My task this week is to get the door mouldings prepped and painted. We installed them just days before Christmas and I think I’ve procrastinated long enough. I’m one of those odd people that actually enjoys painting, however I find painting trim work extremely boring. I think it’s because I’m fanatical about taping everything off and by the time I get this done, I’m ready to call it a day and move onto something else (I have a very short attention span).

Unfortunately most of the original mouldings were long gone by the time we moved into the house. The two bedrooms are the only areas that still have their original baseboards and door trim. We wanted to get something similar to the original woodwork and chose pre-primed MDF rosettes and casings. It’s not exact, but so much better than the painted plastic that was up before.

So tomorrow I’ll grab my ladder, caulking gun and wood filler and get to work!

When we purchased our home, it was a vision of pale yellow walls with seafoam green plush carpet and an office grade drop ceiling. It was the drop ceiling that started the whole renovation process a year ago.

I always felt bad ripping out the carpet because although it’s not my personal taste, it was brand new. But it had to go since everything was being ripped out. And as luck would have it, we didn’t find beautiful wood floors lurking beneath. Instead, there was linoleum from the 40’s or 50’s on top of plywood which was nailed into the old wood planks. Beneath that was yet another wood floor which I assume was the subfloor for the planks.
So unless we were willing to rip out the old flooring and install new sublfoor, our flooring choices were limited. Our first choice was to use laminate since it’s a floating floor and we could lay it over the old lino. That plan came to a screeching halt when after several attempts we realized that it just wasn’t going to work. The long exterior wall bows outward making it impossible to line up the first row of laminate. And although the floor looks level, it’s way off and all the patch jobs in the floor made it impossible for the laminate to lay flat.

We had to come up with something else and really didn’t want carpet, mostly because we have cats and they like to scratch and carpet in the dining area isn’t my favourite thing. It’s just a disaster waiting to happen. So, off to Home Depot to see what, if any, other options they might have. I happened to find this product called Resilient Flooring. It’s relatively new to Canada so there wasn’t a lot of information on it. We took a box home just to try.

It was very easy to install, (I did the majority of it myself), budget friendly and it’s flexible so it covers all the imperfections of the floor nicely. It’s a vinyl product and 100% waterproof so it’s easy to keep clean especially when a certain feline coughs up a hairball!

This is probably not something you’d use in a higher end house but it’s fine in our little country bumpkin house. This is the American Walnut finish (no baseboards yet, hopefully next month). I like the darker floors, but every little piece of fluff and cat hair shows on it. And I did end up getting an area rug for the living room. It needed something to cozy it up in there plus it’s nice on the tootsies.

The ceiling is finally complete and has been for some time. However I just haven’t got around to posting pics or updating here. We’re very happy with how it turned out and I must confess that I glance at it often to admire all our hard work. It’s much nicer than the horrible drop ceiling that was there before.

Opposite view:

I’ll be installing the dining room light fixture after the trim goes up. It’s stained glass and I’m terrified of smashing into it with the ladder or something. Better safe than sorry!

We debated for some time on what we should do with the ceiling. Should we have it drywalled? Maybe a nice tongue and groove wood ceiling? Or is there another option out there? We decided on option number 2, a wood ceiling. The decision was pretty easy since the guy that finished installing the drywall for us said that if we wanted him to do the ceiling, we’d have to remove all the lath first. Uh…no thanks! And we never did find a third option. Just as well, I really wanted the wood. Even with the decision made, there were still more decisions. What should we do with it…stain, paint, leave natural, white wash? After much thought, and a few unsolicited opinions we went with stain. But what colour of stain? The first colour I chose was really awful. I just kept staring at it and knew I couldn’t live with it. It reminded me of nacho chips. Fortunately I had two cans of English Oak on hand and went with that.

We’re really pleased with how it’s turning out. Even though it’s a lot of work and sometimes the pieces don’t like to “play nice” and fit into each other, it’ll all be worth it in the end.

We still have to re-wire and mount the electrical box for the dining room light fixture before we can finish installing the pine.
Here’s how it looks so far:

It’s been a while since anything major has happened on the renovation front. I think it was a combination of running out of gusto (as this was the first time we’ve ever tackled anything of this magnitude), a very hot summer (too hot to do any kind of construction) and difficulty getting tradespeople. We decided to hire out the drywalling of the livingroom since I was seriously lacking any motivation to do that. Installing the drywall in the diningroom was not fun! So after many failed attempts at hiring someone, it just so happened that my father-in-law knew someone who’s son worked for a drywall company. Long story short, the guy came out, assessed the job and now it’s done. Since we had him here, we decided to demo out the little room off the livngroom. I think it was originally a bedroom but became a storage area after a previous owner moved the attic entry into the room and installed stairs.

Here’s the room (approx. 7′ x 13′) mid demo:

We took out the door and made it larger. Still have to rip out the plaster walls and remove window.

Here it is with it’s new drywall. I managed to save the ceiling during demolition which had been previously drywalled. We made the window opening bigger and plan to install glass blocks. I wanted to get some natural light into the space but not the view, which is the storage side of our porch and quite unsightly.

Here’s the livingroom:

And the diningroom:

We are currently working on installing a pine ceiling in both rooms. So far we have about 1/3 of the room done and as of yesterday we have a “real” light in the livingroom. I spent a few frustrating hours yesterday afternoon installing a ceiling fan. But once it was done and I hit the switch, I felt like Clark Griswold in Christmas Vacation when his exterior lights finally work!