Kitchen Countertops

Let me just say that I LOVE the new countertops!

At the hardware store we designed our kitchen at I was pleased to discover that for countertop options they had a selection of eco-friendly countertops made from 75% of recycled materials including glass, mirror, ash and ceramic.

The brand name is ECO by Cosentino and they have a range of colors and textures to choose from with each being influenced by how much of each recycled material goes in it.  We went with Iron Ore as it matched our choice of ceramic tile for the floor.

Let see some pictures!

So while some of us were working on the downstairs shower-others were doing demolition work upstairs in preparation of framing out the new layout. Clearing out 2 bathrooms and 4 bedrooms worth of broken fixtures and bad paneling generates an enormous amount of trash, so what do we do? Rent a huge dumpster of course! I wasn't here for this day but from what the BF tells me it was a full day of tossing wood out of the second floor window into the dumpster- one of the few times it is okay to toss heavy items out of the second floor window.


Here is the dumpster full of junk

Shower time

Alright so the shower was a huge learning curve for all of us. Also it turns out that once you do tiling yourself you can not but help look at the tiling job EVERYWHERE you go. We all compare notes about locations that have horrible tiling jobs and now we understand a little of why it was done so poorly. Its not that the work is incredible hard- more that it is tedious and requires you to be consistently precise while doing the tedious work. Nevertheless-with about 6 different people working on this tiling we got it done and it looks pretty decent. I'll leave it to you to be the real judge since I know where all the mistakes are. All that is left for the shower is to caulk the edges.

So at this point only the wall have been grouted which
is why the floor looks dirty-cause it is but it
wont stay that way. 

Hooray!

Next up- demo work and cleaning out the scraps from upstairs

fun times in the bathroom

Not as glamorous as the kitchen but just as necessary was the utility bathroom overhaul.

You can look here to see the before photos. With the floor rotting out from underneath the toilet- putting in a new floor was top priority. Once the old floor as torn out and plywood used to reinforce the floor we also built the framing for the new stand up shower and redid the door frame. Because this room is in the back of the house and has more need to be functional than to be pretty this makes it the perfect spot to do our first tiling work and learn as we go.

Here are some process photos:

Putting in cement board. This is looking towards what will be the walk in
shower and toilet. The large square area is the shower and the small
rectangle area will be where the toilet goes. 

New stairs & kitchen cabinets

Onto some fun stuff! 

First up the gorgeous new stairs! This was one of the few things we hired out for-stairs are complicated and it would have taken us much longer than the 2 days it took the hired crew to complete them. 

The new stairs with no switch back.

onwards

Hey there! Sorry about the long delay between posts. Between catching a horrible cold and the bf's finals there has not been much progress made. You will also have a to wait a bit longer for the new floor plans to be put up- I am having trouble getting my scanner to connect with this computer. All in all lots of apologies all around.

Lets move onward.

So if you havent picked up on it by now I am writing in the past tense- I did not get the idea to write a blog  about our experiences until about 5 months into the project. So I am playing a bit of catch up trying to get the blog caught up to our current state.

After the closing went through we tackled 3 areas at once. The stairs, the utility bathroom, & kitchen. First thing first was DEMOLITION. The boys tore out everything themselves- all the flooring, walls and fixtures in the bathroom, the stairs and all cabinets & counters in the kitchen. Nothing was working in the orignal layout so we had already decided to start completely from scratch.

One of our friends standing in what used to be the stairs. The doorway directly behind him
leads to the utility hallway & bathroom. The doorway on the left leads into the kitchen.
The plan for the new stairs is to straighten them to remove the overhang in the kitchen
were the switchback was. 

No more cabinets! You can see in the top right corner the start of the original switchback for the stairs. There is still
drywall and the vinyl flooring in this photo but that was all removed before we put in new cabinets and fixtures. 

Next post: cabinets & the NEW stairs

Upstairs: Bathroom, 2nd, 3rd & 4th bedrooms

OK. We have covered all of the ground floor and are about to tour the upstairs. This is might seem a bit confusing because all the rooms upstairs are interconnected- take a look at the original floor plan if you get a bit lost.  

First up the 1st bathroom. This bathroom is shared by the 2nd, 3rd & 4th bedrooms and is the only room upstairs that does not lead into another room. 

Its hard to see in this photo but that dark stuff under the faucet
lining the tub, its carpet. Who puts carpet around the tub? 

Sink/vanity

The toilet.