Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Home Improvement

Our home improvement jobs never take the form of do-it-yourself. My hubs is blessed with skill in the kitchen, but none at all when it homes to fixing up. I can live with hiring out.

Such was the case when last week the house exterior was painted, and I got my orange wall in the living room. Next up was to have the old carpet removed from the master bedroom closet that comes off the master bathroom. Before and after. We really like this, but it didn't - poof! - appear. The tile color is "sand" and when some of the tiles didn't match, it took a while to figure out that the installer didn't have a die lot problem, but a box of "mushroom" - the wrong color! Of course, those tiles had to be taken back out. Then there was grouting three days later, followed by caulking. The closet didn't look normal for five days. 

After tiling came laminate. The builder's grade carpeting put in five years ago when the house was built (come February), was showing dirt and wear, in spite of cleaning. Time to make it better.

However, I really didn't think through how much work it would be to empty my sewing room, that being the first room to be tackled. Piles of machines, chairs, notions, tools, fabric, bins, etc. were everywhere in the living area.


We also emptied the guest room, since that was flooring room number two.


To make it easier to move the fabric cabinet in my sewing room, I unloaded it. That was the easy part! What was way more effort was putting it all back again. But see how much more organized it is? In fact, I had enough space to move a few closet fabrics - like text prints, and my new Eureka collection by Emma Jean Jansen - into the cabinet too. I'm not kidding myself that this will stay looking so good, but I'm admiring it while I can.

It's been a ton of work to do this, as I was sorting and reorganizing everything that came out of and went back into the rooms, and then wiping off, vacuuming, and mopping the rooms as the work was done. Everything had a fine layer of dust on it, including furniture in the living room.

This is the finished guest room. I do think the room looks richer now.

And the master bedroom. I love white furniture and think it looks even better with the wood floor. 


Bill did a beautiful job laying flooring in all three rooms.

The sewing room change from carpeting to laminate. 


But the room isn't yet settled. Because the floor needs to be protected, everything now has felt pads underneath. Except those two black, home improvement store, plastic sawhorses aren't going to work anymore. So, it's off to IKEA to get two more of the white wooden "trestles," like on the left. They're adjustable height too, so that's a bonus. Also, I need a rug at the end of the cutting table, for long-term standing. I've ordered new rubber casters for my two sewing chairs to replace the hard plastic ones that could damage the floor. Until those arrive, I won't be sewing in here. 😒



What we didn't anticipate was how not having carpeting would affect Hogan! He seems a little lost, as today's he's wandered into the guest room and my sewing room, and back out again, looking for a soft lay-down spot. And, he wasn't totally successful at jumping up on his window bench in the sewing room. He couldn't get traction. The borrowed rug will suffice until I find something better.

I sat down to write this blog post after using the Hoover floor scrubber to clean all the tile in the house because, rightly so, the paths from the front door to the bedrooms were pretty dirty from the workers.

Once I have sewing room time again, I want to make a couple of these, to keep my sewing machine foot control(s) from sliding across the floor. Oh, but I can't wait! Linda
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14 comments:

  1. It's looking beautiful...new again! Poor Hogan. He needs a few new quilts of his own! XO

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  2. Everything looks so wonderful. Congrats on a job well done. You will love it.

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  3. Congratulations! The floors look beautiful! In my house it seems that we need to do these home improvement projects every few years to do a thorough to the wall cleaning! Bedrooms look great!

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  4. Fabulous! Fabulous! Fabulous! Everything looks so great, and how fun to have a "re-fresh" after living in a house for a while. I've been wanting to make one of those "anti-scoot" foot pedal things too, so thanks for the link.

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  5. Poor Hogan! That is a problem, isn't it!? I made one of those sewing machine foot thingys a couple of weeks ago! It is very handy, and took me less than an hour! Love the colourful walls and ceilings! The strong light of Florida plays so nicely with them!

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  6. Niiiiice! You guys have been busy! Before you get something to stand on for cutting--take a look at kitchen mats like Gel-Pro--they provide a lot of cushioning without being wobbly or spongy. My wife was having a lot of back trouble from standing in the kitchen--I'm always willing to let someone else do the bulk of the cooking:)--and Gel-Pro is absolutely amazing. They're pricey, but we bought one from the discount section of their website.

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  7. We have new flooring too this fall. Living room, dining room, kitchen and hall.
    We opted for new carpeting in the bedrooms. It's cold in Wyoming in the winter. Our little dog and cat are not enamored with the hard wood floors either.Both are having traction problems. But they will adapt. Your rooms are beautiful and know you will enjoy them.

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  8. Well the results look wonderful. But egad, the work it takes is huge! Disruption at home is always a challenge to deal with. Poor Hogan got an unwelcome surprise. Hope he adjusts easily.

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  9. I love your new floors! As I was looking at pictures of where you temporarily moved everything I remember what it was like to replace the carpet in our bedrooms. What a J O B.

    I have to ask you - did they tile around the closet organizers that sit on the floor? We have that type as well and I was wondering if we'd have to take them out. We've only replaced one bedroom with the floating organizers.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for your lovely comment. I always respond to them, but you're a "no-reply commenter," so I couldn't reply by email.

      You're correct in noting that the closet installation occurred on top of the carpet. It was somewhat challenging for the tile installers to cut away the carpet, and then piece all the tile to work around the supports. But, we'd had the closet "done" 4-1/2 years ago, and no one mentioned that changing from carpet would be difficult. I'm glad our tilers were able to accomplish it, as we much prefer the tile floor.

      Yes, it was definitely a JOB, and we're tickled that all the work seems to have been worth it... even as we're still shopping for a few throw rugs. :-)

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  10. So have you had time to enjoy it yet? It all looks fabulous Linda. I hope some day I get to visit.

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  11. So interesting to read your journey from carpet to laminate and tile. We are in the deciding stages of what we want to do in our new home - I'm still in the window shopping phase. I, too, have dog(s) to consider... Love how smooth and clean it all looks in your home :o)

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  12. Beautiful, but oh what work!! We had wood floors put in a few years ago, and oh I remember the headache of it all. But so worth it!!

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  13. Everything looks wonderful. I love the look of wood but don't think I live with it everywhere. I still like the coziness of carpet during the cold winter months. Different for you in Florida though.

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