Curbshopping: A Miss and a Win

Have you ever been driving with your vehicle packed full to the brim only to come across a wonderfully HUGE pile of furniture at the side of the road?
Trust me, it’s a bummer!

I was headed to my daughter’s house for day 1 of her attic project and my van was loaded to the roof with all my tools.

Along the road I see a huge pile, a couch, crib, dressers, tv stands, end tables….you name it! The house had a for sale sign in front, so I imagine they were clearing everything out for putting the house on the market.

Sadly, I kept going.  I knew full well I couldn’t get another thing in that van!

I briefly considered quickly unloading at my daughter’s house and then heading right back.

Then I decided, no.  It obviously wasn’t meant for me to get this stuff this time.

I then promptly forgot about the missed treasures and spent a long day working on Erin’s bedroom.

By the time I passed by the place where the furniture had been pretty much everything was gone.

Oh well, I thought to myself.  I have plenty of those type pieces already.  I certainly didn’t need them!

About 5 blocks down the road I drive past a small white table. 

All by itself, just sitting at the curb.

It’s 2 am, extremely dark, and I’m not in the best of neighborhoods, so I keep going.  I don’t see anyone around so I circle back and pull up in front of the place where the table is.

Why on earth is this just sitting here all by itself?

Is it broken?

Noooo, it appears to be intact.

Hmmm, this is really cute.  Wonder what it looks like in daylight?

Of course I picked it up and popped it in the van, heading back home.

The next morning I take it out and have a look in daylight.

   

This thing is really cute!  It’s got a lot of staining on the top, and a horribly thick paint job, but all in all it’s solid and sturdy.

Even the legs are in great shape. Not a wobble to be found!

 

 

Somehow I feel like this was my consolation prize for having to pass up the big pile earlier in the day.

It totally works for me, as I can hide it a lot easier than a dresser!

;)

Erin’s Attic Bedroom project- part 2

I’ll pick door number one, please.

This teeny tiny door is the entrance to Erin’s attic.  It’s at the end of her kitchen, tucked in between the window and the stove.  The microwave cart sits in front of the window usually.  Unless you want to go upstairs.  Then you have to roll the cart back out of the way to fit through.

Methinks we’re going to have to do something different with that microwave cart.  But that’s for another day.

Today is all about Day 2 progress on the floor in the attic.  Yesterday we stopped just a few rows in. 

One of the comments left yesterday was from Gail (My Repurposed Life) who said she had laid down a laminate floor in a similar room at her daughter’s house.  Only they laid it lengthwise instead of the way I’m doing it (crosswise).  Honestly, I don’t know if there’s a right or wrong on which way it should go.  My thought process at the time was that the room is already very long, and laying the planks lengthwise would make it seem longer, drawing the eye to the end of the room.  By going across the narrower part of the room I hoped to visually expand the width of the space, making it seem more balanced.

Does it? 

I dunno. 

But that’s my story and I’m sticking with it! :)

(and then there’s the little theory that I thought I had a better chance of keeping it squared if I started on an outside wall!)

On Saturday we continued working on the floor.  Stevie, Erin’s boyfriend, was there to help us out.  Together we worked out a system to move along.

Something to note:  having some type of a detail saw is important at this phase.  There was a heat duct smack dab in the middle of the floor we had to cut around for starters.  You can’t do that on the chop (miter) saw!

 

I left Steve to his own devices for a while so I could add the drywall to the closet framing.  I did the inside and outside, except for one piece.  The flooring boxes were in my way.

 

We kept plugging away all day long, into the wee hours of the morning.  The goal was to get the floor done by the end of the day, but we finally had to call it.  We got just past the bathroom door. 

So close to the end!

I found that despite how easy this flooring system is to lay down, it still takes a long time.  You have to make sure each piece is butted tightly to the last, and at the start of a row you have to make sure you shim the piece to make sure there is an expansion gap along the wall.  You don’t want the floor going tight against the wall!

Trying to make the pieces not show a pattern is a little tricky too, especially in the smaller areas like the hallway.

This floor, being engineered hardwood, is a half inch thick.  The advantage to this is that it can be stripped down and refinished if needed.  Stain can be used to cover up any scratches too. Important in this application because Erin has 2 dogs!

 

I’ll leave you with a before and after picture.

        

 

That’s it for day 2!

;)

  

 

Erin’s Attic Bedroom project- part 1

I’m a bad Mom.  There, I said it.  What, you may ask, makes me a bad mom?  Why, leaving my daughter in the lurch for a year and a half; waiting to have her new floor installed.

Yep, bad mom.  That’s me. I’m pretty sure you would find my picture next to that in the dictionary.

If you’ve been visiting this blog for a long time you might vaguely remember something about me starting my daughter’s bedroom remodel way back when I started building the outdoor kitchen.  I had taken a whole week off of work and thought I could do BOTH projects in that time.

Alright, alright, quit rolling on the floor laughing your butt off!    I’ve already ‘fessed up to having a warped sense of time….I KNOW it wasn’t realistic. at least NOW  I do.

Back then I was really bummed that I couldn’t get it done.

And so, I bet, was Erin.

See, we had found this great deal on some discontinued hardwood flooring that year and I totally convinced her she had to have it for her attic bedroom.  The cost of the flooring was almost as low as laminate would have been to buy, and it was so much nicer!

The dark walnut color was beautiful.

Up until recently she had been renting out the space to a “friend“ who had pretty much trashed the room and moved out.  (Now an ex-friend.)

So she was ready to fix it up and use it herself.  Her house is a small bungalow style with 2 bedrooms.  A previous owner had finished the upstairs attic space into one long room with a half bath. Being an attic the ceilings were low, so the usable space is limited. But the room was really cool and she wanted to use it for her master bedroom.

That’s where I came in.  I suggested adding a closet along one wall to utilize some of the low ceilinged area better. This might keep one from hitting their head on the ceiling as they walked through the room. 

Of course I would build the closet, and then install the floor. 

No problem!

The room had been painted a very dark blue on one end and brown on the other. It was like walking into a cave!

This shows the bathroom door in the hallway. It was incredibly dark.

And here’s my Erin; tackling the daunting task of covering up that dark blue paint!

  

What we did get done that long ago summer was to fix and prime the walls and ceiling, and get 2 coats of paint on (nearly) everything.

We used oops $5 paints to mix up a color that Erin liked, a very pale green.  She chose a deeper green as an accent wall along the stairway.

After 2 days I left her on her own to finish the painting and went back to my outdoor kitchen building.

And never came back.

See that sheet in the middle of the floor in the picture above?  The hardwood flooring boxes sat under that sheet for the next 1 1/2 years.

Erin’s life changed a lot during that time; she was faced with some difficult choices.  

Finishing the attic room was relegated to the back burner as she sorted things out. (And sort she did, I’m very proud of her!)

So here we are, it’s Christmas 2011 and I have just given the kids each a promise of 3 days to work on their projects.

Erin’s choice, of course, was the attic bedroom.

She was itching to get it done and move on up there.

Silly me, I scheduled 3 weekends in a row for the kid’s projects, with no buffer weekend in between.   Hers was weekend number 3.

So Thursday night I packed up all my tools from Jason’s house and moved them over to Erin’s, hoping and praying I could muster up enough energy to tackle this project!

Day one (Friday) was spent  touching up and finishing that paint job we had started so long ago.  I assigned that task to Erin.

My first task was  framing the closet. 

 

We then moved everything out of way so we could start the floor. 

The closet was the perfect place for moving all the stuff to since we weren’t going to lay the new floor in there. (we had purchased just enough to do the room, but not the closets)

Erin commandeered the camera at this point and got this picture of me.  This is what I look like in “project mode”.  Hair not done, no makeup, and wearing awful clothes with paint all over them. 

 

We rolled out the underlayment film.  This brand was really great because it had the adhesive strips for joining the edges together already on it.

The first row was the trickiest, you really want to make sure it’s square and straight as all the rest of the rows depend on it!

We installed this as a “floating floor”.  We could have opted to nail it down too, but thought this method would be easier in the long run.

 

  

Glue along the upper groove and then push into place tightly.  A hammer and block of wood were essential for this step. If you’ve never done this before, it’s really pretty simple.   The piece you cut off on the right side then becomes the starter piece for the next row.  I was amazed at how little waste there was! (Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, this was my very first attempt at laying a floating floor.)

The trick is to choose the pieces so that the seams do not match up from row to row.

             

This is where we called it a night.    It was pretty late.

I’ll be back with more for you tomorrow.

;)