I finished the backsplash Sunday night, and Monday morning the cabinet painter came to take all the doors and tape off the kitchen. a total mess - but at least my cabinets look organized! after a coat of primer and two coats of semi-gloss white paint The doors were sprayed back in his shop, but the base cabinets and drawers were painted on-site. Though the primer/paint fumes were strong we were lucky that the weather was nice enough to have open windows for most of the week. The … [Read more...]
first floor renovations, part V
November 21, 2011
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Since we were changing so many parts of the kitchen, I really wanted to add a decorative tile backsplash as well. I've had the tile purchased for several days and last Sunday Home Depot offered a DIY workshop on how to tile a backsplash. Perfect! Part of the reason I was hesitant on getting started was that I knew it was going to be messy and time consuming. Turns out I was about half-right. There is a great product called simplemat that allows you to peel and stick adhesive to the wall then … [Read more...]
first floor renovations, part IV
November 18, 2011
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The downstairs bathroom has been slowly coming together. The walls needed to be completely redone as the paint was coming off because I didn't properly prime it after tearing off all the wallpaper in 2005. Whoops. the bathroom shares the same horrible sub-floor as the rest of the kitchen area Eric helped me scrape off the peeling areas of paint and after the new floor went in, I finished the spackling, priming and painting. new low-flush toilet and bamboo flooring first round … [Read more...]
first floor renovations, part III
November 17, 2011
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We recently swapped out our old laminate countertop for a beautiful blue-grey quartz. What a change, just as dramatic as the floor transformation. The white trim looks a bit crazy now but they will blend in once the cabinets are painted white. closeup- the blue bits are embedded glass pieces It seems nothing we do around here is without a little drama, and in the case of the countertops it was the sink. I wanted two bowls that were different sizes - the bigger bowl (60%) with the … [Read more...]
first floor renovations, part II
November 1, 2011
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On Tuesday of last week, we began our kitchen floor transformation. It took two days for the guys to tear out the existing floors and about two minutes for everyone to realize that our sub-flooring was decidedly sub-par. Instead of 3/4" plywood, we had 3/8" OSB... OSB subfloor with plywood nailed to it - topped with two layers of the same vinyl Knowing we couldn't put the floor down over the existing subfloor, we had to reinforce the OSB with 1/2" plywood glued and screwed down to try … [Read more...]