Dreaming.....

Looking at flooring has me dreaming again....

I seriously love this kitchen.

From younghouselove's house crasher series.

Love.

What I love the most?  It would work for us if we remodeled and added on.  Almost perfectly.  Picture it.

Floored

Going to look at flooring for the bathroom today.... with hopes of finding something for the long holiday weekend at the end of the month. 

Thoughts?

Hot is having shoulder surgery at the end of the month so this will be his last project before months and months of recovery.  We decided to make it a fun one.  :)  We aren't tackling the laundry room/kitchen/dining.... just the bathroom.

The bathroom has a lot of angles and corners and isn't squared so a snap-in style will be better than sheet stuff.  Not sure what options we have in a bathroom for that.....

If prices are good we might get a new toilet and vanity/sink.  Not touching the tub.... even though my forever goal is to have a tub where my knees and my boobs are under water at the same time.  That seems like too much to do in a 3-day weekend. 

I have light grey walls.  I'd like a dark grey floor.  But I'm thinking I should be careful because the living room floor is dark brown and eventually this will probably be what we get for the rest of the house that meets up with the dark brown... dark brown next to dark grey might not be so good.  How about a medium slate-looking grey?  And dark grey countertops in the kitchen? 

Off to houzz.com to look at images......

I have no idea how to remove/replace/reseal a toilet.... so I will be googling that next.

What it looks like now.....

Funny story about the pink rug.... so I tore out the old carpet and hauled in the brown rug I had carefully washed and spread on the porch to dry.... then I left for the weekend.  I came home Sunday night to a house that smelled.... awful.  Just awful.  Like, "we have to move" awful.

I had one little corner of carpet that was still intact so I tore it out hoping that was the problem.... in the process I stepped on the brown rug.  And realized.  It.  Was.  The.  Problem.

Hot has a theory. He thinks the neighbor's tom cat came over and sprayed it while it was on the porch.  I have no idea how I managed to carry it in the house without noticing.... although I did use a drag method and not actually hug it to my body... that's my excuse.  

So here it is.... carpet free and mostly scrubbed.

We have gone back and forth about refinishing vs carpet.  I don't know what to do.  Here's the challenge to refinishing... this strip of subfloor between the kitchen and 

Also... changed out the entertainment center.... Elle... this is what I am debating painting....

Ugly former entertainment center... worth spray painting?  Turn into kid kitchen?  Send to donation pile?

Keep it like this??

What do YOU do when you hubby goes out of town????

June 8, 2012.  This is my house on a typical Friday night....  BUT.  This was the first time EVER that I'd been home overnight BY MYSELF.  No husband.  No kids.  Hot was on a fire in Melstone and the kids were at Grandma & Grandpa's because we had no daycare. 

And then this happened...

And oh my HELL.... is that DIRT?  Sifty silt.  Horrified.

Good bye pink carpet..... goodbye.....

Holy PEE spots.  Ack.  Ew.  Ugh.  Yes, I washed the clothes I was wearing with color-safe bleach and a double rinse.  And a discovery..... there were spots in places the dog hasn't been... like under furniture.  So, possibly, he has been, in his senile way, marking his territory.  UPDATE:  Dog has not peed on floor since carpet came out.  It is a MIRACLE.  I am no longer going to put "designer of doggy diapers" on my resume due to my stylish manufacturing of adult undergarments from ace bandages and baby diapers....  Now who wants the size 1 Target diapers I have left over?

Here's one of those "Oh shit, what have I done" moments. 

The brown in the middle isn't bad... not loving the reddish stuff they painted the edges with... and all the white stuff seems to come off with scrubbing....

Stay tuned..... there is more to the story.....

Forgive the old photo from when I was painting but here's my next design challenge.  The closet door.

Let's look at it, shall we? 

1.  Notice the fake wood trim on the outside door and baseboards and the painted trim on the closet?  How does that happen?

2.  I'm plotting a built-in where the little desk it.  Probably 24"-36" wide.... cabinet below with pull-out shelves filled with baskets of shoes.  A big (narrow) drawer and 12" deep upper cabinets with doors.  The drawer will become the junk drawer.  The upper cabinets may house my wine glasses and good dishes..... or hats and mittens.  The challenge is figuring out what to do with the phone jack and outlet.... either move them or have part of the cabinet cut out.  But that is in the distant future.

3.  I need ideas about the trim and about the door itself.  I thought of getting a new door but I'd rather repurpose. 

Chalkboard paint
Beadboard
Some sort of trim
Pegboard
Markerboard
Corkboard
Sheet metal
Hooks
Hanging baskets

Here are some more "keeping it real" photos for ya......

Bone... Bone... who knew I loved herringbone?????

traditional bathroom design by san diego interior designer andrea may

First... I love that style of cabinet and color.  Second.... I love those tiles.  Can I have this look in my bathroom please????

More Kitchen Love

traditional kitchen design by san francisco architect Mahoney Architects & Interiors

traditional kitchen design by san francisco architect Mahoney Architects & Interiors

This is a lovely floor plan if we ever do get around to remodeling.  I already have stools like that.  Now I just need white cabinets and wide plank floors.  And about 100 extra square feet or so....

Clever Idea to Create a Closet

traditional kids design by manchester architect LKM Design

I'm saving this idea in case we ever need to give Sweet a closet.  Also... that looks just like the rug he already has in his room.

More Floors

I don't even have a Houzz account but I just love looking.....

I like the flooring in this one and the white cabinets and hardware.  I'd love a big stack of drawers for my pots and pans.

Why do I like white cabinets?  Mostly because I can't figure out how to do wood cabinets and still get wood floors and deal with the wood paneling in the living room all at the same time.

traditional kitchen design by philadelphia interior designer Deborah Leamann

I still dream of kitchens

traditional kitchen design by other metros general contractor Tongue & Groove

Oh picture of a kitchen.  How I love thee.  I've reinvented my kitchen theory.

My original theory was to have a remodeled and bigger kitchen.... same basic layout but with an island instead of a penninsula.  That evolved into an extended kitchen with a penninsula on the end and a rolling cart island.  That's still my ideal.

But now that I've given up on ever adding on (yes, people will be using the peonies as a second bathroom for eternity) I've decided to focus on the remodel concept.

I still have this post as my primary inspiration.

I want (today anyway):

wide plank farmhouse flooring
white cabinets
dark counter tops (but if I had an island or rolling cart I'd want butcher block on it)
stove with gas top/electric oven/microwave above
remove the upper cabinets over the penninsula
lazy susan in both corners (one is currently a 9 inch wide opening that goes all the way back... at a right angle... to the wall.... not cool)

The current "look" is docuemented below... this was actually a photo I took showing the insanity several hours before a party.....  Those upper cabinets must go.  And all that lovely golden oak.... let's paint it white.  Once the uppers are gone... does the corner cabinet and appliance garage stay?  Or get replaced by a slightly awkward-to-reach regular cabinet?  Hmmmm.

So, left side... doorway to laundry room, fridge, 24" of counter with drawers under it, stove w/micro above, lazy susan in corner.  Front and right bottom views stay the same (although the little 9" cabinet on the left will be a lazy susan and not the horror it is now.... I can tell this is an old photo because the microwave in the wall hasn't died yet and the old black dishwasher is there.


This was the kitchen the day we first looked at the house....  I'm sad to see how much HASN'T changed....

Because we KNOW how to have fun......

We got crazy a few weeks ago..... I came down the stairs and Hot was sitting in the recliner.... one hand on the carpet cleaner and the other holding a sheetrock knife.  He was staring at this corner.  You can see which plan won out......

First came the emptying of the armoire.  Then the moving of the furniture.  Then tearing the carpet.   THE SMELL.  I love my dog but the senile old shithead has been pissing in the corner.  Ew. 

I cleaned it up but there were a lot of things going on..... strange floral stuff..... what is that?  It is wood.  And the little bits and pieces..... explains why the floor rolls....

Here's a shot the captures it all.... grey, red, dull red, floral, unpainted.  And the chocolate brown stuff that I painted last summer.

You can see that project here, here, here, here, here and here.

At this point we had two options..... we could paint the floor a lovely chocolate brown.  We have the paint.  We have the primer.  It takes WEEKS to dry and smells like hell.  Or we can do some sort of manufactured flooring.... Due to the uneven floors we are afraid to do true laminate but there are some vinyl options.... so off to Lowe's we go.....

 And home we come with 4 boxes of 6x36 vinyl planks.  We start install.  We've done this before.  We put laminate flooring in our house in town.  We are a team.  This stuff is crazy.... it isn't anchored AT ALL to the floor.  The planks just stick to each other.  There should be a 1/8" space all the way around to allow for expansion and contraction.  We couldn't do that because there is no trim on the walls with the paneling.  So we shoved it in hard and played with it..... sounds familiar, doesn't it??  Hot put down the lines and I opened boxes, laid out the rows, took off protective paper and picked up the tape papers he was tossing.  We should have put down a chalk line and we should have used carpet tape to hold things firm but we used the lines of the existing floor as a guide and since it was shoved in solid we didn't use tape. 

It went in super-fast.  Our space is 5'x13+' so it wasn't big.  This stuff is easy to cut.... you use a straight edge and score it with a sheetrock knife and then snap it.  Easy.

And here it is all in and the furniture back in place.  The transitions took some time.... specifically getting up the guts to make the angled cuts.  We used two big pieces of transition and one small. 

Now for the juicy budget breakdown....  We spent about, eh, $50 or so on transition.... two 6' and one 3' pieces... we had two doorways and the angle seen above.  We returned the carpet tape (but it would have cost us $10) and we used 3 boxes of planks (about $37 each).  We would have spent that much in carpet cleaner in short order so I think it was worth it.  It has been several weeks and it still looks good.  The material is Surface Source Classic Chestnut and can be found at Lowe's.