Laundry room update

Hello all. With the walls patched and painted and the electrical and plumbing work done we could turn to renovating our new laundry room.

The first step was making all of the floor the same height, that meant some .25-inch plywood where the shower stall was to match the linoleum and a plug (attached from the crawlspace below) to fill the former toilet drain.

Then it was tiling time. We used the same style as we did in the current (and to-be former) laundry room. One benefit of switching the rooms is that we'll get to see more of this tile in the future mudroom.

For what seemed like a small room this took a lot of tile (and tiling) perhaps because of the additional floor space where the shower stall used to be. After cementing the tiles in place the next day was for grouting. This can look kinda messy because you want to make sure you get grout into all the crevasses between the tiles.

After letting the grout dry for a day, much of the next day was spent removing the excess (aka "grout haze") with water and vinegar.

The last step before we could move the machines and arrange storage was to install baseboard, a topic we've mentioned before helps finish a room.

Until next time.

Laundry transformation

Hello all. Regular readers will recall that a little while back we revamped the laundry/mudroom. We liked what we did and don't plan to change it. When it came time to tackle the third (and final) bathroom a realization dawned on us. 

Why were we preserving three bathrooms in a house where two are plenty? And would we be satisfied in the long run doing our laundry in a hallway? What we settled on answered both questions. We'd transform this...

...into a dedicated laundry room. This would also give us a roomier mudroom entrance. We actually started going down the route of renovating the bathroom--take out the old toilet, vanity, and other odds and ends; patch and repaint.

It was when we were planning to tile that we had the idea to switch this. That required some work, namely new water lines for the washer, a drain for the washer, a 220v outlet for the dryer, an air exhaust vent for the dryer, and tying off the unneeded water lines and drains. Oh and removal of the shower stall.

We farmed these jobs out so they'd get done in a couple days instead of taking us a week or more. We also subcontracted out the drywall repair. Those of you who know how to repair walls are shaking your heads. We understand, but we also know our limitations and we'd never get these walls to look nice.

Then we jumped back into the project by priming and painting the walls and ceiling. They look shiny in these photos because the paint wasn't dry yet. Who likes to watch paint dry?

After this diversion we've got the room back to the point where we can turn to tiling the floor.

Until next time.

Starting a new room

Hello all. I know what you're thinking when you see a room like this. "It's perfect, I wouldn't change a thing."

Even after we took off the wallpaper border; patched the walls; and removed the carpet, baseboard heater, and wall covers many of you will say, "It's a beauty."

I hate to break it to you, but we respectfully disagree and started tackling this bedroom. Our first step was to lay down our 3/8" boards to raise the height to match the rest of the first floor.

Next we prepped the walls by sanding then washing the walls with water and vinegar to get off any grime and grease. There were fingerprints on the walls that we know weren't ours.

Then came a coat of primer to help tame the vibrant green.

Then we hit a snag. Our original choice of color was a Sherwin-Williams tone called "Sumptuous Peach." Online and in the color sample book it looked great with the other colors on the floor. In the flesh it left a little something to be desired because it looked like, well, the old Crayola crayon color called "flesh."

Fortunately we caught this before we got too far and also fortunately there's a SW store nearby. Our second choice is called "Honey Blush" and we like it much better. It's a warm, summery color perfect for a cottage at the lake.

Until next time.

Inch by inch...

Hello all. When we left our heroes they were on the precipice of a threshold...let's pick up the story.

With our board routered we cut it to fit at the top of the stairs and used our sunken screws + dowel rods trick. Can you tell it didn't look rounded before?

Actually before we did this work we painted the risers with primer plus two coats of semi-gloss white. Since we wanted to keep the treads nice and clean we used painters tape to protect them. Working in such a small space (a tread is only about 1x3 feet) it can be a little difficult to maneuver. To quote the taper, doing this was "a pain in the patootie" that took much longer than you think and about the same amount to get it all off afterward.

With the top step all set we could turn back to the lower landing. Unlike above we started with the bullnose edge piece because that acted like a door threshold to give us a straight edge.

After that it was a matter of nailing down our precut (one size fits all) boards. 

Oh yeah, the little closet needed flooring as well.

That left the first step as the final step (kinda ironical). The length was fine, but we had to decide how to get around the irregular parts on the right side and what to do around the corner.

To solve the first we cut a bit of the white trim to give us simpler angles and then used the jigsaw to cut notches out of the tread to fit.

Then we got a little fancy because we realized it would look a lot better for there to be a rounded edge around the corner. That required more practice because as noted before the treads are 1-inch thick. Fortunately we had a lot of spare ends that we'd cut off of our 4-foot treads to fit our 3-foot stairs. We got it to the point that you could hardly tell the difference between our edge and the one that the factory made along the front.

Then we secured it as we had all the other treads.

And here's how the entire landing looked.

There's still a good bit of sanding and finishing, but we're pleased with the progress so far.

Until next time.