Category: Flooring

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7/23/2020

office

demo and
progress

With all the projects we have lined up for the house there was one I wanted to start rather quickly. My closet! While we have decent storage in the house there is not much room for clothes. So we decided to take the second bedroom on the first level and turn it into a small walk in closet/ office for me :-)

Above and below: Before images

CONCEPT

The main goal of this space was additional closet storage, since IKEA had just opened when we moved into the house we thought it would be the least expensive way to add storage.

LET THE DEMO BEGIN!

We already knew the existing hardwood floors were under the carpet so bye bye maroon carpet! And within the first 24 hours of being in the house, bye bye to this little closet. Which exposed a lot more. Welcome to the wall that will stay exposed for the next 6 years :-)

The walls got a fresh coat of paint and Jeff started the
wonderful task of sanding the floors

We went through a number of wood stains... wanted grey but came to find out because we have red oak as the base the grey would always have a red undertone. So we ended up selecting a brown stain.

CABINETS

We purchased the PAX wardrobe system from IKEA.

Cabinets put together!

To give the cabinets a more built in look we lifted the boxes so the baseboards could wrap around the cabinets.

Here is the wall that stayed exposed for all those years :-)
Once we replaced the main cast iron vent stack the wall could be closed up.

WHAT'S NEXT

Baseboards are in, another round of fresh paint, existing doors were sanded and stained, clearly a few new Iphone cameras later, and we are back to a blank canvas! This room has been under construction since we moved in... which was 2013. So happy to have this room in a good spot!

To complete the built in look Jeff built and painted boxes to make it look like the cabinets went to the ceiling.

Next up, completed cabinets, lighting and furniture!

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7/7/2020

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BASEMENT
BATHROOM

Complete...
Almost

Long gone are the laminate tiles and pink flowers!
Welcome to our remodeled basement bathroom!

Below: A reminder of the before

All of our final selections are listed below with
links to where we purchased from!

For this bathroom we wanted something clean and modern, but we also didn't want to ignore that the home was built in the early 1940's. So we went with a modern look and some traditional touches.

The carpet just outside this bathroom is grey, but when placed next to cooler grays it looks beige. To help tie the two rooms together, we chose the above tile from Floor and Decor because we liked the larger pattern and it had the perfect combo of both warm and cool tones.

We didn't want to make things any more difficult then they already were so we decided on this vanity from Home Depot. We like the traditional detailing and the counter top and sink were included, eliminating the need for us to
hire a slab fabricator!

A simple faucet was picked for the sink and we reused our existing toilet. We chose a wood mirror to help bring some warmth in the room and because we had limited height a narrow wall sconce was selected for over the mirror.

Above: We had some additional wall space so Jeff built in some open shelves. Besides the floor tile, this is one of my favorite parts of this room. Helps give a little added character and color to the space!

Below: this is what I mean by almost complete! I mentioned in an earlier blog post that we decided to take over a portion of the laundry room for the new shower. There are a lot of things my husband is comfortable doing but moving gas lines are not one of them! So till we get someone hired to move it,
the new shower shall wait.

1. Wall Sconce: Branches 2 Light from Kichler Lighting.
Purchased through FUSION light and design
2. Wood mirror: We purchased this from Target on clearance for $40 (score!) so I couldn't find an original link :-(
3 . Vanity: Aberdeen Vanity from Home Depot
4. Faucet: Miseno Faucet from Lowe's
5. Floor Stone Tile: Bianco Orion stone floor mosaic was
purchased from Floor and Decor.
6. Denver Skyline Watercolor: If you don't know Kelsey yet, you should! Local to Denver, Kelsey does some beautiful watercolors.
Check out her Etsy page HERE.
7. Denver Art Museum: Ok I had to stick one of my own in there :-)
8. Clock: Was my Grandma's, got in a white elephant gift exchange
9. Low Vase: A gift from some good friends and
the flowers are from Dollar Tree!
10. Apothecary Jars - this set of 3 glass apothecary jars were purchased from Amazon as additional storage and decor for our open shelves.
11. Baskets - the four pack of black and grey baskets were purchased from Amazon to carry the black of the vanity to the open shelving and provide some additional hidden storage.
12. Bath Bombs - For decor and to add a nice scent to the room these inexpensive bath bombs were purchased from Target.
13. Weather Photos (over the toilet): Because we have to sneak in tornadoes whenever we get a chance :-)

So, how did we get here! Lets catch up a bit!

Last we left we were ready to start our final finishes.

Our stone flooring was purchased from Floor and Decor

Because there were a few pieces with too much yellow in them we went through each piece individually to remove any pieces we didn't like. And we did a test run with a portion of the bathroom to make sure we liked it!

Pieces were cut and laid out with Jeff's own little coding system to make sure they went back in the right spot.

Tile is in and we are ready for trim!

Above Right: Unloading the new vanity, don't worry I helped, but of
course had to get a picture first :-)

And we back to the completed bathroom!

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6/30/2020

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Our basement bathroom remodel is done! (well for the most part)
Steal our look by checking out the links below to all the items we purchased!!

1. Wall Sconce: Branches 2 Light from Kichler Lighting. Purchased through FUSION light and design
2. Wood mirror: We purchased this from Target on clearance for $40 (score!) so I couldn't find the original purchase :-( BUT any wood frame to contrast and warm up the black and white would work!
3 . Vanity: Aberdeen Vanity from Home Depot - We didn't want to make things more difficult then they needed to be so we selected this vanity because the counter top and sink were included. I also liked that the cabinet and counter top had a little profile to add some traditional elements to the room.
4. Faucet: Miseno Faucet from Lowe's
5. Floor Stone Tile: Bianco Orion stone floor mosaic was purchased from Floor and Decor. The carpet just outside our bathroom was grey, but next to grey it looked more beige or taupe so this tile was a perfect combo of both warm and cool tones.
6. Apothecary Jars - this set of 3 glass apothecary jars were purchased from Amazon as additional storage and decor
for our open shelves.
7. Baskets - the four pack of black and grey baskets were purchased from Amazon to carry the black of the vanity to the open shelving and provide some additional hidden storage.
8. Bath Bombs - For decor and to add a nice scent to the room these inexpensive bath bombs were purchased from Target.

To see the final bathroom remodel click HERE!

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6/17/2020

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basement
bathroom

Home Reno
Framing and Rough In

Work continues on the basement bathroom!
After taking the existing framing down, new framing was put back up. O hey there pretty new door to the basement bedroom.

Below:
The concrete was saw cut (so dusty) so we could move the
toilet and shower drain.

And new pipes were put in

Below:
This is looking back at the laundry room. You can see the existing cast iron vent stack, which we replaced. Was without a bathroom for only a few days thanks to the handy work of my husband and his coworker!

Above Left: More concrete was removed and a drain was added in the existing laundry room to make way for a future shower. Above Right: Piping from the main floor bathroom needed additional height to connect to the vent stack so we added a bump out to hide the pipe and also give the entrance to the shower a little more privacy.

Above: Plumbing, lighting rough in and drywall! Hole in the wall if for a medicine cabinet that will go over the vanity.

Jeff's lays the coils for the in floor heating with a Schluter Ditra kit that we purchased from Floor and Decor and just like that
we are ready for final finishes!!

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10/22/2016

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Sweet Dreams

before and after

As we continue work on the basement...an update on the upstairs!

With in the first few hours of closing on our house we removed all the carpet in the upstairs to expose the original wood floors. From there is was just a simple 6 months of floor refinishing and a fresh coat of paint! ;-)

Below: Floors are finished and walls are painted.

We had a hard time deciding on a light, so we photoshoped in our favorites to make the final decision.

The final product!

Floors: Sanded and stained by Jeff
Trim: New baseboards installed by Jeff
Mirrors: purchased at Walmart, custom frames made by Jeff
Lighting: Quoizel, purchased from FUSION Light and Design
Nightstand: The Arch, $10 each!
Pillows: Target
Bedding: Ikea
Vases: Wedding present
Doors: Original, painted black

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1/19/2014

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home
reno

Office/ Closet

With all the projects we have lined up for the house there was one I wanted to start rather quickly. My closet! While we have decent storage in the house there is not much room for clothes. We decided to take the second bedroom on the first level and turn it into a small walk in closet/ office. After many hours online and looking at magazines, the above sketch and concept images below are part of the proposed design!

1. Desk Inspiration - West Elm
2. Eiffel Chair - Baxton Studios (Amazon)
3. Black File Cabinet - Wayfair
4. Pencil Holder - Anthropologie
5. Isaac 1 Light Pendant - School House Electric
6. Disney Records - Ragtime Annies Antiques (Wheat Ridge, CO 80033)
7. Shelves - Ikea
8. Disney Phone - Ragtime Annies Antiques (Wheat Ridge, CO 80033)

Before Images

Progress Images

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1/12/2014

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Flooring
Round 2!

What we thought would be a 2 week project (silly first time home renovators :-) turned into a 6 month adventure. Last we posted our floors were covered in tar. We had two options, spend the time to remove the tar or spend money on sand paper.

We decided to save money and attempt to remove the top layer of tar by hand scraping with a heat gun. As you can imagine this was taking FOR EV ER and our patience was running thin. After a few nights hand scraping and feeling like we weren't getting anywhere, we decided to try sanding.

So Jeff started sanding... sanded some more... and sanded some more...

Even though it took a number of passes, the tar came up relatively easily. Jeff will probably tell you it felt like years but it wasn't long till the first floor was done and ready for stain.

TIP:
When it came to choosing a stain we made sample after sample. (Even though we thought we liked a color it would test different almost every time). We tested a number of stains at different lengths of time. Most apparent on the above sample (fifth from the left) you can see that how long you let the stain set before wiping it down can dramatically change the outcome. This is the same stain but we let the lower half sit a few minutes while the top half only set for about 30 secs.

We decided on Minwax Classic Grey Wood Finish from Home Depot and quickly
realized that even after testing the stain, it was to brown. (stain closest to the window in the image below). So we tested our second favorite Sherwin-Williams Wood Classics - Rustic Grey. (Second from the left in the image above and the stain closet in the image below).

We liked this stain much better and once Jeff re sanded the stain we didn't like it was time to officially start staining!

Staining was much faster then sanding. Jeff applied the stain with a cloth by hand and I would follow a few seconds later to wipe up any extra. We then applied two layers of clear semi gloss sealer. After 6 months of tar, sanding and staining the results are shown below!!

Before

After

Even though it took much much longer and it was a challenge to finish our floors, overall we are happy with the out come and that we decided to do them ourselves! Nothing like learning first hand :-D

Next Up... Baseboards and Concept Sketches for the first floor!!

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First things first, Floors!

4/16/2013

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After closing we could only hold off through our celebration lunch at Wendy's before we had to get to work. We were both eager to see what was under the existing carpet and we found just what we wanted... original hard wood floors!!

We easily removed the carpet in the living room, master, and office, but as we moved into the kitchen we found our first can of new home owner worms. As we started to lift the kitchen flooring we realized that what was underneath could contain asbestos. To be safe we covered the floor with plastic while we did some of our own research.

What we found...
Asbestos is known to cause lung cancer and can be found in materials manufactured from the 1900s to the late 1970s. You can't determine if your materials contain asbestos just by looking at them, but what you can do is send a sample to be tested. We found a great company in California where we mailed our samples and with in days we had our results!

If you are planning to send in samples ...
1. Turn off your heating and cooling system
2. Wear a mask and gloves
3. To reduce fibers getting into the air, have a spray bottle with water to wet down the area you are working.
4. Do not disturb more of the material then you have to.
5. Follow these simple instructions from Western Analytical the company we used) to label and submit your material
6. Cover the exposed area back up until you hear your results.

We sent our samples out on Monday and by Wednesday afternoon our results were emailed to us, no asbestos! With the great news we continued to tear up the existing kitchen floor. Sadly what we discovered was a third layer of material! We quickly packed up a sample of the new layer and by mid week we found out what was really on the floors, not asbestos (relief) but tar (a lot of extra work)!

Needless to say we have been super busy and after 4-5 weeks we are living in the basement till the floors on the first level our done. It could take hours and hours of work but we are hoping to get the tar off and refinish all the wood floors soon. We will of course keep you posted on flooring round 2!

Asbestos follow up
Because removing asbestos can be expensive the best thing to do if your results come back positive is to leave the material as is and put new flooring over the top of it. If you have to remove it make sure you hire a professional.

For more information on asbestos you can start by checking out United States Environmental Protection Agency and Western Analytical.

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office

_____

BASEMENT
BATHROOM

_____

_____

basement
bathroom

Sweet Dreams

home
reno

Before Images

Progress Images

Flooring
Round 2!

First things first, Floors!

Categories

Archives

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office

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BASEMENT​BATHROOM

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_____

basement​bathroom

Sweet Dreams

homereno

Before Images

Progress Images

﻿Flooring Round 2!﻿

First things first, Floors!

Categories

Archives

BASEMENT
BATHROOM

basement
bathroom

home
reno

Flooring
Round 2!