Currently banging this post out from my phone next to a sleeping baby so hopefully I can get away without too many typos!
This week we managed some major progress but we also hit a major snag (more on that later).
First up, I painted the foyer and hall and Kyle got the mirror hung back up (but I still need to give it a good cleaning).
We also built the barn door but getting the lumber home was interesting. See, we can typically bring home some wood in our cars but plywood also leaves us with two options: ask a friend with a truck to help or rent the Home Depot Load & Go. This time we decided on Option 2. The problem with the Load & Go is that it’s rented on a first come, first served basis and not only was it rented out already but someone else was already on the waiting list. We decided to try another Home Depot but since we had been running errands for a while at that point we decided to go home first so I could stay home with OG since she needed to eat and nap. Before Kyle could leave, I gave him another option – have Home Depot rip the plywood into 3 pieces and then throw them in his Kia. We were already planning on making it a 3 panel door on the foyer side to match our master bedroom doors (and the doors we’ll eventually have everywhere else) so the trim would hide the seams anyway and it just meant trimming out both sides instead of only one. The cost of the extra trim and the truck rental pretty much balanced out so that’s what we did. We built a Frankendoor and I love it! I stained it yesterday but it still needs to be hung. Here’s a little pre-stain peek.
I also started working on ripping out the tile in the hallway.
And here’s where the snag comes in. We thought we were going to be dealing with two different floor heights between the laminate and where the tile was but it turns out there was just one extra layer – the plywood the tile had been mortared to. This came up super easily and then we were left with a level subfloor. Sounds great and it is because it means we don’t need a threshold but it also means we can’t finish the ORC in six weeks. You see, we plan on putting this flooring in the kitchen and dining room eventually and we want the last row installed to be by the sink and dishwasher so that if there’s ever a leak there we won’t have to pull up everything (it’s a snap together flooring). If we were using thresholds we could just start fresh laying the floor the way we need it but since we don’t need thresholds it makes the most sense to take up everything and re-install it the way we need it for it to flow into the kitchen. Basically, our flooring is backwards. We really only have time to work on the weekends so there’s just no way to finish this week! That’s okay though because I’d rather do this than have random thresholds and we can still move forward with hanging the barndoor.
Here’s how the to-do list is stacking up:
Remove old baseboardsRemove door/window casingsMove doorbell box thingyMove thermostatPatch walls as necessarySkim coat front wall (failed wallpaper removal)Remove column and patch floorPaint- Install new baseboards
- Paint new baseboards
- Install new door/window casings
- Paint new door/window casings
Build/stain/install barn doorMove rug back from family room- NEW: Pull up floors and reinstall going toward the back of the house
So there it is! I still plan on revealing what we have it just won’t include finished flooring or trim work.
Make sure you go check out what the other guest participants are up to here.
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