Living floors - done!

The day after Thanksgiving, our flooring contractor contacted to say he could squeeze us in to start the hardwood on Saturday, and finish Monday. We were so excited! But, he advised that the kitchen floor was too damaged on Saturday morning to refinish. The floors shown here were scrubbed down hard from the plaster dust.

Sanding, replacing damaged boards, and staining took the crew most of Saturday, and due to a blizzard on Sunday/Monday night, they were not finished until Tuesday. Anna and I rode out on Wednesday to see and were greeted with the faint fragrance of clear coat and the most beautiful, sleek, perfect floors I could have hoped for! We took some measurements, photos, considered layout, and stopped at a diner before heading home for the evening.

The big downer of the kitchen floor was a weak area near the stair wall. Underneath the dishwasher, we found a plywood platform and no water damage near the sink, so have come to believe this was pertaining to the dishwashing area. Water seems to have pooled underneath the existing tile and stayed there for some time, with the tile, mortar, and underlayment providing some support, but not enough once the tile was removed and the impact showed damage there. We hate the delay in our kitchen progress, but also know there is always time to correct the problem, and most importantly, we can walk away and come home after a few days of camping out!

While discouraged at the state of the kitchen floor, we have taken his advice, continued to evaluate the extent of damage and research our options, and do agree it is best to replace down to the subfloor entirely. A floor built for the kitchens of 80 years ago will not likely hold up to the weight of modern appliances, substantially more cabinetry, and we don't want the tile to crack due to settling from that weight, so... onward!

Demolished

A week after we closed, my gal pal Anna rode over to do some measurements and see our place with me. I super, super scooby-doo-ed her into help me investigate where we could demo and then whoops! Into opening up some walls.

We had found a few areas that would make much more sense if we removed walls, and needed to do so for the flooring to be done. We found simple 2x4 framing under plaster boards and a coat of plaster, but no lath. About ten contractor bags full of material came down (not full, Superman had not come along for the day) and we succeeded in opening up the bottom of stairs and half of the wall into second bedroom from living room.

I should explain that the stairs required turning to exit or enter from the kitchen, a place I don't believe extra traffic should be directed. We plan to close this area off and in already the airflow and light is much better in the middle of the house.

Also, the first floor bedroom had a queen bed in it that felt small, and we decided the second bedroom of similar size on the main level would be better used as an extension of the living space. Wanting to increase the cabinetry and use of the kitchen, we needed to fit a dining table in the living space in addition to a family area, and decided that this was a better use of the space than a small bedroom. Could we regret it? Sure, but I don't think we will.

We brought in some young gentlemen friends to help on demo, and they did a great job finishing the space. The guys also helped us move furniture around and pull out carpet/tack strips so the first floor was totally prepped, and to cut and remove the plate for living room wall framing. That process was in no way fast or easy, but at least we know the house is sturdy! We deconstructed the door frames to the stairs and bedroom, and stashed all of the old lumber and trim downstairs for snowy day projects.

It has become apparent to Alex and I that we are not 20 or even 25 anymore in this process. To poor Nyo, that we are not at all interested in her opinions about bacon availability.

Finding our floor!

On closing day in our little corner of Michigan, we pulled up the carpet in the hallway and found our heart's desire - the original hardwood flooring. This was a purely investigative measure, and we came back two days later for our first weekend in the house.

In retrospect, the calmest weekend in the house.

Upon arriving, the house was chilly and I turned the heat on and went to work in the smaller bedroom while Alex unloaded the car. He thought this was from excitement, when in reality I wanted to heat up fast while the house warmed up. More on not freezing by the lake, later.

Local waste management asked me to cut the carpet into 4' sections and roll up for when we put out at the curb, or highway, and that worked out to a manageable width for me. The tacks around the edges were the worst in terms of removal, but only took a couple of hours total. Then, I yanked up the hallway laminate, and decided it was a good time to wind down when Alex came in with the last load.

Next morning, I finished the laminate while he sought out coffee and breakfast. The important things in life.

We had an appointment with a local satellite installer to have internet access at home, so I pulled the flooring until he appeared, got him started and then Alex chatted with him about the internet and satellites and gigahertz while I stuffed my face. We ended up needing a business class connection, and can share more about that if anyone else cares, but I have some next-level tech support in-house and really couldn't get anything done without him.

A few spots of water damage showed in the hallway and near edge of kitchen, so we removed a row of tile surgically to see what was under it. I crossed fingers hard that the floor would be salvageable in the kitchen adjacent area. Lunch and a trip to Lowe's began the baseboard trim stripping process, since I don't have enough fun hobbies - but we wanted to see what the existing boards could look like if we got it together.

We sorted the laminate into reusable and waste piles, filled our trash bin with underlayment and some super gross carpet pad, and took off on Monday morning between Alex's calls.

Need a seat?

After a year of living in our home, we decided to add some storage and seating to our living room with a window seat.

The bay window in our space has some unique angles but the windows themselves are beautifully symmetrical, and we found ourselves drawn to sitting in the area.  We had tried a chair and small bench in the window area, which did not fully utilize it, flipped the room arrangement around for the love seat to fit on the shorter wall but block the light, and finally decided to take the plunge and build a permanent seat in the living and family space.

Our first phase was deconstruction and framing. Our friend Andy helped in this part and also in cutting a number of the lumber pieces so that framing came together quickly.  We removed baseboard trim around the windows so that 2x4s could be anchored directly into the studs the entire height of the seat.  

We marked the studs and used 2-1/2" nails for attaching pieces and to the walls.  When the entire surface was framed, we used 3/4" birch plywood for the base, then attached additional risers to the studs and framed out the top as well.  We used 1x4 appearance boards for the facing and Alex built up blocks inside of the cabinet to the correct height for the drawer slides to fit over the front baseboard, then I left him to the drawer devices.

Living Room Joy

We moved around a lot the first five years we were a unit - three apartments before we were ready to buy.  It was very apparent that we would not be staying in any of them for long (too Pittsburgh, too pricey, too awful) and so we sat on a lot of things we didn't hate, but didn't love either.  One example is a brown and blue rug that we bought six years ago in Pittsburgh, when we were engaged.  It was an indoor/outdoor carpet, and suited our needs in the subsequent apartments well.  We got here, and knew this was going to be our home for the next five years, minimum, and I knew that I was over the rug.

The Kon-Mari method, detailed in the Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, has been working for us in some areas, like clothing.  We're not people who buy fancy clothes, and I buy a lot of mine in resale and consignment shops, because I hate waste and these are in reasonable enough shape.  Meanwhile, Alex is a fancy-man, and by that I mean we buy a bunch of decent (mostly non dry clean, definitely no-iron) clothes for him at a time and go with that.  I would rather buy some fruit with our dollars.  So, my sweet husband read about Kon-Mari, and we suddenly had a space-cleaner here.  Which is great!  But he advanced from his well-selected clothing to things, and I am still stuck on where do I put these laundry supplies so that I don't lose it later.


And in the living room, all cooped up this winter, I knew the carpet had to go.  It was too dark, and our more recent sofas (by the showrooms of Craigslist, thank you very much) did not exactly cooperate.  We'd purchased a smaller, lighter rug, at the people's store of Target, but the cats.... let us know how much they liked it.  So it did not go back out when we moved here, but the blue did and I remembered how much I did not want it for the living room.  We discussed buying one, and searching resale, and new cat-friendly materials like FLOR tiles and sisal, etc.  But we're frugal.  And there's really not anything wrong with the old one, other than not working anywhere like I want it to.

I realize how difficult I might sound, but I was just over the brown-blue, and I finally told Alex, that I had to Kon-Mari it.  "IT IS NOT BRINGING ME JOY."  I think he understood then.  We found one that mostly fit the bill at Costco - which happens to stock indoor/outdoor rugs every year after Christmas and is where our last one came from.  We didn't pull the trigger, and then when my mom was in town after a small surgery (carpal tunnel, and she is fine now) she and my brother and I went to Costco.

Also, my brother and I are not really allowed to go to Costco, according to his person, but that's too bad, because I have a car and we have weekdays free together, sometimes.  So I found the rug, which was on sale (at Costco, that's like the lottery!) and had my cash money ready, and my mom sweetly offered to buy it for my upcoming birthday.  I felt a bit funny about it, and mulled it while Trev and I found lots of other things we had been meaning to find, and then Alex gave the thumbs up on the rug and I let her buy it because the year you buy a home is so freaking expensive, it's not funny.

We went out carousing for pizza and beer (I had a salad and only a little pizza) and came home, then after she left Alex and I put it out.  It is a little narrower than our previous rug, and I love it.  A few weeks went by and we went to a local carpet shop and had a carpet pad cut to fit under it, for a whopping $5 per square yard - and it is puppy and animal slave heaven, so cushy and lovely.

Of course, if you give a girl a carpet, she will probably want some curtains....