Skip to playerSkip to main content
This week on Sweet Digs, we tour Robin’s Toronto duplex. She shares her completely customized space with us and shows how she utilizes every corner of the space. Watch this episode of Sweet Digs to check out Robin’s cozy home.

#sponsored

ABOUT SERIES
High rent, small spaces, nosy neighbors — we put up with A LOT of things to live where we love. In Sweet Digs, Refinery29 gets a peek inside the homes of the coolest people we know, from tiny studios to sprawling houses, and ask the real questions like, "Wait, how much is your rent?"

ABOUT REFINERY29
Refinery29 is a modern woman's destination for how to live a stylish, well-rounded life. http://refinery29.com/

RELATED CONTENT
What $1,200 Will Get You In Texas
https://youtube.com/watch?v=JG5M0rZB6XE​​
What $710 Will Get You In Missouri
https://youtube.com/watch?v=5FwsZ-dgecc​​
What $2,000 Will Get You In Texas
https://youtube.com/watch?v=U5aQYZfW8Ro​​

SUBSCRIBE TO REFINERY29
Subscribe to the Refinery29 channel: http://bit.ly/subscribe-to-r29
Follow Refinery29 on Instagram: https://instagram.com/refinery29/
Follow Somos on Instagram: https://instagram.com/r29somos/
Follow Unbothered on Instagram: https://instagram.com/r29unbothered/
Transcript
00:00I just sound like I have a lot of friends that help me build stuff, but it's really great having
00:04carpenter friends.
00:06Hi, my name's Robin and welcome to my sweet digs. Come on in.
00:13I live in Toronto, Canada. I live alone and I have two floors and I pay $19.45 in rent
00:20a month.
00:23So I live in Trinity Bellwoods. It's a pretty popular area of the city. The park is two seconds from
00:30here.
00:30All my friends kind of live around here, so it's good for going on walks. It's a great area. I
00:35feel super lucky being around here.
00:38So I live in a duplex. I have the main floor and the basement in the backyard.
00:42On the main floor, I have my office. I've got my living room and my kitchen.
00:46And then the basement is the laundry room, my bathroom, and my bedroom.
00:51So I would describe my home style. My friends always make fun of me that I have a term for
00:56it.
00:57California casual for sure. It's very just like airy and light.
01:02The first part of my place is my living room. A lot of this stuff is stuff I either found
01:07or got really cheap.
01:09I won this table in an Instagram giveaway, which is kind of crazy, and I broke it the week I
01:15got it.
01:16And then I had to like glue it back together, and I put this gold kind of paint in to
01:21make it look kind of more custom.
01:22So it's an interesting piece now and a little different than it was when it started.
01:27So my dad actually built me that console and that chair I got like three years ago for $10.
01:37During COVID, I did a lot of kind of polymer clay making, so I made this and made a lot
01:43of the clay stuff around my place.
01:45I love curating a space, but I also love having the life and personality of myself coming through and the
01:51things that I've made and kind of collected and created over the years.
01:58The next space is my office, which is one of my absolute favorite rooms in the house.
02:07Over here is my bookshelf. I got my master's in English, so I love to read.
02:13My friend actually built me this. It was built for me as a way to display all my stuff for
02:18my tarot readings.
02:20Like so many millennials, my job is not just one. The job that pays the bills, I'm a props person
02:25in the film industry.
02:26I also do tarot readings, and it's been such a powerful way for me to connect with people and help
02:32them and also learn such an incredible practice.
02:35I wanted this space to be really relaxing for clients when they come, when I give them readings, so it
02:41has all my crystals, my incense, my cards, and really kind of relaxing, common colors and objects displayed here.
02:50This is my desk. I do a lot of work over here. I painted the wall a dark blue because
02:57I really wanted to add a bit more character.
03:00So I built this shelf with one of my friends. It's really lucky having really handy friends to be able
03:06to help you with all your crazy visions you have.
03:09But I wanted to display some of my plants because there wasn't a lot of room for them around, and
03:16I really think it adds a lot more life into this room and into this space.
03:27So this bar cart is actually a cabinet that I did a hack to. So again, one of my friends
03:33cut this circle, and I put painting material inside of it to kind of add a more boho, fun look
03:40to it.
03:41And inside of it is all of my kind of more fun, silly kind of stuff that I have and
03:47has all my alcohol.
03:51My landlord, who's great, didn't actually want me to do a lot of changes to the kitchen at all.
03:58So everything here is completely removable.
04:01So this counter is actually just a piece of plywood that I put over top of the existing counter.
04:07It's kind of like a giant cutting board that I can easily remove.
04:10It's not attached to anything, but adds so much lightness to it because before it was a black counter.
04:15And then over here, I took the front cupboards off of the cabinets.
04:20I put contact paper down, painted it white, and then styled the cabinets so it looked a lot lighter and
04:27kind of had that airy feel to the space and really opened the place up a lot more.
04:33It's really fun kind of flexing your creativity within a rental space.
04:38One of my friends put those shelves in.
04:40It's where I store my cookbooks.
04:42I do a lot of canning because I garden in the summer.
04:44I have this hydroponic growing system that I'm able to kind of get my basil from, kale, and other vegetables.
04:54Up here is another really awesome kind of DIY I was able to do that was super easy.
05:00And it's where I actually do a lot of my flower and herb drying.
05:05The biggest aspect of my life that influences my home is my connection to nature.
05:12Being outside and being connected to nature is such a powerful and important part of my life.
05:16So I've really wanted to translate having a very natural and organic home as well.
05:24So through this door is my outdoor space.
05:27I did a lot to my backyard.
05:29It's really nice to have somewhere to go to outdoors.
05:33So the next space is downstairs and that's where my bedroom, my bathroom, and my closet is.
05:40So let's go down there.
05:51Basements can be really dark and sort of dreary and like not the funnest place to hang out.
05:56So I really wanted to create this space to feel really cozy.
06:00My friend actually built me this puzzle board that lives forever on my bed.
06:05I have my projector set up right in front of my bed.
06:07I don't love having a TV within a living space.
06:10I liked using that space to talk to people and connect or read or be disconnected from technology.
06:16So my projector is in my bedroom.
06:18So it's a little more of an intimate thing and not as much a social thing.
06:23The bathroom when I first moved in was white and kind of boring.
06:29So I decided I wanted to paint it pink.
06:32I switched out the mirror here.
06:34I painted the curtain rod and did a lot of kind of painting to make this feel a lot more
06:40fun.
06:40My landlord actually found this old cooler and I think it's a really fun feature.
06:46I couldn't obviously get real plants.
06:47So this is a fake plant and there's eucalyptus.
06:51So I really wanted this to feel comfy and spa-like and just really warm.
07:00So this is my closet that I designed myself.
07:04It's Ikea.
07:05And I really needed a space that I could store all of my clothes because I have a lot of
07:09clothes.
07:10So here's all my jackets, all my pants, my shirts, my dresses.
07:14And then in here, which was my old closet, is now my shoe closet.
07:18So my friend, he took out what existed here before and built me this shoe closet.
07:24One of my most sentimental, most favorite things I have in my house is this guitar
07:29that my dad actually built for me.
07:31I love it so much.
07:32I've been playing music since I was a kid.
07:34So it's really awesome to have something that my dad built for me in my space.
07:42So this area over here is really cozy.
07:45I do a lot of reading in this chair here.
07:48And I painted this arch just on a piece of plywood myself.
07:51I love arches.
07:53I have them kind of all over my house.
07:55I actually just recently got bedside tables for literally the first time in my life.
07:59And it's awesome.
08:01Another super impulsive kind of DIY I did during COVID was painting my stairwell
08:07with all these kind of prints behind it.
08:10It was really hard actually getting behind there and painting it all.
08:12But the results were really, really great.
08:14And I'm so happy how it turned out.
08:17So the way I laid out my space is actually quite different than the people who lived here before me.
08:23Because I work in film and can work really crazy hours, often we'll be shooting all night,
08:27I wanted to have my bedroom in the basement so that no matter what time I come home,
08:32it's still dark and I'm still able to sleep.
08:34So I kind of inverted the way a lot of people had set up this place before me.
08:39So my ex actually found the home about five years ago.
08:42I was still in grad school and was like, I cannot afford to live on my own,
08:46but the place was so special and I felt like it could do so much.
08:50Reclaiming this space was at first quite challenging because, you know,
08:54you have memories with a person in this space and you created a home together.
08:58I kept a lot of this stuff, but I also was just able to bring new life into the space.
09:03And allowing myself to get creative and do art and paint things and
09:06really like let go emotionally within my space and create it as a reflection of me
09:14and who I am at this point in my life.
09:19Thanks so much for checking out my sweet digs.
09:22To watch more videos, you can click here and to subscribe, you can click here.
Comments

Recommended