The North End Loft: remodeling

Showing posts with label remodeling. Show all posts

Feb 19, 2015

Getting New Hardwood Floors And This And That

Last month I said I wanted to spend more time moving my bod and eating healthier. I'm happy to say I've been doing pretty well.

(Superbowl Sunday and Valentine's Day don't count, of course.)

Tucker and I have been walking a lot. We love the snow, and it never slows us down. This photo was taken earlier this winter at our favorite park on a sunny day after it snowed.

Here's how it looked in the same park yesterday. You can just barely see the snow on the mountains.

I've been cooking a lot of healthy food, too. I like to freeze individual servings of soup for my lunches, and one day I decided to make double batches of three different kinds of soup. Check out all these veggies I diced!

I've also been enjoying the calm and serenity of our remodeled home. I have loved strolling from room to room, luxuriating in the contentment that everything is done for now.

But then, you know what they say: "Ignorance is bliss."

Little did I know the chaos would all be starting again so soon.

We thought we wouldn't be tearing up the house again until this summer, but we just found out that our favorite contractor (who did our kitchen) has a small window open between his big remodel jobs when he can install our new floors. Of course, we had to grab the opportunity to get him.

So, this weekend my peace and quiet and serenity ends again for a bit. I'll be packing up the living room with its huge armoire full of baskets, vases, books, faux flowers, vase filler, nick knacks, trays, frames...

...and the hutch full of dishes and pottery...

...and the dresser full of linens...

...and this cupboard full of crystal, serving bowls, platters, silver, candles, and candle holders...

...and let's not forget the corner cabinet full of stoneware and wine glasses.

Did you hear that little sob? Yup, it was me.

But packing everything up again for the third time and lugging all the furniture to the other side of the house will be worth it to have new floors. Our poor old maple floors are on their last legs.

Squeaking loudly, full of gaps and cracks and scratches, nails popping up, and too thin to refinish again, it's time to say adios to our old floors. They'll be torn up, the subfloor will be screwed down tighter to stop the squeaking, and new 3 1/2" rift and quarter sawn white oak boards will be installed then sanded, stained, and sealed.

As we did with the kitchen and master suite remodels, we'll be living in the back of the house while the front is done, then we'll pack up the back of the house and move back into the front while it's done. Whew!

So don't be alarmed if you don't hear from me for a bit while we tackle the packing and lugging. But when the floor demo gets going, I'll be sure to share some photos.

I'm excited!

(Sob...)

Check out the fun new party on the block!

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May 20, 2014

Our Master Bathroom Remodel

It's time to start another remodel here at The North End Loft!

This time around we're having our master bathroom and bedroom redone. It's the first time in twenty years these rooms have been touched. Today, I'm sharing the bathroom. Are you ready for a 1990's hunter green and shiny brass blast from the past? Here are some before photos.

Green is my favorite color, so when hunter green was all the rage in the nineties, I used it liberally throughout my home. Even after it wasn't so popular anymore, I loved my bathroom for a long time.

When I finally grew tired of the color, I was also starting to get ~~too old for~~ tired of climbing in and out of our tall claw foot tub. Claw foot tubs are fabulous for baths, but the wrap-around shower curtains don't create the most ideal showering experience. We were ready for a real shower stall, and knowing we'd be doing a complete overhaul soon, we just lived with everything as it was until we saved up enough to go all out. Who knew it would take so long?

Can you tell I also loved marble? Now days, one sees real marble everywhere, but we couldn't afford to import the real thing as young parents starting out with our first home twenty-five years ago. So I picked faux marble vinyl for the floor and faux marble Formica for the counter the first time around. I thought it was really posh!

And let's not forget the once popular wallpaper border.

How's that for a trip back in time?

We packed up everything from our bedroom and bathroom and are storing it in the front rooms of our house. Meanwhile, we kept out just what we need during the five or six weeks of construction and have moved into the rooms at the back of the house.

Happily, our contractor is turning out to be the queen of dust containment, and she built a tunnel out of ten foot tall poles and huge sheets of plastic all the way from our front door through the living and dining rooms to the door of the master suite.

The bedroom door is on the other side of this plastic and is only accessible through the tunnel from the front door.

And this is looking through the long tunnel from the front door towards the kitchen. The bedroom door is just around the corner out of sight. I think this is the coolest thing ever!

Okay, are you ready for some really scary demo pictures?

We're keeping the window, but replacing it with a new fiberglass one and surrounding it with tile.

There will be a knee wall next to the new vanity with frameless glass shower doors.

This will be a new 48" wide linen cabinet with a smaller cabinet built in over the toilet, prized storage for an old house.

Under the vinyl and sub-floor is a thick layer of some kind of underlayment that can hopefully be sanded off.

Because we're aiming for refinishing these original wood floors. To us, it's like finding gold under there!

This is where a shampoo niche is going in the shower. The old framing inside this 100 year-old wall has us all scratching our heads - not a 2" x 4" in sight, just a bunch of scrap wood nailed here and there!

All this demo was accomplished in just one day, and now it's on to the fun part: making everything pretty.

This is the new floor plan.

This is my design board, and almost everything on it has been ordered.

Inspiration Photos from My Blessed Life

This charming cottage bathroom belongs to Myra, who blogs at My Blessed Life. I fell in love with every detail of Myra's darling eclectic bathroom and could easily picture it in our own home. We've been inspired by it to use subway tile for our shower, to refinish our wood floors, and even to duplicate our dining room wainscoting in our own bathroom. Thanks so much, Myra, for being our inspiration!

We've been waiting for this new master bathroom for years and working on all of our plans for months, and we're so excited to be starting! Of course, I'll be sharing every step of the entire remodel with you, too.

(And I promise no more scary photos.)

Jan 3, 2014

Friday Finds

I managed to get my Christmas decorations packed up today, so this afternoon I'm treating myself to some Friday Finds.

But first, here's a great ornament storage tip: hot glue some clear plastic cups to cardboard and stack them up in a box. I don't wrap my glass ornaments in paper anymore and haven't broken one in years. You can hold the cardboard in one hand and put the ornaments right into the cups as you take them off the tree with your other hand. Super fast. Plus, when you decorate your tree, it's easy to see and find the ornaments you want, and you can put them on the same way. No more bending over the box to pick up each ornament one by one until your back is screaming, "Where's that rum for my eggnog?!"

Today, for Friday Finds I'm sharing some inspiration for our projects we have planned for around the house in 2014.

Hidden Pond Kinnebunkport

The project I'm finding the most challenging so far is redecorating our living room. Almost everything needs to be replaced, and all I know for sure is that I want a warm neutral pallet like in this cozy Maine guest cottage.

Cedar Hill Farmhouse

The project I'm finding the next most challenging is our master bedroom. It hasn't been touched in years. The walls are still red! We want the living room, dining room, and master bedroom to flow well together, so neutrals for all with slightly different paint colors in each. We'll also be ripping up our bedroom carpet and refinishing the original hardwood floors that still have linoleum on them. Yes, in 1910, linoleum was all the rage, even in bedrooms. (Oh, and by the way, I'm pretty sure our entire master bedroom would fit inside Anita's gorgeous bed. Okay, maybe a little exaggeration, but it is small.)

Hvitur Lakkris

Next up is our master bathroom. That one will be easier because we'll be handing the work over to the same fabulous contractor who did our kitchen. Did you snicker over the red bedroom? Well, have a good laugh now because our bathroom is still hunter green! The challenge will be to choose neutral surfaces that will pass our "would it have been seen in this house one hundred years ago" test. Timeless is what we're aiming for.

Down to Earth Style

In the other end of the house we'll hopefully get to replacing our old sheet vinyl floors in the family room with wood. We're stuck on the fence (paralyzed, really) between the authenticity and mess of sanding real wood floors or the convenience, but not quite the look we really want, of manufactured hardwood floors. Tough decision!

The Vintage Farmhouse

Smaller projects on my mind right now are how to replace the storage from the bottom of the dining room hutch where our new kitchen bar is now. There's no more room in the dining room, so it will have to be incorporated into the living room as either built-ins or a new large piece of furniture.

Daisymaebelle

I have some furniture to paint this year. There's always furniture to paint!

Bliss Ranch

As much as I adore my little antique dining room light fixture that was original to our kitchen, it just doesn't give enough light, nor the right kind of light, for our dining room. You know how I love chicken wire, so I'd be a happy camper with Bliss' fabulous chandelier, and I also like the carriage lamp look that's popular now. I feel like the dining room light is one place I can do something fun and trendy if I want to.

So those are a few things that caught my eye today when I went hunting on my Pinterest Boards for some Friday Finds with my next projects in mind.

Thanks for stopping by.

I hope everyone has a really terrific weekend and a very

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Sep 9, 2013

Kitchen and Dining Room Remodel

I'm getting a new kitchen!

Except for the purchase of new appliances earlier this year, I've lived with the same kitchen for almost twenty-five years. I've had the same lay-out, cupboards, floors, counters, sink, and appliances for twenty-five years. The only thing we had to replace in all that time was the faucet about ten years ago, and I repainted my cupboards myself about two years ago.

Notice I said had to replace. I sure wanted to replace and update all those things, but as long as everything worked, wanting new ones wasn't enough of a reason for us to spend the money or waste the resources. There were always better things on which to spend our limited income, like the bills, car repairs, family vacations, and college educations. (I bet it's the same way for

a lot of you, too.)

Now our daughters have graduated from college and moved out on their own, and we've managed to finally save enough money to fix up our old kitchen. I've been researching and reading and pinning and measuring and shopping and planning, and I'm so excited to get started that I could practically burst!

Of course I have to share it all with you!

This is my dining room.

You can see the kitchen and the dishwasher there just beyond this built-in china cabinet, and the family room is beyond the kitchen down a hallway.

If you step through the dining room door to the kitchen, this is that wall with the dishwasher in front of you.

The sink and window is to your right. (I think I need a wide angle lens because my kitchen is so small.)

This is the wall to your left.

And if you turn back around towards the dining room, this is the wall behind that china cabinet. This wall is coming out to open the kitchen to the dining room.

Witt Construction via houzz

This is my inspiration photo I found on houzz by Witt Construction. Our kitchen will be open like this to our dining room, which is open to our living room. I'll have the open concept floor plan that I love!

We absolutely could not part with the beautiful 103 year-old built in china hutch that's original to this house, though, so we're having it moved to the back wall of the kitchen above the dishwasher where it will still be seen from the dining room and now hold our everyday dishes.

Country Living

Like in this inspiration photo from Country Living.

Before on the left, with our inspiration on the right.

Before on the left, with our inspiration on the right. We're hoping to have wood counters and a bead board back splash like this, too. Both of these finishes could have been found in our 1910 cottage the year it was built.

Future floor plan with the wall removed.

We'd love to hear what you think about our plans so far, and we'd especially love to hear any advice you have for us about remodeling our kitchen as we get started. We meet with our contractor tonight to sign our building contract, and then I guess we start packing up our kitchen. Of course, I'll take you with us as we progress through our remodel.

I'm so excited!