House Remodeling Thread (long)

[NoNo]

Oh, reading this is making me so excited to move into my house! I close in about 3 weeks, my first home. I'd always rented and been happy with it, but lately I've been feeling crammed in my space what with trying to run a business out of it. I'd always assumed I couldn't afford to buy in my area as it's super expensive. Even my realtor said my price range was really for condos, but I was sure I could find a house that wasn't a total dump. Sure enough, on my third trip out, I found a cute little cape that's in move-in condition. The only real issue is the kitchen, it's the original one from the 50's, including the appliances. I debated over whether I wanted to fix it right away or wait, and I'm going to wait until I can save up the money. I may have to buy an oven, but that can always be put into the new kitchen when that gets done. I think I'll do a few little landscaping changes this summer, and a little painting, but that's it. I need to recover financially before I start making a bunch of changes. But I'm SO SO excited to get in there and make it mine! I need to read through this whole thread and gain from your collective wisdom.

[rebeccaC]

Nice choices ny biker….it does look like the quartz has a carrera look! The only things I’ve done, and that was before moving in, are some painting, changing a carpet area to wool and installing dimmers on ALL lights!!!.....but then I’m a candle person too.

Enjoy the ownership journey NoNo….if I had more time I’d luv to be able to build equity through my own major remolding work on a home. There are some interesting looking really well made new retro looking kitchen appliances being used in some of the remolding here. A friend did a small older beach house here that way and it works/looks great. If you’re so inclined you might want to look into that for ideas too.

[NoNo]

Well it took longer and was more frustrating than I'd expected, but I'm finally in my house! The work has begun to freshen things up and get settled. Here are some before pics.

The dining room:


The far end of the living room with the massive wardrobe:


The other end of the living room with the alcove:


My bedroom:

[NoNo]

And here are some after shots. Mind you, I've been there less than two weeks, so I think I'm making good progress. But upstairs is going to take a LONG time to paint. There's just too much dark blue trim to paint over.

The dining room. Just a fresh coat of paint was needed:


The near end of the living room. Fresh paint and a new comfy couch and chair!


The bedroom, partially painted. Going with grey and white. Look at all those slats that have to be painted! ACK!


The far end of the living room, with the wardrobe removed and put in the basement:


The alcove. Put on a coat of kilz and stained the edges. Still not sure how I feel about it.


Other improvements include a new lantern outside, new sconces in the bedrooms, a new faucet in the kitchen, lots of hedges clipped, and my friend cracked the code to the safe in the basement! Oh, and I set up my new soaping room for the business! So awesome to not have to share that space now. Eventually I have to paint the guest room and there's still more unpacking to do, but it's moving along. Some day I'll remodel the kitchen, and some footings need to be added to the deck, but that's all the house really needs. I don't know how to pace myself, though, I just want to do it all now. That's not going to work.

[rebeccaC]

nice...congrats!!!! don't know about kilz but I do like a whitewash look on the alcove. you photos show some nice floors and some nice details upstairs. looks like a lot of painting, when do you work on it and do you enjoy a remolding focus?

[ny biker]

Very nice!!

[missjean]

I like your dining room, it's so nice and sunny!

[ny biker]

So I'm working on "the last big project" in my condo. It's time to rip out the ugly dirty old wall to wall carpeting and get new floors. This will be for the living room/dining area, the bedroom and the hallway in between -- the entire apartment except for the kitchen and bathroom. I had been looking into new hardwood, but then decided that cork would be a good choice because it provides better sound insulation and also is a bit warmer underfoot. It took some effort but I found several local floor places that do a fair amount of cork installations -- most places either don't carry it at all or they carry one brand and make it pretty clear when you talk to them that they really just want to deal with wood floors or carpet. Three of the places I found are in the Maryland suburbs north of DC which is not convenient to my home or office, so I can only go there on Saturdays. Fortunately there is also one installer located a few miles from my house.

So I drove up to Maryland several times, looking at samples, borrowing them to look at at home, returning the samples, having long talks with the people who worked there to try to understand the features of cork. I'm looking at getting a click-lock floating floor. The hard part is finding the right color. I would like a medium brown, not light but not too dark either. I've seen some dark brown samples that are really nice and rich looking but I've heard that dark floors show dirt and I am too lazy when it comes to housekeeping -- I prefer to spend my time riding my bike. Also I think dark brown would look okay with the green walls in the LR/DR but would seem heavy in the bedroom with the light blue walls. So, medium brown. But here's the hard part -- many shades of medium brown have strong red, yellow or orange undertones which I don't like -- they don't look right with the cool paint colors that I've chosen.

After much perusal I thought I'd found a near-perfect shade -- Dark Oak from Duro-Design. But then I found out that it comes unfinished and has to be finished on-site, which will cost more to install and will mean I'll have to wait 10 days for it to cure before I can put the area rugs in, which adds the expense of hiring someone to help me move the furniture around to put down the rugs. More important, Duro-Design says it needs to be refinished every 5-7 years and I don't have the time or money to pack up my house and refinish the entire floor that often. I mean really, that's just impractical.

So back to square one. My choices are: go with a darker brown and accept that fact that it shows dirt and is too dark for the bedroom; go with something lighter than I really wanted which won't really look right with my dark brown and black furniture (and also tends to show dirt, from what I've heard); or give up on cork and get hardwood.

Right now all I know for sure is that I have to drive back up to Maryland on Saturday to look the samples again.