nesting

Some couples have it all: enviable taste, good looks and the ability to make something beautiful out of nothing.

Meet Elana and Per. She’s an HGTV design blogger and DIY queen and he’s a photographer, so it’s no wonder their beloved Edwardian home is full of style and charm. It might seem hard to believe, but this house was furnished almost entirely with salvaged finds, from things Elana picked up off the street to flea market specials. Good design doesn’t always have to mean spending a lot of money. As Per and Elana prove, it’s about taking risks and following through with your vision.

Occupations: Elana is a managing editor for HGTV and Food Network Canada with a covetable wardrobe, and Per is a photographer who can often be seen riding his motorcycle through the neighborhood.

Dwelling: A three-story detached Edwardian era home in a kid- and artist-friendly neighborhood.

How long have you lived in your home?
Four years.

Any animals and/or kids?
Sophie, our three-year-old girl.

What is your favorite object in your home?
Hard to choose. It would have to be all our salvaged furniture—the sofa, the dining room sideboard, the living room chairs, the kitchen chairs, our bed frame. We don’t know! Maybe the writing desk? It was a crazy steal.

What is your favorite room?
Sophie’s room and the living room.

What are your future plans for the home?
A ginormous overhaul. We’d like to gut the place, but that’s never going to happen. Our immediate plans are to redo the basement. Basement of horrors. We’d like to dig it out and finish it. Also the second-floor bathroom. Stupidly small, it’s the only bathroom in the house and it needs to be expanded.

Anything you would change?
A lot. We would gut the house, but leave the décor. The layout and configuration are not functional at all. We’d blow out the wall between the living room and kitchen and put in an island; reconfigure the entire second floor; expand the bathroom by taking over the fourth-smallest bedroom in the world, which is now a storage room for boxes we haven’t touched in four years; put in built-in closets in the two main bedrooms on the second floor; open up the dormers in the attic master bedroom; and put in a master bath and closets.

What original features of your home will you never get rid of?
There aren’t many left, but we’d try to keep the door and window moldings, although we’d love to change the windows in the house because they’re from the early nineties and they’re ugly. That may affect the moldings.

Best thing about living in your neighborhood?
The trees and the big park that is nearby. Our local coffee shop, Cherry Bomb. And, finally, our neighbors.

As featured in The Marion House Book, a buzz-worthy blog and collection of stories devoted to interior design, cooking, baking and DIY stuff.