This Fully Renovated $400,000 Toronto Home Is A Master Class In Sustainable Decor

In Refinery29’s Sweet Digs, we take a look inside the sometimes small, sometimes spacious homes of millennial women and their families. This week, we tour content creator Elena Lohse's 800sqft home in The Junction district in Toronto, Ontario.

When full-time content creator Elena Lohse and her husband bought their $400,000 home in Toronto, neutral colors, natural lighting, and sustainability were at the forefront of their minds when it came to renovations. As a brand stylist who works from home, she needed both a comfortable living space as well as a functional work environment, which she set out to achieve through a mix of vintage finds, custom pieces, and sustainable items from IKEA. "My only other boss is the sunshine," she says of her WFH lifestyle, preferring to shoot in natural light.

While all the rooms in the house get light at different hours, the bedroom atop the central open staircase receives the most natural light, thanks to a skylight and large windows. (It's no coincidence, then, that this is where they keep most of their plants.) In keeping with the neutral tones throughout the rest of the home, the couple has opted for the crisp, white IKEA KUNGSBLOMMA bedding, sourced from sustainably made cotton. For texture, they've added a rattan fan over the bed, a knit rug, and a chunky throw blanket.

In the bathroom, they went with brass fixtures and subway tiles with thick, dark grouting to create an old-world feel. This black and white theme is picked up again in the grid pattern in their IKEA KLOCKAREN shower curtain (made from recycled polyester), and even inspired the maze tiling in the custom entryway they built from scratch. The only thing missing? A classic tub, which they plan on adding to a new downstairs bathroom in the future.

Keeping sustainability in mind, they either sourced most of their furniture from vintage or secondhand stores, or custom-built items specifically for their home, including their bed frame and dining room cabinet. "When you’re doing things yourself, you have control over the materials you use," she says. "You can make decisions that will help you reach the goal of sustainability."

For an in-depth look at this newly renovated, light-filled home, watch the video above. 

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