My Biggest Design (or renovation) Mistake So Far

Happy 2010 everyone. Since everyone seems to be looking back at the past year or so, I'm wondering if there's anything you did to your house, either decor or reno related, that you'd change if you had the time and money to do over again. I ask because there are choices that I made that were super duper dumb, and I thought I'd share just in case people were considering making similar decisions. Please email me yours - the criteria is super loose. Just share your "what I know now" knowledge with your fellow homie bloggers. Feel free to create your own post and send me a link, or email me the description and photos and I'll post it for you.


Here's mine: picking wood flooring with a beveled edge for the kitchen floor. Sure, a painted floor DOES look historically accurate. and sure, the beveled edge adds tons of interest. But it also ads a gross ditch to collect dirt and dropped food etc. This ditch always looks dirty despite mopping and vacuuming. To remedy it we will be caulking the ditch to lessen the depression somewhat, and painting the floor a much darker color than the cream it currently is. But if I had it to do over again, I'd chose a smooth surface. This was such a bad choice - and it's funny because I was so adamant about it. I just had to have this floor! So embarrassing.

Here it is unpainted:

And here it is primed:

I have made lots of other silly choices (which I'll post as the week goes on), but this one was the most flat-out frustrating. Please tell me I'm not alone and that you, too have screwed up here and there.
Please?

UPDATE: Here's a great, totally helpful response post from Decorno - one of my very favorite blogers. Thank you so much for this lady!

Kitchen Floor Part Dos

So then over the weekend, Joe and finessed that sum bitch.
This delightful photo shows the Zinzer shellac that I hit all the knots with so they wont bleed through the paint - and the puttying that Joe did to fill all the obvious machine made dings and staple marks.


If I had a dollar for every meal this guy eats sitting down I would have like three dollars a month. Ka-ching!

Yeah, the Kid still has a lot to learn about how to relax. It's true.
But it's on his five year plan, swear to God.
Yep there it is, #127, learn to relax more.
Right after #126 - finish the book Guns Germs and Steel.
(Side note: goals 1 through 100 are pretty much all house related)
So anyway, yeah - then we primered the whole shebang.

More delectable views. Now that it's primered we really see that it needs some distressing and face nailing because it's way way too pristine. But it looks nice, no?

Here it is put back together so we can use it this week.
Bad kitty!

We didn't primer under the stove and the fridge, we have so many other little things to do to the floor before we start the epic paint job - so we kind of want to put off moving everything out of the kitchen until the last possible minute.
I still have camping memories from October when I moved up here and lived off microwavable nastiness for months.
Good times. Good high sodium times.

Ooh that's a bad kitty!
Dunno if you noticed, but I knocked the middle moulding bits off the cabinets. Not only was it very satisfying - it's one less unnecessary dust-collecting ledge in house full of dust collecting crevices. So there's that.

Guess What?

Cat Butt!So yeah, another thing we (OK Joe) accomplished is the removal of the linoleum in the hallway. Finally! Now the hall connects to the rooms on either side so much better. The wood is patched in places, I think there may have been a trap door to the basement near the front door. But I love how it looks. For some reason, Jack (aforementioned chubby white kitty) really wanted to be involved in these pics.
Kinda crusty and dusty.
looking backward toward the kitchen.

Oh - if you check out the top picture you'll notice how the doorway was once large and lovely and is now crappy and home depot-y. They basically framed it in and put up the lamest front door they could find at the neighborhood big box. Anyway, we discovered that there were large hinge-notches on either side of the space, so it used to have double doors. Yay! Not that they are cheap or anything but I love those and when the time comes I'll dig shopping for them. I think I have a picture of my friend Dawn's front door - for inspiration. I'll dig it up and post it when I find it.

here's a before... you'l have to enlarge to note the linoleum on the floors.

And here's a before that...
Shudder. See? From now on, when I tell you that every visible surface was blanketed by a thick coating of ugly, you'll know that I was being gentle so as not to hurt the house's feelings.
It was really covered with a gooey layer of scream and run.
Which is probably why we got it for a song.
It gave everyone else who saw it a rash, a wheezy cough and bad dreams.
OK, I'm exaggerating, there were actually other offers. But still. Total song.

Floor Samples From Hell

So here's the new kitchen floor waiting to be laid.
what is it waiting on you ask?
Well a certain lady is obsessed with acheiving a certain shade of gray floor and has been trying all manner of crazy concoctions.
I, I mean a certain lady, tried ready made stains, home-made stains that involve steel wool and vinegar, rit die (actually got the best results believe it or not)

But many of the grays were baby blue, or lavender, or sea foam... ugh. Anyway, I may be over it. I may just beat the crap out of the wood to age it and then do this whole swedish treatment which involves lye and then this other stuff called white soap... but more on that later.

Joe has never been super into the gray idea so he made me, I mean a certain lady, do some other samples.
If you did your floors in any of these colors please forgive my disses - they just arent what I'm looking for you dig?


ICK (Joe's sample - ok I'll admit it's not really ick, but not what I'm going for)
Yuck (refer to disclaimer above)

Yikes! Feel free to enlarge and shudder.
Why another picture of this one? Barf.

Poop. I had high hopes for this one. no thanks baby blue floor.

These ones were more like paint, and oh ps: still not the ideal shade.
Arg!

Other Accomplishments

In other news we went ahead and peeled a layer of the upstairs kitchen back in search of something less gnarly. I wish I had taken a few more before pictures. But i think the room as a whole overwhelmed me and so all I have is a delicious collection of closeups.
Cheesy Chicken wallpaper border:


Absolute Asthma Attack Fan:

Lovely linoleum:
But as you can see, I knew from one of my patented tweaker-archaeologist digathons that something nicer was beneath. And since this is one of only two room in the entire house without a dropped ceiling, it's actually going to be much easier to finish (theoretically). The other cool thing is that it opens to the back stairs which have a mini-deck. Really a wooden fire escape if you want to get technical. So this room may one day be a groovy sleeping porch situation if we build a proper deck back there. Here's the closest thing I have to a full on before shot:

Bye bye chickens, maybe someday I'll wake up start thinking appliance cozies and geese with bonnets are where it's at. Maybe... Until then.
And here's the floor. So much better already huh?
Nice right? I haven't peeled all the wallpaper off yet - but the chickens alone made a big difference. Trust me.

Over where the sink and stove were (this was a two family remember?) we discovered that ugly (in this case) was more than skin deep. Some fantastically scabby layers of decor.

Take a closer look. Yeah, one of those is an orange pepper which is cool and all. I feel you mister 1950's wallpaper designer. But did you need to add an orange artichoke? Couldn't you have just stopped while you were ahead? No? Never, you say? Oh well.
Don't get me started about the mushroom bouquet.

Fireplace Project

here - as promised (a zillion weeks ago it seems) are some updates on my fireplace project.
first I did a few tests. On the upper left hand corner I used joint compound only.
In between the bricks elsewhere I used a hot mix which is (for those who don't know) just a combo of plaster and joint compound. The mix makes it dry much faster and gives the whole thing a bit more body so that it doesn't droop or sag or any other such bs.
The more plaster you mix in the faster it dries so you wanna mix just a bit at a time if you are a slowpoke like moi. I also stripped some of the mysterious crappola off the floor with a brilliant cleaning product that I like using way more than the strippers I've tested. It produces no odors or gasses thought I'm sure it's not at all green. But I digress. More on that later.
Example 1:
As the closeup reveals the joint compound alone section looked like total ass. lots of bubbling and cracking and all manner of ugliness. Fine, now I know.
Meanwhile the mix section dried really smoothly and was mailable by hand. So I was able to press it into the crevices after letting it dry for about 15 minutes.
Here it is fully covered. It still needs another coat and then paint to achieve the look I am going for. But I think it already looks way way better. More like stone and less like something built by stoners. Ok that was a very Dad/king of lame puns type joke but you'll have to forgive me. I have other qualities.
Here's another close up of the surface.

And one of the hearth. These tiles are pre 1900's and I'm diggin on them. So they shall stay.
Ok I also tested an adhesive remover on the floor and this is the result. It worked pretty well - but was super fumey and scary toxic. I'm thinking I'll just use the hardcore cleaner again. But will also test out one of the soy strippers and see if we can get there without destroying the earth.
It's gonna look rad huh? In my dreams this floor is stained a silvery gray like driftwood.
Here is the cleaning product I used. I don't have the energy to reload it in the proper way - so be a dear and tilt your head to the left won't you?
all for now.

Dad Labor - Installment # 2

The day after the shopping and downspout installation day, we decided to demo the ugliest ceiling in the house as well as a beat to hell floor. Let me remind you of it's beauty... it was a dropped acoustic tile ceiling with... wait for it... rolled-on cottage cheese OVER that. Held together in many places with... wait for it... duct tape. Oh the creepiness. Anyway, here we are mugging for  a self portrait. 

Here's the ceiling coming down. So crispy. So shimmery. So cancery (I'm guessing). It occurs to me now that we should have been wearing  the organic vapors masks and not the useless dust masks. Oh well. I guess the fact that it was a hundred and fifty degrees in the room pickled our brains. Feel free to enlarge for a horror closeup.

Here it is all down.

Sadly - this plaster ceiling is sort of beyond salvaging. But God help me I don't want to deal with tearing another one out. We will probably put either drywall, bead board or tin on top of it and just leave it there. In a million years of course cause it's so low on the list of pretty shite I wanna spend money on. 

Anyway - next we tore out the worn down pine floor. There had been several reconfigurations of this room and so the wood flooring was only partial. Some spots had fancy linoleum. Yep it was dreamy. Regardless, my father was deeply pained by this and went on record as saying he was against it's removal. Duly noted Dad. Now admire the gorgeous wide plank subfloor. I Loooove it. 

What I didn't love? Pulling out the three thousand couture nails that were holding it in place. What's a couture nail you ask? Well check it out people. Every nail in this floor was handmade by a blacksmith. They are all square head and very gorgeous in their old-house-porn kind of way. 

I collected them all. Seemed like the right thing to do. I think they should probably stay in the house like some kind of religious relic.

 

More Progress

We went up to Hudson yesterday for just the day. Joe's friend Mat came up to advise and help us strategize. He's been a contractor forever - so it was unbelievably helpful to hear what he had to say. He told us how to attack certain projects and also which ones were.... how shall I say... overly ambitious? Joe and he walked around sketching floor plans and discussing things in dept while I went nuts on the living room and dining room areas.

No - your eyes are not deceiving you. I did in fact rip up all the carpet and carpet padding in the living room by myself - while Joe and his friend had their little tea party Imeanplanningsession. We appear to have won the lottery on this room because the floors are pretty darn gorgeous as is (as long as you ignore the hulking cube of a recent bathroom addition which is pretty jarring). As you can see I have already moved some art up there (I ran out of wall space long long ago in the Brooklyn pad)

Day One

Two days after closing we were already at it. Neither of us could wait to to rip out the lovely carpeting. It was one big asthma attack waiting to happen. It's amazing how much cleaner it already feels! Next up... the revolting dropped ceilings... Or maybe the fake wood panelling. Ugh!

Here's a before and after of the "creative bricklaying" room...

After - this room has some sort of adhesive on top of the hardwood that we will have to sand off. Look like maybe there was linoleum at one time?
Anyway, it was hard to get a good shot.
(click on any photo to enlarge)

Here's a closer shot that shows the cool, concentric square layout of the hardwood (not in most of the other rooms btw)

The drywall room before...
(This will probably be Joe's office/music room initially)

and after.. I'm loving the wide plank floors.

Here are the front stairs before...

and after (+Bernie)