life, love & laundry
Operation Flooring 2010
This wasn’t just operation flooring but more like “operation realize Nicki’s vision”. When we moved into this house I immediately wanted the carpet gone and replaced with hardwood or laminate. I hated that crappy carpet. I don’t even hate carpet overall – just this carpet. I missed the plush, awesome carpet from the house we left in Michigan. This carpet sucks. Plus it was put in all rag-tag and the transitions between tile and carpet were never put down so we spent the last 3 years stepping on carpet tacks every time we stepped on the entrances into the dining or living room.
So it has been a long time coming. I think we didn’t expect to live here this long. This was supposed to be a “transition house” to something we would be happier in. We signed the lease basically sight unseen and this house? Sucks. It’s dark, has no closets, the layout is awful, it has no pantry or utility room or office (and when two of us work from home, at least one office is pretty essential), the kitchen is the size of an apartment kitchen. I really do not love this house. But the kids love their friends and that’s more important to me than the house. So we re-upped for another 2 years here at which point I was totally happy to throw down some cash to make it feel more like a home and less like someone else’s house that I hate.
When we moved in, the walls were all this color:
Not awful – at least it wasn’t “apartment white”. But it is drab and lifeless – neither soothing nor cheery. And the ceiling has that popcorn spray stuff all over it that I *hate* but not much we can do about that.
Here’s a picture of the carpet up against the paint (and a teeny tiny A-M!!). Other than the kitchen and family room, the entire house is this nasty carpet and paint:
Then we painted just this one wall red:
It was better but I pretty much immediately started wishing we could paint the entire room blue instead. I know, I know….so indecisive.
Three years later…I found the perfect blue, ordered up some flooring and commenced Operation Realize Nicki’s Vision. Ahhh – it felt so good to actually be making real visible change in our dank, dark, boring house.
Here’s the room after the blue paint and right after we ripped out all that nasty carpet (iphone – sorry!).
And the complete project, more or less.
The bookshelves need to be reorganized, need new baskets and I should get the vacuum cord out of the picture. None of the pictures have been hung either. Oh and the cable cord runs along the left side of the room until we can get AT&T out to install a new outlet. Also you can’t really appreciate the area rug, which pulls the room together nicely with flecks of light and dark blue. But I am too lazy to get out my camera, so I’m relying on the iphone. Also we’re replacing the sofa soon with something less green. I love that sofa, though, so it will rotate to another room where it is more needed. Wow – that makes it sound like it isn’t even close to being done! ha! It’s a work in progress.
And Dalton apparently needs new socks :)
But most of all? You would never look at this room and think “Wow, they live in a dark den”, right? Look how light and bright it looks! I love it!!
I have to say, one of the surprising perks of this project was working with my hubby for 3 straight days. In the past we would have killed each other over a project like this but we worked surprisingly well together and it was actually a ton of fun! I got a bit testy today when we Tony cut and nailed all the quarter-round molding but I blame my complete lack of sleep last night. I seriously got about 3 hours and that, combined with my exhausted and sore muscles, made me really irritable. Tony wasn’t the only victim. Plus also we just pretty much suck at molding. We did a pretty awesome job laying the laminate but the molding is definitely imperfect. And yet? Better than any of the other crappy jobs that were done in this house prior to our move-in.
Now onto the big game room make-over. It will be a ton of work but nothing technical so at least there won’t be much to screw up :) I will definitely do before and after shots. You will wonder how we even functioned in that pit of a room up until now. All I can say is that we crammed a LOT of stuff into a VERY small space pretty much unsuccessfully for way too long.
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Looks very nice! Which type of flooring did you go with? Was it hard to do and make it look nice? I’m moving into new construction in a few months and the carpet they provide is, I’m sure, kind of crappy, so I’ll likely be doing something similar in either the family room or dining room once I’m a little settled.
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July 19th, 2010 at 9:19 pm
It wasn’t hard to do at all with the exception of the trim which we just stink at, despite having great tools. The flooring, itself, was a breeze (slow but easy). We did rent a finishing nailer – highly recommended if you’re doing a big space (our space was over 350 sq ft). The other hard part was the transition between tile and laminate in the doorways because the height wasn’t quite level so we couldn’t use t-moulding and it wasn’t a big enough difference to use reducer. I’m still not sure our solution will work but it will be easy to replace later if need be.
Our new construction carpet in MI was *amazing* (I think we upgraded the padding but that’s all) so you might be surprised. I would KILL for the new construction carpet we had in our MI house!!
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It looks fantastic! I love that blue – it is definitely just a perfect, calm blue. The flooring looks incredible! Such a nice feeling to turn a rental into more of an actual home, isn’t it (said by someone who will probably never do a thing to my place, but likes to think I might)?
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It all looks great, Nicki! What was the color blue that ended up working out for you?
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July 19th, 2010 at 9:16 pm
Thanks Kim! It’s a custom color that was color-matched from a low-VOC natural paint store here locally. Here’s the site: http://color-is.getservd.net/color_is.htm and the color number is 0477 (Ocean Cruise). It’s an awesome blue with hints of gray and green.
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It looks GREAT!
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Looks amazing! I always love the before and after of redoing a room. It gives you such a sense of satisfaction to see, doesn’t it? You guys did a great job.
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Looks FABULOUS!!!
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Nea/Tony, I knew you could do it. It’s in the genes. It looks awesome. The before and after pics say it all but Dalton will get floor burns with the hole in his sock. Ethan looks so big now. How is that working out? Again, I am glad you two worked together, had patience, and got the job done. Sometimes it is like a bonding experience when both work together. I wish I could have been there to help with the molding but I’m about 3/4 done with my mammoth task here. Next week is back to scaffolding and 32′ up to the peak. One peak done but the highest is yet to come. So proud of you Nea.
Lots of love to all.
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July 20th, 2010 at 9:53 am
Thanks Pops! Be careful and don’t fall off!! Can’t wait to see pics of the finished product!
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I love the cherry. Love it. My in-laws have that same in their condo and house. Enjoy!
(we need to re-sand-stain our floors, just need that money tree first)
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