Spring remodeling

[Kimmyt]

So, to pass our time recently (and to cure boredom due to injuries and whatnot) The Boy and I have been redoing our kitchen. Mostly it's in pretty good shape, aside from the hideous linoleum and wallpaper that covered the whole bottom floor.

Well, the last of the wallpaper is gone, and here is our new happy grass green kitchen!

We still have a few more minor things to do in there, but overall the job cost us just a few days of time, $23 in paint, and maybe $10 in tarps, etc., that we didn't have.

Happy green kitchen!

Anyone else got any projects right now?

 

[MaineSkiLady]

I like that color! Nice job! And HOORAY to another DIY home remodeler!! Thought I was solo in that regard, what with all the talk of cruises, trips to Sardinia () and pending diva summits---and that I'd be the only one DIY/slaving in my houses all summer and happy if I get across a state line for the next few months.

Removing wallpaper....what a FUN job.....NOT. Elbow grease, inc. Supposedly a new product coming out on the market (or already here) that makes this job easier?? Read about it today and already forgot name. I have an entire first floor of mostly hideous wallpaper and absolutely dread the task....

How's THIS for gruesome: wallpaper that has been sized/treated and PAINTED OVER ??? Stayed tuned, it's coming off. Fortunately, just a bathroom.

Did you do the kitchen floor as well?

 

[marge]

Oooooh! I LOVE that color! My kitchen was supposed to be sage green but ended up a big too "Martha Stewart" minty green. :Cry: I've lived with it for six years but you've given me the inspiration to maybe finally fix it!

Nice kitchen!

 

[Kimmyt]

Yeah. We've been pretty busy with attending people's weddings and stuff, but I have a finger injury so can't climb and aside from training for our tri we have been trying to get the house stuff done while we have a bit of time. We tend to do 'guerrila remodeling', where we randomly decide to do a room and then try and get it done in a few weekends. We stripped paper last weekend and patched after work. The tape, primer and paint was all done in one very, very long day. Today I got to 'rest' by doing a 50 mile bike ride, and The Boy took the tape off, so it was a nice surprise to come home to a cleaned kitchen.

We are waiting to do the floor because the entire house is carpeted in hideous dark green stuff covered in the previous owner's pet stains, so eventually we will have the even bigger DIY task of laying wood laminate downstairs. We're going to do a similar shade of laminate to the wood cabinets.

In the next few weeks we will be putting in a tile backsplash in the kitchen and doing the final bits like hardware. Then I wash my hands of it!

MSL, we rented a wallpaper steamer and used that. It worked pretty nicely but the paper was the thick self-stick kind so it seemed to peel off pretty easily. I can't even imagine removing paint-covered wallpaper!

marge we were torn between a nice tame light mint green and this more wild color. I love color, so I was all about the brightness. I was a bit worried it'd be too bright, but I think it's a nice color. You do have to be careful with some greens though because they sometimes seem either too minty like you mentioned or almost fluorescent.

Good luck both of you ladies!

 

[geargrrl]

$33! wow that's great.

We just took a bathroom down to the studs and put it back together again. I WISH it was only $300. We did 95% of our ourselves and it looks great. Problems is now the other two ( original from 1979) bathrooms look like total crap.

 

[geargrrl]

We've done about 1600 ft sq of laminate in the last 3 years. If you use a good quality product, and a few of the correct tips and tools, it can go really fast. I was SO happy to see our carpet go. I love having hard surfaces to clean. If you want some tips let me know. We have a friend who's a pro flooring guy who lined us out. (NEVER use the stuff from Coscto was his big tip)

gg

 

[Bravosarah]

Anyone else got any projects right now?

That's almost the same colour of paint in our kitchen! We're doing our cupboards and countertop this summer. I'll post before and after photos when we're done.

 

[altagirl]

This is where my husband and I struggle- I only want to remodel in winter, since we stay home (almost never do an overnight trip to go skiing). In summer, we travel all the time to mountain bike and I hate wasting a good weekend remodeling.

He's come up with a huge list of things to do to the house though... new front door, replace a lot of the wood on the deck, totally remodel the master bathroom (the only room in the house left that we haven't totally remodeled yet)... I'm insisting that the bathroom remodel wait until winter, but the rest I know we'll have to do during the summer.

But - in the past year and a half, we've already redone 100% of the flooring in the house with hardwood, slate and tile, added a new bathroom in the basement, remodeled the guest bathroom completely, put in new countertops and added a slate backsplash, redid all the trim work throughout the house and painted all the doors in the house (from dark fake wood color to white - you don't want to know how many coats of paint that takes!), painted a few rooms, finished the basement...

I do want to finish the last bathroom, but it's getting a little old. I want a break! And my husband wants to tear out a wall in the living room to make a bar. Um...

 

[marge]

I was SO happy to see our carpet go. I love having hard surfaces to clean.

Oooooh! You must not have pets. Our entire first floor is Cherry hardwood and it looks like the wild west most times (Golden Retreiver/cat hair tumbleweeds blowing around). I love the upstairs as at least the carpet hides it.

I'm not kidding when I tell you that this time of years when the animals are blowing their winter coats I literally have to vaccuum twice a day! :Cry: I don't have time for that!

 

[marge]

Crud Altagirl! You just reminded me that I have to refinish the deck this year. It's 40 X 16 and another 12 X 14 with almost 300 spindles that I had to paint white.

 

[MaineSkiLady]

We've done about 1600 ft sq of laminate in the last 3 years. If you use a good quality product, and a few of the correct tips and tools, it can go really fast. I was SO happy to see our carpet go. I love having hard surfaces to clean. If you want some tips let me know. We have a friend who's a pro flooring guy who lined us out. (NEVER use the stuff from Coscto was his big tip)

gg

Will keep you in mind - hoping to do a 12 x 12 bedroom (used as office), time-permitting, yet this summer/fall. Will need product advice. Current flooring is sheet vinyl (in a bedroom.....). Really would rather not tear it out. (possible asbestos content)

We also wound up having to do the same bathroom-to-studs thing a few years ago and are in similar circumstances regarding how the other original one now looks (dating to 1975). We, appropriately, call it "That 70's Bathroom." It had some kind of absurd floral earth tone wallpaper that later got some wacko sizing put on it then was painted over. Tear-out pending. Expecting to find much rot/mildew ad nauseam.

One room at a time....

 

[altagirl]

Oooooh! You must not have pets. Our entire first floor is Cherry hardwood and it looks like the wild west most times (Golden Retreiver/cat hair tumbleweeds blowing around). I love the upstairs as at least the carpet hides it.

I'm not kidding when I tell you that this time of years when the animals are blowing their winter coats I literally have to vaccuum twice a day! :Cry: I don't have time for that!

We have ZERO carpet in the house now and large dog and a long haired cat. Roomba is the answer (the little robot vaccuum thing). Well... that and just not worrying about the dust bunnies that live under the sofa. ;)

I am totally in love with not having carpet. After tearing carpet out of two houses in the past several years... the nastiness hiding under carpet is really revolting (and the people we bought the house from were serious clean freaks). I don't ever want carpet again.

 

[geargrrl]

Oooooh! You must not have pets. Our entire first floor is Cherry hardwood and it looks like the wild west most times (Golden Retreiver/cat hair tumbleweeds blowing around). I love the upstairs as at least the carpet hides it.

I'm not kidding when I tell you that this time of years when the animals are blowing their winter coats I literally have to vaccuum twice a day! :Cry: I don't have time for that!

We had a Golden until last year. And yes, I'd rather SEE the dog hair and the crumbs and the dust and clean it up ( thank god for vacuum swiffers and microfiber dust mops) than pretend its' not there because it's getting ground into the carpet.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not an eat off the floor house cleaner type - but having hard surfaces has been great. Our allergies are down, the dust is down, and I think the floors are cleaner. I absolutely hated to vacuum, but I don't mind five minutes every day and knowing that most of the crud is gone.

Also, we had a carpeted eating area. OMG, that was so gross. Especially with kids. At least now I can see whats on the floor an clean it up.

But yah - with dog hair and hardwoord you can see the air currents and air "eddys" in the house.

 

[geargrrl]

We have ZERO carpet in the house now and large dog and a long haired cat. Roomba is the answer (the little robot vaccuum thing). Well... that and just not worrying about the dust bunnies that live under the sofa. ;)

I am totally in love with not having carpet. After tearing carpet out of two houses in the past several years... the nastiness hiding under carpet is really revolting (and the people we bought the house from were serious clean freaks). I don't ever want carpet again.

I'd kill for a roomba but my family thinks I am nuts.
and totally agree with you about carpet. Until you've ripped it up, you have no idea how dirty even "clean" carpet is.

 

[persee]

Oh my... this is a thread for me... We've been in our house almost 7 years and there is always a project that needs doing. We've done some ourselves, but others we've chosen to pay a professional - especially when it comes to laying ceramic tile!

So as to our projects - I think I've painted all but 1 room in the house, well two if you count our walkin/office. A couple of spaces have been done twice! In one a of the painting endeavors I have had the pleasure of removing painted over wall paper. Luckily it was mostly so old that it was more than happy to fall off the wall given a bit of encouragement! We pulled carpets out of a couple of rooms - one got a new carpet, another will get a new carpet, and a third area/room got done in armstrong wood-look laminate. This Armstrong stuff was a great product and had the sound/shock absorber stuff already attached to the back - really saved the mess/stress of trying to lay it down before. It was quick (relatively) and easy to put down and I really like the look. Unfortunately I think they may have stopped making it. Either way definitely consider Armstrong's laminate products if you're going for a floating floor. We've been very happy with ours, installed 5ish years ago!. Another project we've done ourselves was a partial kitchen remodel as we moved in - ripped out the nasty 70s yellow counter, castiron sink, broken dishwasher and mini-range, as well as the hideous brick backsplash. Then put in new drywall where the brick backsplash was and painted it, then got nice new granite counter tops installed even making our center island bigger and more usable.

As I mentioned earlier we've hired professionals to do remodels (down to the studs) on our master and half bath/laundry room, as well as install ceramic tile floors in two other locations, and rebuild our rotting away from the house 1 storey up deck. Sure we paid more but these were not jobs that DH and I could have done easily.

Sure do know the feeling about remodelling a bathroom and then hating the non-remodelled one - we have a hideous second full bath that we keep debating what to do with - its got the original 70s ugly blue tub. We had the blue toilet ripped out before we'd lived in the house a year! and it's got an ugly vanity with dual indigo sinks! ick! Eventually it will get done, but since no one uses it now it can wait!

Externally we've also hired roofers to put a new roof on and contracted out the siding to have new claps and cedar shingles done. Also hired a mason to build us a beautiful stone retaining wall and steps/porch faced with bluestone.

As for projects to keep us busy well we've been completely overhauling our yard bit-by-bit for the last year. Every weekend I spend numerous hours outside working on weeding or some other part of the big picture. We've been doing a lot of weed-blocking and mulching of areas to make them cleaner and more maintainable. We did a bunch of work removing moss and reseeding our front yard a couple weeks ago and then trying to trim and thin trees and remove deadfall in our yard as well. Last year we did a ton of planting. The projects really never end when you own a home!

Oh and our master bath is a lovely shade of "spring green" that is just great for a bath that we had built with an air tub (too bad I don't have time to use it often enough!). Our laundry room is another shade of green (pale as well) and our master br is painted the nicest shade of ice blue - very cooling/peaceful for sleep. Just the tiniest amount blue but I love it. Other rooms are just shades of off white. I like a little color but not too much!

 

[persee]

OH and I totally agree about not having carpets any place other than bedrooms! We have kitties and I love them... but unfortunately carpets are just magnets for fur (etc). Much easier to clean up hard floors - laminate, tile, hardwood!

Oh and we do have a roomba. We like it! If you've got a setup where the roomba can just roam the whole floor it's a great idea. Ours however spooks the kitties so we have to be home when it's running and paying attention!

 

[Kimmyt]

geargrrl, i will definitely think of you when we're doing the laminate! OUr downstairs is 4 rooms that all kind of flow together, so we will be doing all 700 square feet of it. It will be a lot of work, but it is the only thing that needs done since we painted everything.

We have a lumber liquidators near us, and they have a nice thick (12mm) laminate with the good backing on it for around $2/sq.ft. Ideally I think I would like bamboo but it's just not cost effective for our current townhouse.

Also, if anyone has tips on putting in tile backsplashes, that is our next thing... I'm looking around now to price tiles. I really want a subway tile, but find that they seem to be more expensive and I'm worried about the difficulty of keeping the pattern right and not making it look funny...

K.

 

[MaineSkiLady]

Also, if anyone has tips on putting in tile backsplashes, that is our next thing... I'm looking around now to price tiles. I really want a subway tile, but find that they seem to be more expensive and I'm worried about the difficulty of keeping the pattern right and not making it look funny...

K.

FWIW, use epoxy grout - much more waterproof than regular grout. Choose your grout color carefully - I have found that light grout is, in the long run, more trouble than it's worth in terms of keeping clean, etc.

Had a big tile floor here with grout from he** (in terms of color and subsequent grime) and did NOT want to tear it all out. Found a grout colorant, took a leap of faith, redid the entire thing last summer. Wow, talk about labor-intensive... But SOOOO worth it!! Can't speak to longevity of said colorant, but the before/after pics are jaw-dropping. LOVE when things turn out!

Also love that this thread got started, thanks k! Somehow, I just can't relate to the summer trip/cruises thread because every extra dollar here gets dumped into this house....not to mention sweat equity.

 

[geargrrl]

geargrrl, i will definitely think of you when we're doing the laminate! OUr downstairs is 4 rooms that all kind of flow together, so we will be doing all 700 square feet of it. It will be a lot of work, but it is the only thing that needs done since we painted everything.

We have a lumber liquidators near us, and they have a nice thick (12mm) laminate with the good backing on it for around $2/sq.ft. Ideally I think I would like bamboo but it's just not cost effective for our current townhouse.

With the laminate, the backing is only part of it. Most of it is a high an image, onto glorified cardboard, with a high density polyurethane surface coating on it. The coatings can vary from 2 or 3 mm to 10-15 mm ( iirc) and this is a big component in how much wear you are going to get. Also, it affects how well it will hold up to impacts and scratches.

The cheap stuff usually has a pretty minimal coating on it - thats why its' cheap. We helped a friend do his after we'd done ours, and his flooring was so cheap it was literally breaking off while we did the install! Ew!!! He was selling his house so he didn't care.

You'll want to find out the AC rating of what you are looking at ( AC1, 2, 3 ) each rating is about 60% stronger for wear than the previous one. An AC2 is 60% more wear than and AC1, AC3 is 60% more strong than AC2.

Sorry, you didn't ask for all this now, I'll stop.

Here's a pretty good FAQFAQ

 

[MaineSkiLady]

Actually, thanks much for posting it. This is info I will use when purchasing for intended floor here (not huge, 12 x 12). Downstairs here is original Pergo, holding up well despite some installation glitches (previous owners). There are now so many more manufacturers getting into this game, it can all be a bit confounding. I will use this info!