• Women skiers, this is the place for you -- an online community without the male-orientation you'll find in conventional ski magazines and internet ski forums. At TheSkiDiva.com, you can connect with other women to talk about skiing in a way that you can relate to, about things that you find of interest. Be sure to join our community to participate (women only, please!). Registration is fast and simple. Just be sure to add [email protected] to your address book so your registration activation emails won't be routed as spam. And please give careful consideration to your user name -- it will not be changed once your registration is confirmed.

Anyone else doing some home improvement projects?

Pequenita

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
What was the secret to her choice of whites? I am building and chose 2 different whites. Been agonizing for months and can still change it since we are a team of 2 building the house.

I think what narrowed the choice down a lot are (1) the designer was working with a particular brand of paint; (2) she was matching the walls with the existing doors, fireplace mantel, and trim; and (3) I knew I wanted a warm tone but did not want it to look dingy. So literally all she did was walk around with the paint card and hold it up to the trim in all the rooms to make sure it looked okay with the light. It worked out well, and I'm pleased.

My best friend also recently had her whole house repainted, and she gave me her paint sheet (also all white walls) so I could see the colors her designer had chosen for the walls, trim, ceiling, etc. My friend gravitates towards the color of sheet rock. Heheh.

I don't think I could choose the "right" white without already having a starting point, although I had been doing a bit of research on the different shades.

Your project looks amazing!
 

snoWYmonkey

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
@Pequenita I am so amused by your friend liking sheetrock as a color. I like the cheaper of the two primers available at our lumber yard and the paint mixer, an avid skier, mixed up a white that matches the primer and that is the white in the studio above the garage. He is my off snow hero.

I miss skiing. Still, I am so excited to get back to finishing this construction project. 0312211340c.jpg
 

Abbi

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
We're remodeling our kitchen. I went to the Restore Store and found about 3 grand in Fireclay Tile for $150 bucks. I almost fainted. That is really helping the budget since I was all set to pull the trigger on the tile anyway. More money for skiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggggggg

Thank you for posting that! And I never heard of this before.
 

MissySki

Angel Diva
Yup! I got black and a few blue, but check them out.
https://www.fireclaytile.com/

Ohh that's gorgeous! Usually I prefer more natural/imperfect/rough stone, but I'm digging some of this stuff. So bright and playful shapes. My mind is on overdrive for a couple of years from now when I redo the kitchen area of the ski condo I just purchased. It's a very small kitchen area, so it would be easy to "splurge" on a cool backsplash and not break the bank at all. Fun to think about.
 

Iwannaski

Angel Diva
@Abbi ... that's like a whole ski trip you saved yourself. Maybe some REnoun Earhart's? new boots? new jacket? bibs? What a score. I think I would have yelped.
 

Jilly

Moderator
Staff member
I work on the commercial side of construction and everything is going up. Just got a update from our toilet partition people...15% in July. Steel doors have already gone up 10% (that's fire doors, not your household steel doors). I'm expecting wood doors soon too. Already availability is long for them.
 

Kimmyt

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
We have our whole upstairs painted white, I basically got a bunch of the chips and held them up in different lights and then narrowed it down to 3-5, got samples of each and slapped them on each wall. I love the way the white I chose turned out, perfectly neutral and clean feeling but also warm. I've gotten so used to my open space white walls that colors are harder for me now!

I just just did a mini-refresh of my dining area in a light olive green. Since the whole upstairs is open, with the dining area opening to the kitchen, I could really only do a sort of accent wall (I don't really like accent walls, but in open space its accent wall or paint the whole dang thing) and in this case I think it works. I wanted a darker moody olive but the room doesn't get enough light to pull it off, and it was too great of a contrast with the white walls. We also hung the new chandelier, some larger scale art and then I stained and finished the wood shelving where we store our games. I've also recently upgraded the crappy rubbermaid cart I was using as a catch-all for the kids homework and school supplies and there is a black metal cart there with some nicer looking felted baskets on it now to hold the papers.
C1EFD75E-F488-45EF-B61E-65F6AF7997B9_1_105_c.jpeg

Next up this summer I plan to start putting in a new patio and tearing out an overgrown planting bed. I've never done a patio before so I'm intending to do it in baby steps, starting with the path from the gate to the patio. I'm not sure if I can do it in chunks like that or if its better to do it all at once, but its a big enough space that doing the whole thing sounds overwhelming and I don't really want to pay 20k for a patio if I can do the hard labor myself and just buy materials, as long as I can do it fairly well.
 

newboots

Angel Diva
Next up this summer I plan to start putting in a new patio and tearing out an overgrown planting bed. I've never done a patio before so I'm intending to do it in baby steps, starting with the path from the gate to the patio. I'm not sure if I can do it in chunks like that or if its better to do it all at once, but its a big enough space that doing the whole thing sounds overwhelming and I don't really want to pay 20k for a patio if I can do the hard labor myself and just buy materials, as long as I can do it fairly well.

Keep a lengthy level handy!
 

vickie

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I put in a paver walkway from driveway to house in Portland. My biggest issue was I did not want to get into cutting pavers. The guy at the paver shop said it couldn't be done. I had a weird situation to begin with -- the walkway had to run diagonally, so I had to get creative.

I used those styrofoam-like pads so I didn't have to dig out as much and fill with sand. They worked really well, but there is no substitute for level and sand will level easier than you'll ever get dirt to do.

If you plan to have a step down from your patio to the walkway, you can probably do them separately. In my case, the walkway had to angle down as the driveway was lower than the house.

It was kind of a fun project, mainly because I had never even seen pavers laid before. Lots of research and planning, then creating a new-to-me product.

I wonder if it's still there, or if the new owners had it torn out and a nice, narrow, diagonal concrete walkway poured.
 
Last edited:

Abbi

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
@Abbi ... that's like a whole ski trip you saved yourself. Maybe some REnoun Earhart's? new boots? new jacket? bibs? What a score. I think I would have yelped.

Believe it or not I think I am set for a bit on everything! I’d love to put some money into my house but right now just does not seem the right time. And I have to wait for my boat repair bill! Usually I sit down before I look at that!
 

Cyclone6

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Here are some partially-after pics of the rooms I shared last week. I say partially because the carpet still hasn't been replaced...and that's been delayed until just a few days before we have to be out of our rental. Ugh.
PXL_20210430_235449317.jpg
PXL_20210502_015307179_copy1.jpg
 

Attachments

  • PXL_20210502_015307179.MP.jpg
    PXL_20210502_015307179.MP.jpg
    448.3 KB · Views: 1

Eera

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Ooh yeah, big time. Just did a kitchen reno. The dudes who built the house seemed to either run out of money or interest after the build and the original kitchen was just cheap - horrid cooktop and wood effect laminate throughout. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, so I wanted a really good oven. I'm also a geologist so wanted stone everywhere.

I built the kitchen around the splashback (Marmara marble) and the oven. The bench surface I put in as I kind of liked it in pictures and couldn't find anything I loved like I did the spashback. Unfortunately when it arrived it turned out to be kind of soft and damages easily (Andalusite mica schist - I actually got it thin sectioned and looked at it under a petrological microscope).

Overall I'm really happy. In hindsight I should have paid attention to an interior designer friend who told me to find the colour I liked for the cabinets, then then go a shade lighter as they are a bit dark. But I can live with it.
 

Attachments

  • kitchen1.jpg
    kitchen1.jpg
    69.9 KB · Views: 38
  • kitchen2.jpg
    kitchen2.jpg
    63.6 KB · Views: 38
  • kitchen3.jpg
    kitchen3.jpg
    70.2 KB · Views: 39
  • kitchen4.jpg
    kitchen4.jpg
    79.6 KB · Views: 39

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
26,235
Messages
497,611
Members
8,503
Latest member
MermaidKelly
Top