The cork floor is really nice and soft under your feet. I have never laid cork floors before so I ended up laying this one twice! Yikes! You have to have perfect underlayment and some very serious adhesive.
0 Comments
At a distance, this 1920's bungalow looks pretty good. What you don't see in this photo are the poor state of the windows. This house is suffering from years of neglect and poorly executed renovations. Ultimately, it needed mortar, knee brace, facia and stucco repair, but for this post I will concentrate on the window repair. Today I was at a paint store and over-heard a shoppers conversation with one of the representatives there and couldn't help myself from butting in. I just needed to offer real-street advise to this person because I felt like the paint store salesperson was trying to steer the conversation away from well-known mainstream practices. Let me clarify what I mean…. Chalk paint is awesome! But, its also very expensive! I am not trying to turn someone away from said paint store, on the contrary, we 'chalkers' need paint! However with just a little bit of know how, we can turn any one of the beautiful over-the-counter colors into a very versatile, highly sought after paint. I have used and would recommend starting your chalk paint out with a very good, highly appropriate paint for your job. So, what I am saying is everyone should just relax, I may even sell more of your paint if you are open to mainstream ideas. The only people that should worry are maybe those people making the chalk paint and trying to make a bunch of bucks from you! Here are my supplies to make the chalk paint. I was painting kitchen cabinets and didn't want to sand off the previous layers of paint. I first degreased the cabinets with Simple Green, then I prepared my chalk paint. I bought Sherwin Williams paint for kitchen cabinets, and mixed my calcium carbonate in warm water til it was like a paste. Then I added a little to paint at a time, and mixed with my drill bit mixer til I got a smooth paint. Then, I used this ultra smooth roller and a brush to get in the crevices of the cabinet doors. It worked like a charm. It even works over contractor grade varnished cabinets!
This is my dream kitchen! We installed Ikea cabinets and cast the concrete countertops amongst the chaos of tearing down 2 walls and installing beams (so excuse all the mess in the photos).
This was a fun project. My clients are a wonderful easy going couple who downsized to this cute house. The house was disappearing with this shade of green, and my clients were often told how small their house looked from the outside but how big it felt once you got inside. So, I was able to apply a couple tricks to increase their house's appearance.
I love how light and airy this house turned out even though we used a medium dark shade. Its difficult to see from this picture but the roof is very new and still has bright green, blue and red tones. I am guessing that somehow this was a planned color scheme as the roof and the house had similar colors. My clients were very distraught with the color of the roof. My first suggestion was to pull from the roof the color they liked. The picture on the left is the new tile. The plumbers had to replace a shower pan because of a leak. My clients couldn't find the original tile and they didn't want to wait for ordering.
This is a work in progress, much like the rest of my home, but that is how I like it. The picture on the right is my dream home which I found on pinterest. Until I find a wooded lot to build my own home, I will maintain as much of a nordic cottage feel as I possibly can with my choice of finishings. As you will see I have no backsplash yet or doors on half of my wall of storage. Nor have I tackled the pendant that I would like to cast in concrete and put over my sink, but I thought I would document the process here to help others with their own home renovation project. Our house is a 1920's bungalow that had a tiny kitchen and a breakfast nook. While I am sure there was a wonderful purpose for this kind of layout in the 20's; it had no place in our 21st century life. This was not our first time to contemplate taking out a wall and putting up beams. We did this in our last ranch style house and loved it. This is the same view as the one above before we took out the walls.
|
Im a minimalist at heart, but with 3 kids...Im a practicalist Archives
January 2017
Categories |