How a Designer Turned Her Parent’s Toronto Basement Into a Chic Pied-a-Terre

Eva Voinigescu and her husband had waited three years to move into their new-construction condo in Toronto. But by the time the big day rolled around, they were already itching to sell the place. The pandemic had changed their entire perspective on not only where they wanted to live, but how. “Our attention was on the importance of family and a slower life. It made us realize how hard that would be in Toronto with its Western work values and high cost of living,” she shares. Voinigescu, who has dual European citizenship, set her sights on France, and her husband’s new remote work status made a move abroad possible. The catch was, if they sold their apartment, they’d need a place to crash in Canada as they embarked on a lengthy search for a home overseas. Voinigescu’s parents happened to have a 550-square-foot basement that was already outfitted as an in-law suite. 

The space had barely been touched since her parents bought the house in 2002 when Voinigescu was still in high school, save for a faux brick wallpaper her mom had installed in the tiny kitchen. Over the years, it served as a guest apartment for her grandparents and an office for her professor dad, but during that time it had also welcomed water damage and asbestos. Voinigescu, who recently made a career shift from journalism to interior design, decided to take the space back down to the bones and start anew. 

The initial plan was to create a modern apartment where the couple could relax and entertain when they were in town, but Voinigescu also knew her parents might be interested in inhabiting the single-level apartment down the road. Ahead, the designer shares how she gave their basement a cozy glow-up that’s prime for a globe-trotting couple, future grandkids, and aging in place. 

The Predominantly IKEA Kitchen

Given there’s a full chef’s kitchen upstairs, Voinigescu did almost all of her shopping for the basement kitchen at IKEA, from the off-white Grimslov cabinets to the panel-ready refrigerator and dishwasher. “Even the countertops are IKEA,” she admits. She plugged in a backsplash from Zia Tile, a brass faucet from Etsy, brass cup pulls from Lee Valley, and a Samsung range. With the ceilings barely measuring 7 feet tall, she completely nixed upper cabinets; it would have made the space feel dark and cramped again. 

The WFH Corner

While the designer’s husband and his father, a luthier, crafted the maple dining table from scratch together, Voinigescu lent a hand with the double desk that now extends off the kitchen. The simple plywood tabletop is secured with 1-by-2s and gets a little extra support from an IKEA filing cabinet.

“It is a really functional 400-square-foot living space. We have a full kitchen, a dining area that can seat six, and workspace for two, as well as a living area that can comfortably seat, I’d say, six people,” she says.

The Seating- and Storage-Packed Living Room

By gutting the bulky closets in the living area, Voinigescu was able to reorient the sofa (an IKEA score covered with a custom Bemz cover) so that it faced the now-scaled-down fireplace and wall-mounted TV. It also allowed her to reintroduce storage in the form of two Havsta cabinets—one sourced new; the other via Facebook Marketplace—and coat them in Benjamin Moore’s Caribbean Mist.

The two armchairs were also Facebook Marketplace finds that the designer reupholstered with fabric from Ballard Designs, while she splurged on Beata Heuman fabric for the Soderhamn ottoman and swapped out its legs for mid-century–style ones she scored on Amazon. 

The Spot of Sunshine

One major way Voinigescu brightened up the once-dingy basement was by adding a third window to the space and expanding one of the existing ones, bringing the total of windows to three 4-by-2-foot openings. In any other project, she’d lean into color, but in this case, she decided to stick with Benjamin Moore’s Chantilly Lace on the walls and hung photos from their travels to sunny destinations like Mexico, California, and Australia.

The Old-School Bedroom

The bedroom was feeling too much like a white box after the renovation, so Voinigescu, looking to her mid-century–inspired mood boards, decided to add some extra character with a red oak plywood wall. Her father-in-law put his tools to use to build them a curvy headboard, which Voinigescu eventually swathed in an indoor-outdoor fabric from Ballard Designs.

The piece actually splits in two, which not only made carrying it down the stairs easy, but Voinigescu thinks it could come in handy one day if they’re ever in need of two twin beds for kids. The next generation is in for some epic basement sleepovers.