Before and After pics

Since this project is more or less done with the exception of cleaning up a few things here and there I decided that it's time for some before and after pictures. Enjoy!

Entry and dining room before:


After:



Dining room before:


After:



Hallway into the living room before:


After:



Living room before:


After:



Kitchen looking into the dining room before:


After:



I'm not exactly sure what we'll start working on next. We'll do some redecorating with those floral window... things sometime soon, and we're also thinking about what to replace the tile surrounding the fireplace with (slate?). Also starting to think about the main bathroom because there's a lot to be done there too. At this point we're searching for ideas, especially about the bathroom because it's coming up soon. About all I know at this point is that I think I would like to tile to the ceiling in the shower, and that the green tiles in there will probably have to go. Also need to do some work with the cabinets. It's a pretty wide area so there are a lot of possibilities there. Anyway it's now a time for planning...

Carpet Transition

Every hardwood install will run into another type of flooring at one point. In this house there are two rooms with a carpet / wood border and four areas that border with tile, plus one transition with the front door. This weekend I'm working on the carpet / wood borders.

I have one where it's a simple doorway, and another more difficult area about 10 feet long between the entry way and living room. For reasons unknown I decided to try the harder one first. Anyway the first step is to nail in the tack strip that will hold the carpet down, about a half inch from the wood. On a wood subfloor this is easy, but on concrete... not so much. I recommend removing the all-purpose nails the tack strip will have preinstalled because they will just bend and chip the concrete. Then get a pack of plastic concrete screw anchors and some aluminum nails. Drill a hole the appropriate size for the plastic screw anchor and the tack strip, then drive in the aluminum nail. The aluminum nail will conform to fit the hole, locking it all in place. But before you do this, make sure the tack strip is facing the right direction! Go ahead, ask me how I know about that one...

So now that the tack strip is installed go ahead and cut back the foam padding so that it's about half to a quarter inch from the tack strip. Next get the carpet stretcher (you can rent these from pretty much any tool rental place and stretch the carpet. Attach it to the tack strip by folding it over from the carpeted area so that it engages the tacks. In other words, fold the end of the carpet back away from the wood and sort of roll it towards the tack strip. Rub the area over the tacks with a clean hammer to set them in the carpet. Repeat as necessary to work the width of the transition area. Cut the carpet so that it extends about 1/4 inch over the wood.

Lastly, run a bead of adhesive along the base of the wood and use a putty knife to tuck in the edge of the carpet. Don't walk on the area for a while to give the glue a chance to dry.

When you're done it will look a lot like this:





This weekend I got all the carpet / wood transitions done and worked some more on the baseboards. We're caulking on both the top and bottom. It's easy, just time consuming. The last things left to do are find, stain and cut the reducer pieces, clean up and take pictures for a before / after post.

Catching Up

I didn't realize just how many pictures I've taken without posting any of them. Here's a few of the better ones.

This is from when we were still setting the chalkine. Snowy is probably wondering what in the world we're doing and why we took away the carpet that he liked to run around on.



Ever wonder where all the furniture was hiding? I want to go back to when I took this picture and tell myself "Backfill NOW! This will be a lot harder than you think 2 weeks from today when the glue is dry!" The hardwood went through two rooms and a hall. Had I known what I do now, I would have only glued the first room and dry fit the rest of the first row through the hall and family room so that I could tell that everything was straight. Then built backwards from the first row that was glued down before it could dry. With the woodloc system Kahrs uses it's a nightmare to build backwards after the glue dries because of this foot that fits under the board in front of it and holds everything together tight. No way to get a board in from behind without slightly raising the board in front of it. Lots of luck with that if the glue holding it to the floor is dry.



Snowy sneaking into another picture. The dining room is dry-fitted and my camera is dirty.



Me nearly caught in a corner spreading glue in the dining room.

Still hard at work

Just a quick note to let everyone know I'm ok. I had a big test in Finance class last Monday, and now I have a test in Accounting in two days so I've been a bit busy doing things other than working on the house.

Danielle and I still found time to get a lot done this weekend. All the wood is installed except for two tiny pieces, measuring maybe a square inch or two each. Furniture is making its way back and finally the place is starting to look a bit more like where someone would live.

The big project this week after my test is to get the baseboards back in by Thursday and the place cleaned up because a bunch of people are coming over in the evening. Might be able to do it...

As of right now we're lacking:
-Baseboards: some in, some painted and ready to go back in, others untouched.
-Clean clean clean clean. And put up the tools.
-Reducer at all the wood / tile interfaces.
-Trim up and reattach the carpet (will farm this one out, hopefully it'll get done on Tuesday...?)
-Figure out how in the world to work a transition from the front door threshhold to the wood. Maybe t-molding?