Maryse: We knew it would be minimal work in the bedrooms because they had just been painted. But we added some accent walls in the bedrooms and it turned out to be fun. And we changed the light fixtures. Originally we thought of keeping them.

Sandy: We thought they were kind of quaint and cute, but then we got enough feedback.

Maryse: We liked them, but then nobody else liked them. So we figured we had better change them. I still kind of like them.

Sandy: Me too…

Maryse: I can’t believe we put them in the garbage, we should have kept those.

Sandy: When we got the house, the doors were a natural wood colour that had really aged and mellowed into an orange colour. And we liked the flat door. We didn’t really want a panel door; it didn’t fit with the modern kind of look that we wanted in this house. And we wanted to keep some of the old charm but add a modern flair. So the chocolate brown flat doors were really what we were looking for. Why go out and buy new flat doors? Sand them a little bit, prime them, and paint them.

Maryse: Changing doors is not just taking a door off and putting a door on. It’s a lot of work. And I really didn’t feel like that challenge or the expense. When we painted the hall closet door, we realized that if we painted all the doors the same colour that everything would just sort of flow.

Maryse: Then we saved the door hardware. Again, it’s not so much the money, but it’s the work involved because of the size of them. No matter what door handle we would have replaced them with, they didn’t fit. So we would have had to notch out each door individually and that’s way too much work. And the hardware was gold. It had to go!