Oh no, you didn't!

 Oh yes, I did.

When I last showed you the hot mess that is/was my dressing room aka walk-through closet, it looked like this:

Hot hot mess.
Tools scattered every which way. Paint cans. A shop vac. And much much more.
The "in-between" stage - when tools clutter every inch, and nothing is where it belongs - is always the scariest.

While at first I really really liked the stenciled floor (because it was different, a pattern that I liked, and probably because a painted floor was on the "It" list across the blog world), it was never ...well, me ...or us. We -are- fairly traditional, and somehow the floor always struck me as 'noisy' once the initial excitement over "Hey, I painted my floors!" had faded.

I don't like noisy rooms. Not at all.

And while we didn't want to start laying floors a week before Christmas and only days before the arrival of the in-laws for Pre-Christmas celebrations, I just couldn't suffer this noise anylonger.

What more is another gallon of paint?
Certainly no pearl from my crown (this is an attempt to translate a German saying that basically expresses the thought that it's not too much to ask to do a certain task).

Warning - Wet Paint!
Barely half a gallon of self-priming porch paint in a rich chocolate brown color later, peace and quiet arrived in my little walk-through closet/dressing room.
It also appeared instantly larger.

Once the paint was dry later that evening, my dresser went back into its old corner, conveniently hiding (most of the) the kitty bathroom. Once we have decided which type of new flooring to put into our bedrooms, this room's floor will be finished as well but for now I'm pleasantly surprised and happy with the new look. So is the husband.

To-do-list:
- separate from bathroom
- lay new flooring
- install shelving
- frame with baseboards
- paint walls
- paint ceiling
- install light fixture
- frame out windows
- hang window treatments
- art/painting
- rug

Getting there, getting there ...

Master Bathroom - the story begins

With the wooshing sound of a deadline fast approaching, these DIY newbies have been busting their behinds to whip up a master bathroom in what is generally considered "no time" aka four weeks.



Yeah, you read that right. An entire bathroom in four weeks.


Well, make that four weekends since both of us work for a living since nobody is paying me for spraypainting or spending time on pinterest just yet. Working on DIY projects every single day of the week has surprisingly lost its novelty. Considering the miles of trim I wanted to have painted by and that still needs painting, I feel so overwhelmed that I need to take a break before even getting started. It also doesn't help that by now we have thoroughly learned the lesson that nothing gets ever done in as little time as you 'think' it'll take. Nuh-uh, it'll take at least twice the amount of time you alloted and four times the amount of time you ever wished to spend on this project.


Enough whining - whining and no pictures make this a very un-fun post but I'm working on the picture part so bear with me for now. You see, my husband gifted me a sweet new camera for my birthday and I just need some time to install the software to download the pictures I took of the master bath in progress, the vanity in progress and the anti-smudgey-handprint protection project in progress.


Three weeks ago husband and I trekked over to the boxstore and came back with the foundation for our tile floor:

- Hardy Backerboard
- Ultraflex Thinset
- Cement board screws
- Seam tape
- a notched trowel
- and most importantly soft-cushiony knee pads.

We'd interrogated our lovely contractors while they were still working on our Duckling house on how to best approach the flooring in our master bath upstairs and so we kind of knew what we were supposed to do. I found this nifty drawing that really boils it down to the essentials.

Wooden houses and their plywood sublfoors tend to be a bit on the flexible side of things which generally doesn't mesh so well with something as rigid as tile floors. We used Ultraflex Thinset for both cememnt backerboard and tile to add an additional flexible component to help ease the transition from flexible subfloor to rigid tile.

One entire Sunday was spent - on our knees, well, mostly the husband on his - buttering our plywood subfloor with thinset, laying backerboard and screwing the backerboards in with backerboard screws [And as soon as I figure out how to get my pictures off of my new camera, I can show you what it looks like] making sure to stay nicely even and level. After mudding and taping the seams between the individual boards (and drying), our floor was ready for tile!

We were rather thrilled how easy the hardi backerboard was to work with. It comes with a handy-dandy incised grid that makes cutting so easy and circular notches to help you get the spacing for your screws right that we think it might have been produced with the unsuspecting DIYer in mind :o) It certainly worked for us!

Next step: Tile!

We got tile!

Husband and I have been on a mad shopping spree this past week trying to acquire the last big ticket items to finish up the main projects as much as possible (aka master bathroom and the guest bedroom).

Originally we'd mused about using black penny tile for our master bathroom. Small mosaic tile floors are historically accurate tile choices for bathrooms in houses like the Ugly Duckling and we really really like them. Using black rather than the historic white would have given it a slight contemporary twist and of course provided a fantastic backdrop for my lovely lovely clawfoot tub.

[via Pinterest]

Sharp looking, isn't it? We held on to that idea until one day when we're nosing through the box store and discovered a huge 18x18 dark grey tile named "Fume". We were smitten (and not only because it reminded me of a childhood cartoon about a little Dragon "Grisu" who wants to become a firefighter ... his Dad's name is Fume)

[source: Lowes]

Lovely ...and a lot more budget-friendly which is always appreciated. We were -this- close to putting in our order for a whole truckload of "Fume" when we walked past the vintage mosaic tile again, and all our well-formulated plans went out the window again.

[The winner!]

Love. It.
The contrast between the glossy black tiles and matte white tiles tickles me pink. This weekend, the tile will be going in so I really need to get started on sprucing up the vanity ... and we need a mirror. And towel rings and and and ...

Does the shopping ever end?

Sealing the deal

No, we haven't fallen off of the face of the earth (or a ladder). Really! Between starting a new job, a holiday weekend and life in general, updating the blog hasn't been my top priority. That doesn't mean work hasn't progressed more or less smoothly here at the Duckling. Far from it! We've been busy, and I can't wait to show you (once I get around to picking up new batteries for my camera tomorrow).

After I finished stenciling the floors in our dressing room, I wanted to protect the fruit of my labor as quickly as possible. We'd picked up a gallon of Varathane in a Satin finish following the recommendation of the nice gentle working the aisle at the box store. No odor, polyurethane strength for high traffic areas and a competitive price all fit the bill. We took it for a test drive on the counter top of our library cupboard (read about here) and loved how easy it was to apply and the beautiful finish. So, here it goes

[Hello non-smelly poly!]

This stuff is pretty watery (or maybe I'm just having a hard time letting go of the idea that anything poly/sealant needs to be somewhat viscous)



Husband had picked up a special floor applicator that screwed to our extension handle and it really made sealing the floors as easy as mopping them. Fortunately, Varathane doesn't only NOT stink to the high heavens, it also dries quickly and so I managed to apply 3 coats within just two days.

[After: All shiny! Please ignore the rough-looking edges;
they'll get baseboards soon and look all pretty again. I swear!]

Once the construction dust from the adjoining master bathroom is gone, I plan on buffing the floors once more and applying a final coat but for now this is it. Wait? Construction dust from the master bath? You bet'cha! Pictures coming soon!

All stenciled out

3 hours of rolling an almost dry brush over a sheet of plastic with funny cut outs did the trick and our dressing room floor went from looking like this

[Before]

to this! After I was done rolling on full sheets, I did go back and lined up the stencil so that partially it covered an already stenciled area and rolled on and additional 1/3 of the pattern to fill in the space between a full sheet and the wall.

[After]

I can't wait to trim out the room with some new base molding and add a bit of trim to the built-ins as finishing touches to the basic construction. We have plans for yet another built-in and we want to install an ironing board that folds out from a small wall-mounted closet, and of course the room will need much love in the form of window treatments, some nicer lighting and a few decorative touches here and there, but the bones, the bones are lookin' good!

Oh, right. I should probably seal the stenciled floor first ... wouldn't want to paint that one all over again!

Getting your stencil on

With husband working late nights and the Little Man in bed, it was as good a time to get started on stenciling the floor in the dressing room. Here it is, in all its baseboard-removed, grey-painted glory.

[Before ... or is it in-progress?]

I know. It's not really all that much to look at. For now. I armed myself with all the things I'd need, brought a drink and a boombox with some music along and made myself at home.

[Some supplies: Pencil, paper towels, foam roller, stencil]

Not pictured are paint, re-positionable spray glue and a ruler. The hardest thing is usually to get started for good. Where to start? Knowing that none of the rooms in our house are really truly square, starting in a corner wasn't really an option (and isn't something you should really ever consider). If you approach stenciling like tiling, you should find the true center of the room and orientate your stencil this way but I felt that centering the design on the doorway to the bathroom would be the right way to go.



Here it is, the beautiful "Traditional Tin Tile" stencil in its starting position. I decided to re-read the stencil instructions one more time and then poured myself some paint in the small paint pan that came with the high density foam roller.

Stenciling requires many passes with an almost dry brush. That way you won't squoosh (yes, that's a word, just like "Skloosh" is a ride at an amusement park in PA) any excess paint underneath the stencil and ruin the clean lines. So every time you pick up paint with your roller, you roll off as much as possible and add a quick swipe over a piece of paper towel to be safe.

[Here I go a-stenciling!]

[In progress: 3 down, many more to go!]

I'm glad I only decided to stencil the floor in a small room. It's not hard work but definitely falls into the category of the more tedious projects (spray glue, position stencil, roll on paint, repeat). Now I know why Stencilease offers bigger stencils of the same pattern with more repeats to speed up the process!

[In progress: Loving it!]

It's looking great so far! Can't wait to show the husband!

So floored - The Dressing Room Saga continues

We're making steady progress on our dressing room and soon the days that our clothes are stashed in baskets and suitcases or rumpled on the floor are coming to an end. I'm counting - trust me. After finishing two floor-to-ceiling shelving units, the floor had to be next.

If you've been following our adventures for a while you might remember my flooring dilemma described here and my lack of desire to commit to any kind of interim solution that didn't win my heart. Husband and I agreed that right now, a painted floor sounded like a really good idea. After looking at a couple of different design options, we found a stencil at Stencilease that we both really really liked
[source: Stencilease "Traditional Tin Tile"]

Shopping at Stencilease was joy: the ordering process was simple and straightforward, there were no computer glitches and within just a few days (my order shipped promptly the next day) we were all set to get started on painting our floors.

I'd already used Bondo and wood filler on the bigger and smaller seams and irregularities and given the floor a quick sanding before priming it. No need to go overboard - it is a temporary solutions and we do like the rustic cottage charm of a more natural wooden floor.

[Floors all painted and ready for some special stencil love]

Since we're going to seal the floor after painting on the stencil we went with some left-over dark grey paint from the livingroom. This will fit in nicely with the dark grey tile we chose for the bathroom floors and help turn our dressing and bathroom part of our sweet master suite a cohesive unit.

I gave our floors a solid 24 hours to dry completely before embarking on the stencil adventure so stay tuned for part 2!

The allure of flooring options

I don't know about you but every time I head over to either the orange or the blue box to pick up one little thing, I end up losing 2 hours between the shelves. I simply get carried away nosing through fixture options, researching door options in a spur of the moment decision, marvel at the number of knobs and pulls and get sucked into the paint selection aisles fondly petting paint chips.

During one of those extended visits I also hit up the flooring aisle and stumbled across the resilient flooring options.

I usually abhor vinyl and linoleum, especially after having to live with it for a while and seeing it at the Duckling before we ripped it out, but the resilient vinyl plank flooring under the name "Allure" did catch my eye. I even snatched a couple of samples to take home and was pleasantly surprised that if you looked down at a wood-style sample casually dropped on the hardwood floors of our rental you were hardpressed to out it as vinyl.

Intrigued I showed it to the husband, prepared with cost rundown and online reviews. We stewed over it for a while, then decided to go for it in our laundry room. After all it is specifically advertised for high traffic areas (check - the laundry room is also the gateway to the back yard), areas with higher moisture (check - laundry room, 'nuff said) and comes with a 25 year warranty (no worries until after the Little Man finishes college).

The online reviews we discovered also encouraged us: ease of installation, looks great, price is right, no expensive prep work. All said and done we went to the orange box and ordered enough Allure resilient plank flooring in "Slate" to cover our laundry room.

The boxes shipped right from Georgia in time for Mother's Day and since we're running dangerously close to not having anything to wear unless we get the laundry room finished and the washer and dryer hooked up again, dear husband went right to work!

[Clean sweep!]

After cleaning the subflooring in the laundry room and making sure no untoward nails were poking out where they shouldn't, we ripped into the boxes.

[It's getting late - apologies for the dark pictures]

The instructions are simple and very straightforward although husband mentioned he'd wished for some extra information. I think the only information missing on the package I feel we could have used would be the suggestion to start by the door you walk into the room rather than the opposite wall. Dear husband did a great job laying the flooring without it, though.

[Husband hard at work]

Rather than using doublesided tape to fix the first plank into place, we used tack nails to make sure it wasn't going anywhere. The plansk attach to eachother, not your subfloor or existing floor. No messy glue and no future owners cursing you for slathering everything with hard to remove glue. Yay!

Once the first row was in place, things went smoothly and surprisingly quickly. The plank is easily cut with an Xacto or carpet knife and the staggering of seams happens almost naturally if you cut your plank at the end of the row and use the small piece to start your next one.

[Awful After shot: It's dinner time, it's dark and there's nowhere to put the empty boxes until trash day]

All done, just in time for dinner! This was quick, easy and painless for us beginning DIYers and it looks and feels very nice. It looks like a hybrid between grey-stained concrete and painted wood floors depending on how you look at it. Sometime during the week Phil will swing by to trim out the room and we'll be open for laundry business again!

Too many choices

One of the first things you learn after you bought your house is that there are plenty of reasons and occasions to go shopping for your new/old house. More than plenty. Fixtures, faucets, window treatments, paint colors, door knobs, closet knobs, stains and finishes - the list is practically endless.That is a lot of fun but like with many things, after a while it does tend to wear you out a bit.

At this point I'm sated, saturated and satisfied where my desire to go shopping is concerned. Now, don't get me wrong. There are still lots of pretty pretty things I want for our house but I don't want to go 'shopping'. I want them to magically appear. Yep, just like that.

This past weekend we nailed down our flooring choice for the laundry room and also managed to amend our tile selection for the master bathroom (more on that later). That leaves us still undecided on the matter of the flooring for the dressing room for our Master Bedroom. And frankly, I'm beyond looking at flooring options right now.
Bleah.

So ... in a stroke of genius (or maybe it was the fumes from the Waterlox) we decided to just paint the plywood subflooring. Add a stencil. Seal. Done. Finito.

Like here

hall way floor at wobblyblog
boys' room floor at My 3 Monsters
kitchen floor at Back to Domestics

It's too big of a decision and we don't want to make it -now-. It will affect the entire upstairs and that's something that shouldn't be done lightly and spur-of-the-moment. Right?
Right.

So I've been poking around on the 'net for a nice floor stencil. Something that goes beyond taping down a border with frog tape, maybe. In case I feel like shopping for a stencil. Here're my favorites from Stencilease

[source: stencilease.com]

I kind of like the first one; it reminds me of vintage tin tiles. I also plan on checking out places like Hobby Lobby and Michaels for their stencil selection once I'm over in that corner of town. That reminds me I need to swing by World Market for window treatments.

Ugh ...shopping!

Standing outside

This is what it looks like when you're standing outside peeking through the window into the entryhall (antechamber, vestibule) :

[Floor refinishing in progress]

Currently we're polyurethane-d out of our house and from our projects. It really puts a cramp into your style when downstairs hall, stairs and upstairs hall are off limits. So, here we are, pressing our noses flat against the window like a kid in front of the candy store.

[Peeking through the door]

The stain took surprisingly long to dry this time but finally, after waiting an entire weekend, the first coat of poly was applied on Monday. With a little bit of luck, we should be able to go back to painting and finishing up a few projects by the end of the week. Good thing because we're starting to show signs of cold turkey like a good ol' junky.

Halfway there

Going upstairs at the Ugly Duckling you reach a small landing next to a large window before the stairs make a 90 degree turn for the last few steps. Covered in grimey linoleum it wasn't much to look at and removing layers of little loved floor treatments didn't do a whole lot to make it look better. Remember this?

[Before: Sad, damaged landing]

No question - this floor needed some serious repairs. There were fist-sized holes left behind from our woodloving pests and it was quite apparent that those floor boards had been neglected for many many years.

[In-Progress: damaged floor boards removed]

Once the floor boards were removed, we discovered the secret use of the hollow space between the ceiling of the closet underneath the stairs and the floor of the landing: waste plaster receptable. During the construction of the Ugly Duckling, the workers obviously hadn't bothered to dispose of left over plaster in a dumpster or trash can. Nuh-uh. They simply dropped it in there. Floor boards went over that and it was out of sight, out of mind.

They also dropped something else. Trash but this is the "kind of cool" type of trash

[Piedmont cigarette pack, front]

That's right! Joe discovered an empty pack of Piedmont cigarettes amidst the rubble. A quick search online turned out that they were really popular in the 1910s and are nowadays favored and sought after by collectors for the baseball cards that could be found in certain production lines of Piedmont cigarettes. Alas, no baseball card in ours and overall it's in rough shape but we think it's mighty cool after all.

[back]

This will make a great addition to our house's keepsake shadowbox we're planning to create at some point (once the chaos dies down).

[After: new floor boards]

After the excitement died down a bit, the new floor boards went up and now our new landing floor is waiting patiently for its stain and polyurethane so it will look just as great as our downstairs floors.

Floor Magic - Step by Step

Phil giving the floors a final thorough vacuuming to remove the last bit of dust

Joe applying the stain ("Walnut" from Minwax)

Joe applying more stain - here he is in the dining room

Staining completed

Gloria brushing on the first (of three) coat of polyurethane

Be still my beating heart but those floors are fabulicious!

So so beautiful!

The walnut stain was a good choice. Husband was worried at first that it'd turn out too dark but the reddish undertones of the heart pine transforms the stain into a rich chocolate color that brings out the grain in most beautiful ways. Simply gorgeous.

Now I can die a happy homeowner :o)

kitchen floor

Despite the fact that I went from 3 promised posts per week to a whooping 7 realized posts per week, I'm still woefully behind writing about all the projects, big and small, that are happening at our Ugly Duckling.

Work is progressing at a steady pace and even though we are a little behind to where we wanted to be at this point, it's a nothing short of a miracle that there haven't been any major setbacks. Talk to anybody who's renovated/restored/built a house before and you know that a delay of a month or two (or more!) is almost inevitable. We're one -week- behind; considering our jam-packed before-move to-do-list, it's next to nothing. Our contractor's are running a tight ship :o)

Anyways, I'm way more than a week's worth of entries behind posting but it is what it is. Between working, household chores, family and house I'm amazed at myself that I manage to keep the family posted via this blog at all. I'm expecting to pass out for a 6-month-long nap as soon as the door closes behind the last moving box though ...

Right now the biggest project are the floors. Linoleum removed, we learned to our joy that the floors in the kitchen could be saved giving us original heart pine floors everywhere downstairs except for the powder room and the mud-laundry room. Woot! But this wouldn't be Florida if there weren't any termite damage and that, of course, needed to be repaired. This is what it looks like

[Repairs in progress]

The damaged boards are sounded out (not always is termite damage obvious; the little beasts tend to live a sneaky existence and love to eat wood away from the inside, leaving a thin layer on top to prevent detection. Until your heel sinks in, that is) and then carefully cut out. A piece of new pine wood is cut to size and fitted in (like a glove).

[Before & After repairs]

Once all the missing pieces are filled in, the entire floor is sanded to a smooth even finish. And then, then the magic happens with stain and polyurethane.

Why didn't we refinish our own floors? You know, it sounds like a very straightforward and rather simple project but it's one of those where mishaps can lead to disastrous consequences. Even the blog world is divided on this issue: some refinish their own floors quite successfully, others just pass up this project. We consider this money well spent, and I'm DYING to show you what the floors look like now!

More on that later!

Mo' floor

While the husband and I are - shockingly - considering a new kind of linoleum plank flooring for our mudroom (looks great, easy to install, 25 year warranty, etc.), we're generally not too enamored with that plastic-y fake floor covering. Once you remove it you can either be really lucky and uncover great hardwood floors underneath it, kept safe from abuse for years underneath a layer of foamy plastic, or you can find a hot mess underneath it.

While we were really lucky and very happy with what we uncovered underneath the dirty linoleum in the kitchen, we knew we were probably more likely to find contestant no 2 underneath the layers of linoleum in our upstairs hallway.

Bingo! After removing Linoleum layer 1, a layer of Luan and Linoleum layer 2 and 3., we unearthed this sad sight

[Hole-y landing!]

[This is not a concrete floor - this is patched heart wood pine]

This clearly cannot be saved. So, Joe started tearing out the old floor to replace it with new pine flooring which will be stained in delicious "Walnut" to match the stairs and the downstairs flooring.

[First floor boards removed revealing subfloor in good shape]

Despite being severely damaged by generations of greedy termites, riddled with holes and tunnels worming their way down the boards the long way (termites like expensive wood and seem to eat away one board at a time, before moving on to the next delectable one which may or may not be the one right next to where they started), the floor did not come up too easily attesting to the high quality of the materials builders used back when these old houses were built.

Finally, groaning and creaking, the first boards came out revealing a subfloor in great shape. I have now learned that a) not all houses in Springfield have subfloors (upstairs and/or downstairs) and b) that sometimes the flooring was installed over the entirety of a floor so they don't end at walls but the walls are built on top. Crazy, but it obviously works since the houses are still around.

Another reason that these houses hold up so well to time and wear is the use of no-nonsense method and materials. I bet my house has bigger nails than yours!

[95 year old nails]

These are the nails keeping our hardwood floors in place upstairs. I kid you not!

I squirreled some away as a keepsake and might frame them in a shadow box together with a bit of left over wallpaper that we pulled out from the original ceiling. And maybe, maybe, of we're really lucky, we will one day find an old photograph of the Ugly Duckling. That'd be too cool!

I'm floored

And madly in love to boot.

This week our fabulous contractor team started working on refinishing the downstairs floors in preparation for the arrival of our kitchen on Monday. Since I didn't make it over to our Ugly Duckling on Monday (you know, playing catch-up with laundry, dishes and general household cleaning chores left over from the weekend) I dropped in Tuesday to the glorious sight of this

[Hallway looking into the livingroom]

And this
[Future library with door to downstairs half bath]

And this[Original entrance at not-original location in Livingroom]

Glorious heart pine floors sanded down and cleaned of years of grime, grease, stain and poly. Again, a rather unexpected touch of beauty in our modest old house. This type of floor was rather difficult to come by at the time when the Ugly Duckling was built, and it certainly wasn't an inexpensive choice [at least, that's what I gathered from this site here http://www.heartwoodpine.com/why-heart-pine/]

[Pretty & Funky grain]

The stain we'll be using is "Dark Walnut" by Minwax and a satin poly for a slightly glossy finish. We'd originally agreed on "English Chestnut" but our contractor warned us that the reddish heartwood pine floors would turn that color into something closer to orange than a warm reddish brown. We tested it on a damaged board and it looks great, and when I swung by the house today, Mrs Gloria had tried it on one of the stair treads and boy, what a fantastic color did that turn out to be!

I can't wait to see the end result!