After living for six years in his downtown Edmonton loft, in the Canadian province of Alberta, this homeowner was ready for a change. He liked the industrial nature of the space — soaring ceilings, raw redbrick walls, exposed ducting and conduit — but didn’t like its low-grade cabinetry. Plus, he was flat-out tired of his furniture.While he didn’t mind getting his hands dirty doing some of the work of refreshing the space, he knew he needed professional help when it came to the layout and choosing colors and furniture styles. He found designer Brenda Brix of AMR Design while searching for local professionals on Houzz and enlisted her help through a design consultation. She wrote up a detailed plan, and he implemented it himself, finding materials and furnishings and even teaching himself how to build and modify pieces.

For example, he bought mirror tiles and antiqued them. He took a basic pine cabinet from Ikea and distressed it. He even located his own stainless steel and installed it himself as a backsplash. “I wanted to add personal touches and cool things that people would come in and we could talk about them for five minutes,” he says.