Archive for September, 2009

Most people would prefer purchasing wood flooring that is already pre-treated with the stain of their choice, but if you want to save some money you can purchase unfinished flooring and do it yourself. For us this was a no brainer since we already stained 1400 sq ft of wood floors… what was a couple hundred more.

Thursday evening we sanded, pre-stained and stained the floors.  Typically, a good rule of thumb is to stick with one stain through out a house to maintain a good flow and create a larger looking space, but we chose an Ebony stain. With the Ebony we really wanted to add some contrast and ground the white cabinetry, subway tile and walls in the space.

Friday we added another layer of stain and it’s still in the drying process. We’re doubling the set time to make sure we don’t smear the stain when we apply the water based polyurethane.  Again, a general rule is that you do not want to mix oil and water but from careful research and from Minwax directly, you can use water based poly but need to lengthen the drying time for the stain to make sure it’s completely cured.

Counter top progress coming soon…..

Sunday we picked up our untreated wood floors from Lumber Liquidators for our kitchen. We weren’t intending to start the kitchen renovation until the following weekend, but we were a bit anxious to demo the kitchen. We tried getting our hands on some salvaged wood at Construction Junction, but the lots were either too small or too large, so we had to settle for buying new.

Sunday night we started ripping out some of the linoleum and sub flooring just to see what we were getting into for the next day. Oh, and when I say “we” through this demo section, I really mean Matt…someone had to watch the kids:)Monday was a full day of floor demo with removing flooring, appliances and base cabinets to make way for the new floors. Tuesday evening the new floors started to go in and by Wednesday evening the floors were completely installed. Total time from demo to laid floors was about two full days because Tuesday and Wednesday were just a couple hours each evening. Now on to staining the floors…. building the concrete molds and setting the concrete for the countertops….building all new open wall shelving….and painting!!!!!

Our work in progress….

Yesterday we started the process of ordering the concrete for our new countertops to be formed next week!  Here’s a short litst of some key items going into the remod in the next few weeks:

• Concrete!!! After much research and a new mix being offered from Quikrete, we decided to take on the daunting task of doing this DIY just as we have with every other project.  One particularly great site we found was Wes and Sarah’s (WesandSarah.com) showing their modern remodel of their kitchen including the countertops.  Ours will take on a slightly more classic feel to match the rest of our house, but will definitely have modern touches.  Here is a picture of their kitchen:

• Subway Tile Backsplash. While we considered going with a glass tile, we decided to pull influences from the living room mantle hearth and the downstairs hearth (both with Subway tile) to have a better flow from each room and keep the kitchen more classic even with the concrete countertops.  A similar example can be seen in this link.

• Tile / Cork / or Hardwood? While originally we wanted to refinish and reuse hardwood flooring for our kitchen, the process to take out the subfloor below was decided to be too much since it would involve moving out all the cabinetry.  Having 2 kids and limited time comes into play and without a kitchen life would be tough.  Our second option was cork, but again although it’s resistant to water and we’ve seen it done in other kitchens, kids would be very hard on this surface.  Our final option is probably tile but we have not made the final selection.  This step will be done after the cabinets are refinished everything else is installed.

• Faucet… We’ve had our faucet for almost a year sitting in our pantry.  It’s finally time to get a move on!   It’s very similar to our bathroom faucets but this one is made by Huntington Brass (WYKTS01BL):

• Lastly, here is my nemesis and one of the last major remodels, I dare show you now… The Green Monster kitchen before: