How to improve your living situation

The Toronto housing market is CRAZY right now. If you’re stuck renting a windowless room with two greasy engineering students who refuse to clean up their cereal stashes after a night out, don’t lose hope! Here are some house hacks to take your place from bleak and barren to Bridle Path.  

1. If your bathroom decor is looking too basic and boring, add a fun splash of red paint on the bathroom floor. Red is a perfect colour to liven up your space and is associated with lots of positive feelings. You could even try it in the bathtub or on the walls! Colour theory!

2. Maximizing space is a must in cramped quarters like basement apartments and their 5-foot ceilings are one of the biggest offenders. Open concepts are really trendy, so let’s take it a step further! A handy dandy sledgehammer to the roof of your basement apartment can give you the high ceilings you’ve always dreamed of. As an added bonus, your renovations will definitely give you a reason to talk to your upstairs neighbors, giving you that feeling of community you’ve always lacked.

3. Borrow some galvanized square steel from your aunt who works at the construction on Yonge and Gerrard. Add some eco-friendly wood veneers under your bed to create storage space that doubles as your dining table and shower. Now you can turn your 1.3 square metre studio into a snazzy two bed loft apartment. 

4. Do you love the bird’s eye view from a 97-storey condo but hate the sky-high price tags? With enough twigs, leaves, and twine you can construct a chic, sustainably made, eco-futurist nest. To avoid complaints from neighbours, just tell them you’re babysitting for a family of eagles. 

5. If you hate being late for the subway, consider moving a lot closer to the tracks. By snagging a Hi-Vis TTC uniform (check out our other article “Top 10 thrifts to source TTC uniforms like a local”) and some handy-dandy pliers, you can easily turn the utility rooms on Line 1 into a modern industrial-core studio. Try decorating with tarp and oil lamps for that abandoned mineshaft vibe that was all the rage in the early 2000s. With a location like this, you’ll never be late for the train again! Your boss will thank us.