Category: Projects Page 1 of 57

Finishing the Office Doorway

On 2023-09-25

When installing the guest suite door back in May, we installed some simple wooden trims that is flush against the drywall. I thought flush trims would look cool on this door, but as soon as it was installed, we knew it was not going to work.

As you can see from the picture below, the guest room doorway is right next to Slav’s office doorway, which was finished with wider and more decorative trims. It looked weird when the trims on these two doorways were so different.

We immediately decided to add the same decorative trims around the guest room doorway to match. A few weeks ago, we finally got it completed!

It actually did not take long to install – only half a day to cut the trim boards to size and nail them onto the doorway up. But between work assignment and adoption events, it was hard to find the time. After Slav installed the trim, I patched the nail holes to get it ready for paint:

While the miter saw and nail gun were out, Slav also installed the baseboards next to the doorway. They were taken off when we worked on the kitchen which was finished a year ago and had not been properly installed afterwards.

Believe or not, we still had not installed the baseboard in the kitchen either! Slav took the opportunity and patched the missing baseboard in the kitchen too. These are small details to finish but makes such a big impact:

The baseboard at the living room corner was taken off during the kitchen renovation too. Finally, they are back up:

With the new stair railing, Slav had to cut the trims boards to fit around it, and use caulk to fill the gaps. I think he did a good job:

It might look messy at this stage but after I sanded the wood filler smooth and painted the baseboards white, it looks really good!

When our contractor finished the kitchen, all the base cabinets were finished with stock baseboards, which is very thin. Slav used a leftover piece of baseboard from the kitchen island to replace the thin baseboard on the cabinet exposed to the room. I think it looks much better.

After all the nail holes were patched and sanded, I came in with the white trim paint and gave everything a couple coats.

This new trim offers the right proportion to the door and looks a lot better than the old flush trim. Don’t you think?

Slav did a good job scribing the trim to fit the narrow space between the doorway and the wall.

When it came to painting the baseboard on the bi-color wall, I decided to match the baseboard color to those on the walls. For the left half on the white drywall, I painted this portion white:

And for the right half on the green wood board which is part of the kitchen cabinet, I matched the cabinet color and painted it green!

Isn’t it neat? I like this look a lot more intentional than just painting the whole piece white. Oh, you can see our second foster puppy, Jaz in the photo above too. She has been adopted!

I also finished painting the new baseboard in the living room and kitchen.

The cut side of the green baseboard was coated with the same green color of paint as the cabinets too.

It feels so good to complete the main floor trims, yet again! Trims and baseboards are such a important piece of room finishes. But they are never a high priority so we always put the trim work off for months after finishing a room. Next time, I need to remind myself to finish the last “5% of work” sooner than later!

A New Parking Pad Addition

By Alison

On 2023-08-25

In Renovation

Last week, I showed you the new concrete porch in the front of the house. Today, let us go to the backyard for another concrete project – the new trailer parking pad!

This area is located on the south side of our garage. When we moved in back in 2017, this area was part of the front yard lawn:

In 2018, we constructing a new fence here and enclosed this area behind. Since then, this side yard has been used to park our utility trailer.

Although very functional, parking the trailer here slowly killed the lawn grass beneath, and the dogs started use it as a sandbox to nap in.

The soil surrounding the trailer also became more compact. Instead of healthy lawn grass, weeds started to grow.

We had talked about pouring a proper parking pad for a couple years. This July, when we hired a concrete contractor to build the new front porch, we added this area into the concrete work, filling the space between the gravel area under the fence line and the existing sidewalk.

Before the contractors came, Slav and I removed the pea gravel and pulled up the landscape edging around the work area. These pea gravels would be put back eventually. But for then, we wanted to give the contractor some space to build the form.

On the day of concrete work, the contractors started by removing a few inches of soil from the space. Then they built the form and compacted down the soil.

A metal wire mesh was added to prevent the new concrete pad from cracking and separating. The new pad would fill the entire length from the drive gate to the end of the sidewalk.

The same contractor also worked on the garage floor for my neighbor across the street on the same day. Sharing the labor and the concrete truck significantly lowered the cost for both of us. But the parking situation on our street that day was kinda crazy.

The pups were locked in the house for good measure – we do not want hundreds of paw prints all over the new concrete patio!

By mid-afternoon, the new parking pad was poured and finished. It was amazing how a team of people worked so seamlessly that they created this in only 6 hours.

The edge of the pad is about 8″ away from the fence line. This space would be filled with pea gravel again after the concrete pad was properly cured.

We were told to stay off the new pad for 5 days. A temporary fencing was set up to block the dogs out. Although every single of them could easily clear the low fencing, lucky for us, none of them attempted.

After five days, we removed the temporary fencing, put the pea gravel back, and parked the trailer onto the new pad.

As you can see, the new parking pad was a lot longer than the trailer itself. This is intentional for easier access from the back of the trailer.

Here is Dazumble, checking out the new parking spot!

Here is a closer look of the pea gravel area along the fence. The height of the new pad is tall enough to hold back the pea gravel, so we no longer need to use landscape edging here.

Beyond the parking pad area, we put in landscape edging to better contain the small-size pea gravel, then aligned it with decorative concrete blocks that match other area of the backyard.

As you can imagine, the pups are happy to get their yard back!

A New Front Entry

By Alison

On 2023-08-16

In Renovation

A month flew by and lots have happened. We have been spending time with our first foster dog, Dazumble. She quickly came out of her shell and is now a happy, sweet, dorky, and loyal pup.

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A post shared by Terrific Broth (@terrificbroth)

Besides working our full-time jobs and taking Dazumble to weekly adoption events, we accomplished a feel-good project at the ranch house – a new front porch.

Below was the front porch when we purchased the house. We tackled this area immediately after moving in, including demoing the awning and the old sinking concrete patio, replacing the storm door and painting the front door a new color, and laying the drainage rocks.

Then the front porch looked like this for the last six years. It was always in our plan to rebuild a concrete front porch. The drainage rock was meant to be temporary, just to hold down the plastic underneath and to prevent water penetration.

To my surprise, this gravel area has worked well for the last 6 years. The melting snow and spring rain flew down to the pathway below and the lawn smoothly, and the 3/4″ rocks stayed in place. We never needed to add more rocks. Overall, this “temporary” solution was functional. However, we still wished for a real concrete patio for better look.

Came around this June, one of our neighbors did a concrete project and brought in some contractors. We had a chance to talk to the contractor about this porch job. In early July, Slav removed all the drainage rocks (and incorporated them into other areas around the house), lifted the 6 mil plastic, and the new concrete porch was poured.

New porch was levered with the adjacent pathway and went around the window well we installed ourselves. It was finished with a nice broom finish to match the pathway.

Just like that, we have a large and leveled surface next to the house again. The new porch patio is in a cooler grey color when compared to the older door steps and pathway, but it certainly looks better than the colorful gravel!

Although we are not interested in furnishing the front porch, we do want to add a couple planters for seasonal colors. Slav also requested some screening plants in front of the pathway, just to obscure the exposed foundation and the window well from the street.

So the same week when the concrete patio was finished, I placed order for eight Green Mountain boxwood. The plan was to grow a low and evergreen hedge to hide all the concrete from the street. It will also to make the front porch look more formal and tidy.

I chose the “Green Mountain” variety for its bright green foliage, resistance to winter burn, and its upright growing habit. Leaving alone, the Green mountain boxwood grows naturally into a cone shape, so it does not require as much trimming as other varieties of boxwood. Leaving untrimmed, these boxwoods will grow into a line of connecting cones, and stay above 4′ tall. We will likely trim the sides and top to keep a more formal, smooth wall-like look.

Here are the boxwood, all planted! We cut away the sod to create a skinny flower bed, then planted all the boxwoods in line. When reaching maturity, these boxwood plants will grow over 3′ wide, so their canopies will completely cover the mulched area.

So, this is our curb appeal as of today. It might not look like not a big change when compared the “before” look just a few weeks ago, but it is a good start for something lush and lively in a few years. Imagine when the boxwoods grow into a 4′ tall green wall, with a couple tall planters behind it filled with summer annuals. The honeysuckle will cover the trellises around Slav’s office window by then. Cannot wait!