The life of two scientists, creating a small home, in big mountains

Tag: Floor Page 1 of 2

Trimming out the Main Story!

Last month we refinished all the hardwood floor on the main story. Let me tell you, it made such a difference. The old floor had a yellow/orange tone and made the whole living space felt dark and dated. The new color no longer has the same amber tone, but more of a light wood color. It made the white wall paint feel cooler and the whole space feel cleaner.

IMG_6425

IMG_6442

IMG_6383

IMG_6438

We did plan to upgrade some furniture. But before bringing stuff inside, there is another big task to tackle first – installing baseboards.

The “before” look without baseboards

IMG_6392

IMG_6395

As you could see from the pictures, We could really use some base trim to cover all the imperfections along the floor line. In addition, the baseboard vents and returns were all exposed.

IMG_6404

We also need to add baseboard trims in the closet and murphy bed area in my home office.

IMG_6393

The floor finishing crew we used was very professional and kept everything clean for the most part. However, there were still visible marks on the wall where the sander scraped the paint. These marks needed to be painted over.

IMG_6401

IMG_6391

Painting and installation

We are fully aware how much baseboard and trims elevate a space – it is like the lipstick on a full makeup – without it, even the best finishes can feel sort of a blah. But once you put it on, you have gotten a master piece! The same week of our floor refinish, Slav picked up all the baseboards on Friday and painted them early Saturday morning, so he could jump on the installation over the weekend.

IMG_6429

While Slav was painting the baseboards, I washed all floor registers and touched painted all the walls.

IMG_6436

Slav has installed baseboards in our basement. He worked from the longest piece/biggest space down to those itty-bitty pieces. We have quite a few problematic areas where the floor heights are different, or where the wood trims meet the white MDF baseboards.

IMG_6500

The results are quite impressive indeed.

IMG_6470

IMG_6496

IMG_6468

IMG_6495

The new baseboard trims butt against vertical door trims, and Slav cut returns around all the vents:

IMG_6491

IMG_6498

The little hallway between my home office and main floor bathroom took a lot of time to complete. For one, it has three doorways, two closets, and a couple turns. Slav made as many cuts for the hallway alone as for the rest of main floor.

IMG_6467

The kitchen doorway was also a pain in the neck to finish. The tile floor on the kitchen side was almost 3/4″ higher than the finished wood floor. We also took out a couple boards right against the kitchen tile and left the subfloor exposed.

IMG_6311

We have decided to tile this portion in the future kitchen renovation. So for now, Slav patched this portion with two layers of plywood subfloor.

IMG_6506

Then he cut the baseboard trims to accommodate the floor differences.

IMG_6505

Installing bathroom door trims

Since the nail gun was out, Slav also finished the trims on the bathroom pocket door. I have trimmed out the bathroom door from the inside, but the outside trims were never installed:

IMG_5576

IMG_6410

The main reason for not installing the outside trims was that the drywall here needed repair. We have resize the doorway during the pocket door installation, so on one side and the top, there was some drywall missing.

IMG_6411

On the left side of the pocket door, the drywall was uneven too.

IMG_6412

Slav scraped the drywall all around, and started smoothing it out using drywall compound.

IMG_6433

It took 4-5 rounds of sanding and mudding before the drywall was smooth and the corners were sharp.

IMG_6484

IMG_6432

He actually did the drywall work over a week before the baseboard install, so we could put up the vertical trim first. The baseboard should be butting against the vertical trim.

IMG_6488

Now the hallway is finished!

IMG_6643

The finished baseboard

It took Slav two full days to install all the baseboards, plus a few days of drywall work in the hallway, an evening of buying the baseboards, and a morning of painting them. All the baseboards cost us $400, including the white pre-primed MDF and a couple pieces of wood ones. We had the paint, nails, and glue to begin with.

IMG_6483

The following weekend, Slav caulked the baseboard and filled all the nail holes. After a bit of paint touch-up (we use Behr Ultra Pure White in semi-gloss on all the trims), the living space was ready for furniture! I think the dogs are just happy that all the floor sanding and nail gun noise are finally coming to an end. As soon as we rolled out of the carpet, Roxie planted herself right on it.

IMG_6502

We are considering getting a couple new furniture pieces. But for now, even with the old furniture, the living space feels fresh and vibrant. As the weather gets cooler, we are forced to work on garden clean-ups, which are fairly labor-intensive. Having a clean and comfortable place to rest again at the end of the gardening days has been very therapeutic!

Refinishing the Hardwood Floor

IMG_6389

Hi everyone! I am coming with a big update on our ranch house – we refinished the hardwood flooring on the main story!

IMG_6319

The old oak flooring and the decision of hiring out

We have hardwood flooring on most of the main story of the house, including the living room, Slav’s office, and my office/guest room. Fun fact, we only discovered the red oak flooring on the day we closed on house. I am not even sure if the previous owner knew about the hardwood under the carpet…But since we discovered it, you bet the first thing we did was to rip off the carpet and reveal the wood floor.

IMG_6161

IMG_6176

Unfortunately, the wood flooring we inherited were not in good condition. The carpet tack strip left many nail holes:

IMG_6218

Tiles were laid at the front entry, and the thinset left ugly marks on the wood floor underneath.

IMG_6198

The hallway among bedrooms and the main floor bath were badly worn, and there were paint splashes everywhere.

IMG_6214

IMG_6277

IMG_6202

IMG_6205

IMG_6241

Right before the closing day, the previous owner burned the wood floor in the living room, likely with an iron.

IMG_6224

We also patched the flooring with new oak boards when renovating Slav’s office and the closet area of my office. The new boards have a different finish and appear pinker.

IMG_6221

IMG_6253

IMG_6259

IMG_6257

IMG_6258

With all the flaws and imperfection, it makes sense to refinish the floor all at once. We decided to hire professionals for this job, because they can complete the task much quicker and cleaner (more on that later). The goal is to save our time and energy for the finishing work AFTER the floor refinish, such as installing trims and baseboard. Luckily, we found a highly-praised floor contractor who could pencil us before winter weather. So the game is on!

To prepare for the floor refinish…

We spent a whole week to prepare for the floor work, including moving all the furniture out of the house and into the garage, and taping the built-in bookshelves for dust control. Of course the floor crew could have moved the furniture, but it was a great time for us to organize and to purge.

IMG_6278

I removed the built-in drawers to expose the floor underneath the bookshelves. And Slav steam-cleaned the rugs before rolling them up for storage.

IMG_6261

We also packed away all the curtains and blinds on the main floor. The floor crew will use the dust-free method for sanding, but we knew that dust was inevitable and it is better to just wash the curtains now instead of after the floor work.

IMG_6233

While most of the baseboards were removed during carpet removal, there was still some left in closets. Slav pried all baseboards off and cleaned the wall skirt. We would be installing new baseboards throughout the main story after the floor refinish.

IMG_6248

The front door threshold were also removed to prevent potential damage by the sander. So many little details!

IMG_6210

Lastly, the wood planks next the kitchen tiled floor was badly worn. We decided on a whim to replace them with the floor boards left from the office doorway floor patch.

IMG_6212

IMG_6262

Floor sanding and testing the stain color (the 1st day)

Preparing for the floor refinish took us a whole weekend, but all was worth it. The following Tuesday, while Slav and I were at work, the floor crews came in to sand the floors.

IMG_6296

Y.U.M.M.Y! Even the hidden corners under the bookshelves were sanded pretty well. We were very happy with the result.

IMG_6300

IMG_6303

Here are some before and afters. The sander took off the scratch marks, and the floor crew filled the nail holes and gaps. The whole flooring became very smooth and uniform.

Patched spot next to the kitchen:

IMG_6311

The same spot before:

IMG_6266

Inside the pantry closet:

IMG_6305

The same closet before:

IMG_6241

The hallway:

IMG_6308

IMG_6306

The hallway before:

IMG_6182

My office:

IMG_6309

And the murphy bed/winter gear closet area:

IMG_6310

The floor crew also left a few stain and sealer sample. It was a hard decision to make. I want the main story to be light and airy with lots of green plants, so lighter color was a natural choice. But I also did not want anything too trendy such as grey or white wash…So eventually we decided on the lightest color with any grey tone – the natural sealer from BONA (the lower right panel).

IMG_6292

Staining and sealing the floor (the 2nd day)

We confirmed the color choice with the floor contractor in the morning of the second day, then left for work. Around 2pm, Slav texted me and said the floor was done!!! I could not get home fast enough to  see it.

IMG_6315

O.M.G!

IMG_6322

I was so glad to have chosen the natural sealer (without any stain), since three coats of sealer still made the floor slightly darker than just bare wood. I think this is due to the darkening of the wood grain though. The picture above were taken with afternoon light. Without direct sun, the floor looked a bit darker, as shown in the picture below.

IMG_6336

I think the new floor color complements the white wall and dark bookshelves pretty well.

IMG_6334

The crew did a good job refinishing the small corners underneath the bookshelves.

IMG_6343

IMG_6344

And the floor boards we patched in became a lot less noticeable.

IMG_6347

In person, it was actually hard to tell where the floor patch is.

IMG_6348

Here is the living room! I could not tell where the burn spot was anymore.

IMG_6314

Here is more or less the prints of the hot iron was. can you spot it?

IMG_6358

And of course, getting all these white paint marks off the floor made it look ten times better.

IMG_6321

Although all the nail holes were filled, you can still see where they were because the damage they have caused. But the flooring there is actually very smooth. We will be installing baseboard trims soon and many of these nail holes will be covered.

IMG_6313

There was two places we saw the biggest improvement, and one of them is the front entry. The thinset marks were completely sanded off and it looked like that there were never tiles here.

IMG_6356

The only give-away are the nail holes from the carpet next to the tile. But they will be easily covered by an entryway rug.

IMG_6354

The second area of big improvement is the hallway. Look at the new hallway!

IMG_6362

The floor in my office was the best of the entire house. And now it looked even better. The floor in the closet and murphy bed area was nicely refinished too.

IMG_6385

IMG_6380

 

IMG_6383

You can no longer see the floor patch here anymore.

IMG_6364

Like these boards were always together…

IMG_6365

 

IMG_6366

The floor patch at the door of the closet was well blended in too:

IMG_6373

We loved it!

Overall we were very happy with the “new” floor! The choice of hiring professionals was a great call – it would have taken us days if not weeks to complete this task. Plus, as DIYers we could not rent the dust-free machine they used that vacuums majorities of the dust away while sanding. We hardly experienced any dust or odor during the two work days or afterwards, and the cleanup was minimal before moving the furniture back. We were also impressed by how much the sanding improved the look of the flooring – almost all the scratches and dark spots were taken care of. Although there are still visible nail marks, they are a lot less noticeable. In general, the floor is no longer an eyesore of the house!

IMG_6407

Now looking back, we really could have gotten this done when we first moved in, right after all the carpet was removed. Lessons learned! But hey, late is better than never, right?

So, what is next? We will be moving onto baseboard installation right away and hope to have the furniture back in a couple weeks. At the mean time, I am contemplating a new layout for the living room that should bring more identity and style to the space. So stay tuned, friends! I will be back with an update soon!

Home Stay + The Utility Room is Finished!

Four weeks ago we shared about the progress in the basement utility room. Since then, I was busy at Spring planting.

With all the warm days and cool nights, our yards have greened up nicely. The trees bloomed and all the perennials came back stronger than ever. The lawn remains nice and green, while all the seedlings came up nicely despite of using old seeds.

Gardening really made the home quarantine a lot easier. I am blessed to have a big space to roam around safely. 10 weeks into the pandemic, neither of us feels anxious or claustrophobic. I still look forward to visiting the mountains and public parks though. But to date, gardening kept me calm.

I did go back to the utility room though. During the rainy days I painted the utility room in our go-to wall color – Sherwin-Williams Extra White (SW 7006):

IMG_1670

The closet was painted in “Pale bud”, the same color we used in our upstairs bedroom closets:

IMG_1672

IMG_1694

The ceiling and laundry nook were also painted in white:

IMG_1669

IMG_1673

The utility closet will be covered by doors so I did not paint the inside. In fact, we did not even mud the drywall inside the closet:

IMG_1688

Building the utility closet is truly a good decision! Not only it enables us to soundproof around the furnace, but also we now have a designated spot for all the unsightly cleaning tools and products.

IMG_1681

As soon as the paint dried, we moved onto preparing the slab for floor installation. It was an easy decision to extend the vinyl flooring throughout the basement into the utility room. What we used was a cork-backing vinyl flooring called NuCore, in the color of “Driftwood”.

IMG_9644

Installing LVP flooring requires a leveled floor. Moving the floor drain left us a low spot in the utility room. So we used self-leveling concrete to level everything and patch small holes.

IMG_1680

After the self-leveling concrete dried overnight, we went around the utility room slab with a scraper to clean up any small bumps, followed by a good vacuum around the room.

IMG_1677

Then we put the washer and washer back. Not able to do laundry for a whole month, it felt so good to have the laundry set back and connected!

IMG_1702

It was also a nice bonus that they were finally out of the media room now. For weeks, our media room looked like this:

IMG_1684

Now the washer and dryer were out, I could not wait to clean up the dust:

IMG_1705

I stripped away the floor protector and swept away any debris and dust in the media room. Gotta love a mid-project clean-up!

IMG_1819

Based on our experience, a clean floor installation requires a dust-free environment during the installation. Cleaning the neighboring media room prevented the underlayment to attract dust and hair due to static electricity. Using the same method, we expanded the flooring into the utility room:

IMG_1836

and all the way inside the closet:

IMG_1809

with a smooth transition:

IMG_1806

With previous experience it only took us 6 hours for the installation. We worked like a well-oiled machine and had a good time.

IMG_1848

Shortly after the flooring was installed, the doors were up! We ordered custom doors to match the profile of the solid basement doors. They came in pre-primed and with trims! After a few cuts on the trims, everything got installed in a day:

IMG_1839

A pair of french doors are used for the utility closet to ensure full access to the furnace and water heater.

IMG_1824

The door on the under-the-stair closet is a pocket door, which slides inside the wall to save room:

IMG_1821

After the sliding doors was installed, I was able to finish painting the boundary between the closet and the utility room:

IMG_1805

We did not install trim on the side wall. So the two spaces were separated by a crisp paint line between white and pink:

IMG_1813

We also took this opportunity to order and install the pocket door for the master bathroom:

IMG_1857

It will be painted white on the bedroom side. And the bathroom side will be painted in a darker color to match the tiles.

IMG_1849

The installations of the flooring and the doors happened back to back (crazy, I know), and together they made such a dramatic change to the whole basement! I had imagined many times how this space would feel at this stage. But in reality, uniting the rooms with seamless flooring created a look even better than I anticipated:

IMG_1844

It helps the whole space to feel so spacious:

IMG_1842

I cannot help but feeling that the utility room – maybe we should give it another name now – deserves to have its own purpose, rather than being merely an extension of the media room.

IMG_1862

I have come up a few ideas for the space and as you can see, and I put up some makeshift floating shelves made from scrap materials to try them out.

IMG_1873

The taller floating shelf is set at 32″ from the floor. At such height, it can be used to display books and collectibles. It also can be used for laptop or tablet if needed.

IMG_1864

I kept it narrow (12″) so it does not protrude from the partial wall next to the opening.

IMG_1872

I also made a makeshift low table with two simple storage cubes. It is elevated 18″ from the floor, a perfect height for an adult person when sitting on floor pillows. It can be a spot for chess games, tea time, or serving drinks and food when we have movie nights in the future media room.

IMG_1877

Being also 12″ deep, the low table can be tucked underneath the floating shelf, if such unobstructed access between the two rooms is desired.

IMG_1883

There you go, our finished utility room, and our almost finished basement! Without unfinished surfaces, our basement feels spacious, clean, quiet, and cool – a perfect spot to chill during summer days. It has quickly become Charlie’s favorite space to stretch out and nap. We moved two dog beds down here already, one in the bedroom for Charlie to sleep after breakfast, and the other in the media room for him to nap in hot afternoons. Charlie is a lucky pup.

IMG_1832

IMG_1890

The next step is finishing the trims and baseboards – we are getting so close!

Page 1 of 2

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén