ByLydia Geisel,Photography byLiv Madeline
PublishedOct 30, 2021 1:22 AM EDT
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Domino Reno: Before + Afters, DIYs, and Advice From Pros Who’ve Demoed Things
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Liv Madeline was speechless the first time she toured what’s now her and her partner Rob’s two-level, two-bedroom place in Edgware, London. ‘It was horrible. Like stepping into a time machine back to the 1980s,’ she recalls. The property had been public housing, so it hadn’t enjoyed a single update in a few decades. And yet, once she regained the power of speech, they bought it anyway. ‘We were wildly unprepared for what came next,’ she admits. ‘I’d never done any DIY beyond painting my bedroom.’
Time had clearly flatlined in the dining room, where blue-gray carpet smothered the floors and dark wood paneling swallowed every wall around the stone fireplace. Stripping those dated layers to start fresh was the obvious move. ‘We ended up with a much bigger space,’ notes Liv. Bonus discovery? An arched alcove, hiding inside the wall like a little architectural secret.
After stripping the damaged, unsalvageable old plasterwork, the couple was left with a full-on brick room. They stared at the beige blocks so long during demo that they nearly plastered over 100 percent of the surface—but that changed when they uncovered a charming architectural detail lurking behind an old storage niche. ‘Rob was like, let’s at least keep the brick around the arch. Honestly, I was so over it, but now we adore that little decision,’ says Liv. After bingeing YouTube tutorials, she limewashed one wall with a Bauwerk product in the color bone for old-world texture (four coats total). ‘I basically winged it and hoped for the best,’ she confesses.
‘Trust us to pick the most complicated flooring known to humanity,’ says Liv, laughing. They went with parquet-style flooring, but in super-thin tiles rather than wood boards, which meant the subfloor had to be flawlessly flat. Before install, a carpenter friend delivered the bad news: ‘He said we’d probably have to rip out all the floorboards and start over,’ Liv recalls. By then the walls were already painted, and while re-dusting their hard work was deeply unappealing, she knew they had to start from scratch—leveling the subfloor, laying plywood and soundproofing chipboard on top, then installing the tile themselves. ‘I’d already received all the flooring by then,’ she says. There was no turning back.
While the living room fireplace is pure faux, the dining area’s has a working chimney and cleared code with flying colors. Liv stalked Facebook Marketplace and snagged a modern mantel for about 80 pounds ($110), then painted the plain wood black, letting the first coat cure for 24 hours before the second. ‘You didn’t even notice the floral tiles before,’ she says of the detail she made pop.
Aside from the antique cabinet, Liv worked with Heal’s Furniture to furnish the revamp, including a sculptural, steam-bent wood pendant light. Happily, the couple has another apartment down the road where they’re living while they finish gutting the main house (they still lack a proper kitchen or bathroom—priorities). But when friends visit, they stroll over to the new dining room to host. ‘It’s great when you just need a change of scenery,’ says Liv. Little do their guests know what this cozy space looked like before—ignorance is bliss.
Lydia Geisel has been on the Domino editorial team since 2017. These days she writes and edits home and renovation stories—house tours, before and afters, DIYs—and runs our design news coverage. She lives in New York City, where square footage is a cruel joke but the inspiration is endless.
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