One week until Thanksgiving, which we are hosting. Could we possibly cut it any closer?!?
What an experience this has been. Mostly good, but also some problems and associated stress. Living in the midst of it all has been a real test of our adaptability and has certainly strained family relationships at bit. We will emerge stronger.
Since I work from home, I was able to spend lots of time with the contractors, the vast majority of whom are great people who take pride in their work. I truly appreciate their willingness to educate me and explain the nittiest grittiest details of their trades. I find myself asking, "If I knew then what I know now, would I have undertaken this job on my own?" I am not naive enough to think I could do it all myself, nor that I could complete it in any kind of reasonable time, but it would be so deeply satisfying to build with my own hands. My siblings and I are the first generation of our family who haven't built a house (or a large portion thereof) with our own hands. We're certainly not alone there in modern society; it's sad in a way that so few people do their own physical work anymore. (Pot-kettle-black... I freely admit my preference for a nice bike ride over digging trenches or lifting drywall.)
6 comments:
Sweet! Looks awesome.
Quick question...did you carry that orientation of the planking all the way to the front door? I've got to decide which way I'm going to start laying our floor next week, and I keep vacillating...
Yes, all the way to the front door, which is a bit in back of where I was standing when I took that picture. As you probably know, the rule-of-thumb is to align the planks with the long dimension of the room. Not shown in the picture, but we have a hallway that extends another ~20 feet down to the right, so there is a stretch of floor 40-50 feet long where the boards all continue in the same direction. In our new room, we spun around the orthogonal direction because its long dimension is the other way. Plus, there was a nice doorway in which to make that transition.
We are happy with the wood floors. Talk to Tim Marquez at Fancy Floors. He's an expert. Buy material from him and have Dago Orozco (Dagohardwoods)install it. He and his crew are amazing. (I know you're thinking of doing it yourself ...that's in the spirit of this post, for sure... but I'm glad I had the pros do it. Glue-down hardwood floor is for life--I wanted it done right.)
The end result looks really nice. My wife and I are flip-flopping on whether we want to redo the kitchen or the master bathroom.
I'm interested to pick your brain a bit more on this. Did you bring in all new appliances? New cabinets? What kind of tiling and countertop did you go with?
HeyMark,
Looks good! Let's have a tour after the Tuesday ride.
Ron
Todd-
Re flip-flopping between kitchen and bathroom... we did the same thing on lots of choices, but in the end, we flip-flopped for so long that ended up just doing them all at once.
My mind is packed full of remodeling-related experiences and lessons-learned. I want to share those things. Maybe a blog post after I catch my breath. To your specific questions... Yes, all new appliances, new custom-made cabinets to fit perfectly and make best use of space. The old stuff was in horrible condition. The counter-tops are Cambria Stone which is a quartz composite, basically chunks of quartz and resin. Looks nice and is very hard and impervious to stains. It doesn't need regular sealing like granite does. We tiled the floor and backsplash with mostly natural stone tiles (travertine). More later...
HeyRon-
Sure thing, a tour after the Tuesday ride. No cleats on the floor of course!
nice tour on tuesday... Ill see you there
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