Our Apartment Gets a Facelift: Before

Ever since we moved in to our apartment in January 2012, we've been trying to make it look like "home" and reflect our style.  The actual apartment structure is great, but the old, Soviet-style wallpaper and chandeliers didn't quite fit in to our style.  We rearranged furniture as we were able and hoped it would feel more like home.   

Time helped, but there was still a desire to change the wallpaper and make the apartment look more modern.  We heard from a Ukrainian friend that it is a good idea to change your wallpaper periodically, and we knew ours hadn't been redone in over 12 years.  We approached our landlady about making some changes in all three bedrooms and the living room, and she said yes!

Phase One of the project began in mid-January 2013 and included the master bedroom and the living room.  Phase Two (the office and extra bedroom, which is going to be the nursery) began in mid-March.  Each room takes about five days to complete.  We hired a Ukrainian man, Volodia, (a friend of several of our teammates) to do the work for us, especially since what is involved just to change the color of the walls is so difficult.  First, the wallpaper is stripped (1 to 1 1/2 days), the walls are sanded, puttied and smoothed (2 days), paintable wallpaper and trim is hung (1 day), and finally the room is painted (1 day).  Textured, paintable wallpaper is more common here than simply painting the wall because of the irregularities in the wall's texture and smoothness.  The wallpaper hides the imperfections, but allows you to have painted walls in the color of your choice!
  

Phase One: January 2013

The Master Bedroom: Before

Looking in from the enclosed balcony

These are typical Ukrainian-style wardrobes--closets aren't common here.

View from the bedroom door.  You can see the balcony in the background.  We never got a picture of the old curtains, which were forest green velour with lace trim...they were one of the first things to be changed upon our arrival!

The lovely wallpaper.  A photo doesn't do it justice.  A nice shiny, silvery background with white, grey, and light blue flowers.  Plus, there's some texture in there, too!

The Bedroom: During

Andy and a friend figuring out how to get the bed frame apart and where to put it.  Luckily, it came apart and we put it on the balcony.

Can you tell where the wardrobe was?

Kiev isn't lacking in the dust department.  We found this nice accumulation under the wardrobe!

Good-bye, wallpaper!

Some old water damage on the ceiling and the walls without wallpaper.  The bones of the building are concrete and steel, so there is no drywall--just putty over cinder block.

The shiny pearl wallpaper on the ceiling is gone, but the old chandelier remains--complete with about 15 years of dust!

Inspecting the job--new putty added to the walls to straighten them out.  From what Volodia tells us, the walls were a bit of a disaster.  "Wavy like the sea" is how he described them.

  

The Living Room: Before

Remember those massive cabinets in the bedroom?  Well, here's the living room version.  It takes up nearly an entire wall, but it does have tons of space for storing stuff and displaying picture frames and other things.  Notice the ballroom style (fake) crystal chandelier!  This picture was taken soon after our boxes arrived, and we were still in the unpacking stage!  By this time, we'd also gotten rid of the forest green carpet, which was infested with carpet beetles.  Once the carpet was gone, it revealed the same beautiful hardwood floors that are also in each bedroom.  No carpet really lightened it up despite the dark wallpaper!

This spot was once occupied by a piano.  It had been donated to the church down the street but was never moved there, so we were happy to see a little extra space in our living room.

The old couch, which had seen a few too many years of wear and tear to be comfortable.  Notice the faded velvet fabric and the permanent butt mark on the end?  Not to mention the 80s style fabric!  We bought a new couch in late March and it was delivered shortly after we said good-bye to the piano.

Our new couch!!!  This is the only wall space that a couch would fit against, but we wanted a little more seating space, so we got a sectional.  The only bad part...the extension extends into the middle of the living room, making the set-up a bit choppy.

The view of the living room with the new couch from the doorway.  It's a bit dark, but you can see the chandelier pretty well.

Last summer, we ditched the chandelier (Andy kept hitting his head on it).  Also notice the shiny pearl wallpaper on the ceiling--this stuff is in every room!

We didn't have a good spot to put up our Christmas tree, and our landlord gave us permission to move the big cabinets around.  We rearranged the living room furniture in December--this is the before shot.  The sectional couch split the room in half, and the two chairs (which, yes, match the old couch) were never used because they were out of the way.  The big cabinets are on the opposite wall.

Rearranged, and feels much more like a living room!  We moved the couch to the other side of the room and swapped the position of the TV.  We kept one chair in the living room and moved the other to the office.

We split the cabinets into two sections so they didn't take up an entire wall.

Wallpaper!  You might be wondering where they found this stuff, but believe it or not, you can still buy stuff just like it!  Sparkly grey background with textured mauve flowers, green leaves, and silver accents!

The Living Room: During

Good-bye, wallpaper!

Bare walls and a view of the enclosed balcony.

The wallpaper came off in big chunks, so he used it as a floor mat.  These double doors lead to the hallway.

Volodia and Luda's work shoes.  :)

Phase Two: March 2013

The Office: Before

Here is the office version of the huge cabinets!  We like this office set--it's great for storage.  The extra desk space has often turned in to a junk-collector for "put-away-later" piles, like the ones pictured here.  :)  There is a large desk space that matches, which you can see on the left.  We had to empty the cabinets out and take the doors off, which allowed us to scoot them to the middle of the room while Volodia was painting.

When we first arrived, there was a twin bed in the office.

You've probably caught the theme by now...floral wallpaper!  The office had a textured, shiny, pale pink wallpaper with flowers that were various shades of pink and silver.

Last day of the pink wallpaper!  Thankfully, we could use our balcony space as great storage for the things that we had to move out of the office.

Matching sheer curtains that probably hadn't been washed in over 10 years...so, they're grey, not white!

At least there is a theme to the floral craziness in every room!  A pink flowered chandelier to match the pink wallpaper!

The Spare Bedroom (Soon-to-Be Nursery): Before

The family that lived here before us had three kids, and they all slept in this room.  This picture was taken soon after our boxes arrived...and it remained the "junk room" for quite a while.

We took the bunk beds apart and stored them in our team's storage unit.  Then, we brought in the bed from the office (it's a matching set).  This is more what the room looked like originally when our landlady redecorated...only minus the junk on the bed.  :)

Almost ready for repainting--the room is nearly empty!

This wardrobe is a slightly smaller version of the one in our bedroom.

You should see the shadows from this thing at night...it looks like monsters on the wall!

Floral wallpaper design...mostly shades of tan, which have turned grey.  Volodia guessed that the wallpaper was hung 10-15 years ago, judging by the kind of adhesive that was used.

Are you anxious to see the "after" pictures?  Rearranging just how we want it has been a long work in progress, but check our blog in a couple weeks to see the finished apartment facelift!