a loud voice on calls early in the morning that we can just shut him out in the garage you can just flip it to a Murphy bed and it's a really comfortable spot for guests and a nice little spot to hang out am I forgetting anything more plant area more space for my plants and you know probably a place just to hang out and um and be apart from everyone else when you needed to be so however many things that is that's what we wanted to turn that one's Bas too no problem and a beer fridge is always appropriate also another fridge I call this place basement Chic basement Chic it's kind of our little hangout and the thing I'm probably most proud of is this is the room I built with my bare hands everything from the wood walls to learning how to put the laundry in which thank you YouTube for teaching me to putting in skylights everything from the drywall to installing the TV is something that I actually made so over the course of seven weeks and really with the leadership of Liz I kind of took the experiences that I learned from the house and actually did the garage kind of by myself so that was really really quite fun to be able to take the lessons of what was happening inside my house and apply them to the garage and make something that fit all her boxes a lot of cuts some tears definitely some blood but uh it was definitely worth it because I really take pride in it this basement Chic area that is kind of just original Beyond original and allowed us to put our own personality to this garage I know there's a saying that you should never renovate together if you value your marriage or something to that effect but mik can I actually line up mostly on design aesthetic and the important renovation choices so like approaching it as a team makes all the difference I would say this renovation actually brought us closer together I'm just so happy that we were able to build this home together that's really special to me yeah and seeing it like come to life over time this house really like allows us to live the life we l\n"