Hello Pretty Floors!

I cannot describe how wonderful it is to walk on clean floors.  Yes, that is a luxury in this house.  Our old floors were gummy and dirty no matter how much I cleaned them and would discolour your feet!  Now our floors are smooth, gum-less, and I can walk around barefoot again, woot!  Putting in new subfloors involved picking up about 12 sheets of OSB (Oriented Strand Board) and screwing it to the old subfloor.  We staggered the way we layed each sheet to make for a stronger floor.  We went from the old subfloor...

To the new subfloor...

We had shopped around for flooring and sales for a while and finally came across some floating bamboo floors that were $1.99/sq ft on clearance.  And with a couple Home Depot Gift Certificates we could put towards it, that was a deal we were pretty happy with!  We really wanted to get bamboo for their sustainability.  We also had to buy the foam padding that they suggest you put under a floating floor. 

When it came to choosing the stain, we knew we didn't want a stain that would be too trendy (ex. something on either end of the dark/light scale).  Even though we love the look of really dark floors, and also saw some neat "ghost" bamboo floors, we opted for something a little more traditional.  It fit with the house more and we hope that they will have more longevity. 

Laying the first row of boards was the most important and time consuming.  It was essential to measure and measure again, to make sure everything was level and straight.  It was also the most time consuming because there were a few cut-outs to make.

After the first row was put down, installation was super easy.  The only cuts that had to be made were the excess pieces on either end of the row, and also around the heating vents.  I like to think we work well as a team - so our strategy was for me lay out a row, making sure each piece was staggered in an aesthetically pleasing way, and Darryl would follow behind me, clicking/ramming them into place. 

So for the weekend, I'll leave you with our new floors...

I'm going to keep it real with you, that's what the floors still look like, with that same pile of leftover bamboo in that same exact spot.  We've since moved onto other projects and have somehow neglected to put the excess away....we'll get to it....

Enjoy your weekend - any exciting plans?!

Ever Wonder What's Under Your Floors?

So the floor demo began and this was all on Darryl.  I stayed upstairs and pretended it wasn't happening.  The good thing is that we saved a whole bunch of the wood in case we need to replace anything upstairs.  Here he is preparing for the job...

He started demo later in the day, so he completed it over the course of two days.  He used a crowbar to pull the boards up.  Under the wood was a layer of wax paper.  After getting one half of the room pulled up, he had to go back and pull out the gazillions of little nails that didn't come out with the wood.

Before taking the paper layer up, he swept up.  Look what was under the floors...

How does that much dirt get under there??  Shocking.  Finally, he pulled up the paper stuff and we were left with the subfloor exposed.

You can see in the left side of the picture, that triangle hole, where the subfloor had cracked and fallen into the basement.  So we were definitely in need of some new subfloors - which I'll share with you tomorrow!

Have you taken up any floors?  Did you find anything underneath them?

To Replace or Not to Replace...

This was an ongoing question for many months.  Initially our intention was to sand and restain the floors to bring them back to life.  Who in their right mind would get rid of original, decent hardwood right?  The floors in the living/L-shaped dining room  were alright.  Sure they'd been scuffed up, scratched, dulled and a little warped, but no biggie right?

 Well once we were in full on demo mode, where walls were all down, the full bathroom was removed, we could see what the floors underneath were like.  Or rather, that there weren't any floors there at all...

The above is a picture of where the opening between the living and dining room once was.  You may remember seeing it like this during demo (the part furthest to the right is where a wall once stood and once we ripped the frame out, we were left with what you see in the above picture)

The door in the above picture was not an original fixture, it was once a solid wall.  The door was put in to convert the dining room into a bedroom.  When they opened that part of the wall up, they were obviously left with a gap in the floor like we were.  However unlike us, they decided to patch it in a really shabby way...

And then once we took the tub and flooring out of the bathroom, we saw that the previous owners thought it would be a good idea to cut all of the floor out in order to put icky vinyl flooring in instead.

Then there were a few other random holes like this one, where an old heating register/vent thing was in the middle of the house which = inefficient heating. 

And it's a little hard to see in that picture, but the kitchen side of the house and the living/dining side were two different heights.  We knew that if we put in new flooring we'd have to put a new subfloor in, which would raise the floor to be almost flush with the kitchen side.  So many factors to consider and in the end we decided to put new flooring in.  Not everyone's choice I know, and one that I struggled with, they hold so much history.  But the scale of the project was beyond what I think we could do.  The floors upstairs are better and I hope we can refinish them.

Pop back tomorrow to see the beginnings of the floor changes!

Have you had to replace old floors?  Did it break your heart too??  Or were you able to refinish your old ones (if so any tips/advice is appreciated as we hope to tackle that in the future)?

Out With the Old, In With the New

Most of our windows are original to the house, only 2 on the second floor - 1 on the main floor and the basement windows were replaced when we bought the house (out of 15 windows).  And I absolutely love the look and feel of the wooden frames and details...

haha, I promise you that I wasn't angry in this picture, just chilly!

...but our heating bills did not love the wooden windows.  The breeze that came through the windows would cause wisps of hair to move around my face as I sat on the couch.  There was major leakage happening.  There was also the safety factor to consider - the windows no longer stayed open on their own (potential for fingers, hands or head injuries should they shut on anyone) and there were no locks on them.  So, since the government was offering money back for updated windows we did what we could and replaced the 4 windows on the main floor.

It was important to me that the new windows look identical to the original ones (minus the fact that they would be made of vinyl instead of wood).  So we took the necessary dimensions, headed to Canada Windows and Doors (after months of shopping around and several out-of-this-world quotes) and Darryl scored us a pretty nice discount.  He is a great negotiator - I get too embarrassed, or afraid of insulting the seller so I'm not too assertive in that department. 

The after pictures really don't look too different from the befores, you'll just have to trust me that it was worth every penny.

Before...

After...

We still haven't taken the stickers off ... it's on the to-do list ;)  So is the caulking on the outside, we've got to get around to that soon. 

I was so so happy when we picked the windows up.  They turned out just as I had hoped - they open only one third of the way, just like the originals did, and they still have the 3 panel detail in the top part!

So hopefully this winter we'll be able the reap the benefits of a less-breezy main floor, and our heating bill should be a bit lower too.

Tomorrow I'll start to show you the flooring changes we made in the living/dining room!

Have you had to replace any windows yet? 

Unexpected Findings

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!  Fall is definitely in the air, hey?  I had some dance lessons which I love, a post-Thanksgiving breakfast with Darryl's family, a tea date with a friend and got a second coat of primer on the walls downstairs!  On the way home from breakfast on Saturday we saw a sign, as we often do this time of year, pointing in the direction of a "rummage and bake sale"...how could we say no?  Don't you love when pleasant, unexpected things happen?  We had a quick browse around and came across these babies which, for $5 each, just had to come home with us!

For months now I've been on the prowl for a coffee table to turn into a seating bench (gotta love pinterest inspirations!), checking thrift stores and every garage sale I came across, but nothing was quite right.  I hadn't thought about doing 2 separate seating bench/stools with side tables...but why not??  It would make for more flexible seating arrangements too!

Sometimes, when you least expect it, things just seem to fall into place.  So I've got some plans for these guys that I hope to share with you soon!  Just waiting on my fabric to be delivered...

In other weekend updates, the ceiling in our loft upstairs has officially begun to crumble.  Here's what it looked like just before we moved in...you can see a slight crack to the left of Darryl's head.

Over the last 2 years the crack became more and more prominent and we knew it was only a matter of time before  we'd have to tackle it.  We just didn't think gravity would get to the demo phase before we did.


Last night we were watching TV and heard a crash from the attic.  We went up to check it out and saw this...(excuse the mess, this has become our dumping ground for everything that should be on the main floor right now)

Three hours later we heard an even louder crash and went up to find this....

Looks like this project has just jumped a few spots on our to-do list  :S  I guess on the bright side, demo will be pretty easy!

Did you come across any exciting finds this weekend??

All Walled Up

Getting drywall up is such a satisfying feeling!  I makes everything look like a liveable space again.  We were so lucky to have a family member who had a drywall lift for doing the ceiling.  Darryl's back was greatful.  Let's take a look at the progress

The guys got this room done in one day and left the kitchen for another day.  Some time later, I can't remember now, we did the mudding (a terrible job to give a detail-oriented person, in my opinion haha) and Darryl's dad came over to start a coat of primer!

One of the most important things I learned along the way when mudding drywall:  whatever you do, do not put your nose up to the wall to inspect for imperfections!  Stand a couple feet away, just as you would if you were casually standing in the room.  Whatever you notice from there, fix.  Whatever you don't notice from there, move on to the first coat of primer.  The primer will really show you what imperfections will stand out once you paint, so do a little patch work if needed before the second coat of primer and you're good to go!  I wish someone had told me this before I started mudding because I was pulling my hair out at the sight of miniscule dings, dots and lines.  Do not obsess as much as you are tempted to or it will delay your progress significantly!  I speak from experience. 

You can see what the living/dining room looked like before here and here.

Next week, some much needed window improvements and floor updates!  Have a wonderful weekend!!

Do you have any other dyrwall/mudding tips?  We've got 2 other floors and a basement to work on so we'll definitely be doing more!

It's Gettin' Hot In Here...

...(not to worry, we did not take off all our clothes).  By the way, please don't use the dates that I'm posting as a reference for how long our projects took!  We demoed for what was way longer than we both anticipated.  With just two of us and sometimes Darryl's dad, it took a while to tear everything down, pack it up into bags or boxes to bring it out to the trailer, and then to drive it to the dump, unload it all and come back to do the next shipment.  Phew!  I'm writing this a little more than a year after we were even in the demo phase.  I cannot even describe the elation I felt when things were no longer coming down, but rather being put back together.  Wahoo!!!

Mhmm that's drywall all lined up and read to go!

I don't have much else to say about insulation and vapour barrier, other than that it is waaaaaaaay more fun than demo.  Mind you, I didn't do any of this room's insulation/vapour barrier, so Darryl may have a different opinion??  ha

Come back tomorrow to see what the living/dining room looks like all opened up and covered in drywall!