I spent my weekend polying the lower cabinets in our kitchen and we're no further along on the stair remodel. Drywall finishing is happening next week though, so I guess I should start mentally preparing for more dust. Lots of it. We've also invested in some important, but decidedly unglamourous, improvements lately - like new gutters and a new oil tank. Hardly what I want to be spending my money on, but the gutter guy was able to take the old ones off with one gentle tug, so it was time. As for the oil tank, when you need a new one, you need a new one.

The good news is that I have an active imagination, so there's been lots of daydreaming about eventually spending money on pretty things again. Like new floors on the main...floor. To jog your memory, these are the floors we installed in all three bedrooms upstairs (as seen in our guest room):

They were pretty dirty from the baseboard installation here, but you get the idea. The plan is to lay the same floors in the upstairs hallway (after the drywall guy does his thing, of course). We already own the flooring, it's just a matter of setting aside some time to install it.

And while I still love the hardwood upstairs, I definitely want to do something different downstairs. I know people are of different minds when it comes to mixing hardwood, but it seems like the general advice I've read is to choose your transition wisely and make sure you go different enough - if the flooring is too close in colour, it'll just look like you goofed. I'm 85 percent sure that I want to paint the stairs white (treads and risers) and add a runner. I think it'll make for a smooth transition between the medium-toned hardwood upstairs and the lighter-toned hardwood downstairs.

I have my heart set on a wide plank white oak for the main floor, but we still have to figure out what makes sense cost-wise, since we'll likely outgrow this house in a couple of years.

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These are pretty much my dream floors. And here are a few others I'm drawn to, via Pinterest of course.

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So tell me, if you could pick any floor you wanted, what would you choose?

We don't have time for much beyond eating, sleeping and changing diapers these days, but that hasn't stopped me from daydreaming about projects I'd like to take on once we've settled into some sort of a routine (that will happen, right?). Now that we've installed hardwood flooring upstairs, the next flooring project we want to tackle is tiling our kitchen and entry-way (eventually we'll install hardwood flooring in our living room/dining room, too). So when RONA contacted me to check out their online selection of ceramic tiles, I jumped at the chance.

I've long been obsessed with large, rectangular tiles and I immediately fell for these "Bamboo Graffi" floor tiles. They come in either a light or a dark finish, and while I'm drawn to the light version, I think a dark tile would work better in our home.

source: houzz.com

Here's a similar-looking tile used in a bathroom. I love the texture and the staggered brick pattern.

Another possibility is this ceramic floor tile in either tabaco or basalto, though I'm drawn to the darker grey tone of the basalto. Here are two examples of similar-looking tile; it's amazing how much a seemingly small detail like grout colour changes the overall look.

source: houzz.com

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Finally, I like the way this honey ceramic tile mimics the look of natural stone.

I could definitely see us using something like this in our kitchen and entryway.

source: design sponge

source: remodelista

Have you worked with tile before? Any tips for us?

This post was sponsored by Rona.ca, but all thoughts and opinions are my own.

The new hardwood in the kitchen is installed! Staining happened last night and from the pictures Aubrey texted me, it looks amazing. (The picture above is of the floor pre-stained.) It's so nice to see things moving along so quickly - which is totally a credit to Aubrey and his planning skills and also to having the best trades work with us. (I'll give a list of our awesome trades at the end) We're getting close....!

{master bedroom, now with 100% more hardwood}

Adam and I spent our third weekend in a row installing hardwood flooring, this time in our master bedroom (in case you missed it, you can read about our flooring adventures in the nursery here and in the future guest bedroom - where it all started - here). Of all three bedrooms, this one is by far the largest and by Sunday night we were both totally, completely exhausted. Like, didn't even have the energy to put our bed back in the room exhausted.

The good news is that we're thisclose to being finished with the whole hardwood saga. We have three tiny closets to go and we set up and tested our new table saw last night so we can make those final, lengthwise cuts to finish each room (by the way, we're both practically giddy about owning a table saw and all the DIY projects we'll be able to take on - woo hoo!).

Of course, once the flooring is finished it means it's time to buy, measure, cut, install and paint new baseboard and quarter round, but I'm trying not to think about that right now :)

How did you spend your weekend?

Adam and I were up bright and early on Saturday to lay hardwood floors in the second of three rooms - the nursery! If you've been following along for awhile, you'll recognize this room as the old guest room (we installed hardwood floors in the new guest room last weekend). With one room under our belts, the nursery went a little smoother, a little faster and turned out even better. I already covered our plans, process and materials here, so I'll skip straight to the before & afters:


{the "before", ignore the label - I snagged the photo from my house tour page}

{trim + walls painted, carpet + baseboard removed, underlayment down}



{new floors installed!}

{view looking into the room from the hallway}

{purty, purty}

It's another small room, so we were able to mostly finish it on Saturday - which meant we had Sunday to relax and do weekend-y things like go out for breakfast and take the dog for a walk at Hemlock Ravine.

We still need to finish the closet and install new, beefier baseboards (after we install hardwood in the master bedroom, we'll tackle all the closets and baseboard at once), but I'm thisclose to decorating the nursery and you better believe I can't wait!

And while we're talking nurseries, here I am just shy of 25 weeks. I'm feeling great - my only complaints are heartburn, needing to pee all the time, and a little physical discomfort (walking uphill is a lot harder than it used to be). Oh, and we've decided to be surprised, so don't expect any gender announcements from me :)


{just shy of 25 wks}

I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend! After some back and forth and a whole lot of research, we finally decided to DIY the installation of our new hardwood floors. Sure, we knew doing it ourselves would save us hundreds of dollars, but mostly we just couldn't turn down a good DIY challenge (we're weird like that).

The plan is to lay hardwood in all three bedrooms, but to keep things manageable, we decided to tackle one room a weekend - starting with the future guest room (the fact that it was empty - i.e. no furniture to move - made it the obvious choice). Adam painted the ceiling last week and on Friday night, we pulled up the last of the carpet staples, removed the baseboards, swept and vacuumed the room, and stapled the underlayment to the floor (basically a waxy brown paper that acts as a moisture barrier).

In addition to a bunch of online research and talking to a few people who had installed hardwood before, we relied on this video and this set of instructions. We also read through the manufacturer's instructions for specific information on how long to let the wood acclimate before installing (72 hours), type of installation (nail down), and what size gap to leave between the flooring and the wall (1/2" - 3/4").

On Saturday we rented a flooring nailer and compressor from Home Depot - $64 for 24 hours - and it took us around 5 hours to mostly complete a 105 sq. ft. room (we still have the teeny tiny closet to do). The rental is a must-have - it makes the job move much, much faster - but we still had to install the first couple and last few rows by hand (where the nailer was too big to fit).

So how did it go? Pretty well, actually. Sure it was tiring and there were a few arguments (we agreed to hit the 'reset' button while waiting in line at the tool rental center and mostly got along after that), but we're so happy with how the floor turned out and it feels awesome knowing that we did it ourselves. And now that we have a better idea of what we're doing, we can't wait to tackle the nursery and master bedroom (which should hopefully go a little smoother and a little faster).

If I could offer one piece of advice, based on my very limited experience, it would be to make sure, double-sure, triple-sure that your first row is STRAIGHT. If it is, the whole installation will go pretty smoothly/quickly, so take the extra time to check and re-check your chalk line before nailing anything down.

I know, I know - who cares? Get to the before & after!

{before}

{carpet and baseboards removed, underlayment down}

 

{new hardwood installed}

The floor is actually darker than it appears in the picture above. In real life, it's more of a chocolate-y medium brown, but I chose this picture because you can actually see the texture on the walls. Like the master bedroom, only two of the walls are textured, but unlike the master bedroom, the plan is to skip the hours of sanding and cover it up instead. In my next post, I'll share the plans for our guest room. Want a hint? Find me on Pinterest!



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No, this isn't a recipe for chocolate cupcakes (although they do look delicious). Adam and I bought hardwood flooring for the bedrooms this weekend! We went with solid ash hardwood in a chocolate tone (really, a medium brown colour). Although we haven't decided if we're going to install it ourselves or have someone else do it for us (please weigh in with your thoughts), the price of the flooring was too good to pass up. Ash is a good choice for us because it's a very hard hardwood with a pronounced grain pattern, which - according to what I've read - means dents and scratches will show less. And the chocolate colour was exactly what we've been looking for.

Have you tackled nail down hardwood installation before? Any tips? Or is hiring a professional worth every penny? Please share!

I had an awesome day yesterday, and not just because I took the day off work (I love my job, but I love vacation days even more). Adam made me huevos rancheros for breakfast (yum!), we took the dog for a long walk along the waterfront, I did some Christmas baking (turns out I'm not a very good baker) and I hung two of four new interior doors (what I lack in baking skills I totally make up for in general handiness). I still need to stain the doors and buy new doorknobs, but they're already 1,000 times better than what was there before - I can't wait to share the before and after.

Then last night when I was getting the guest room ready for door #3, I decided to lift up a corner of the carpet in the closet and discovered...hardwood floors! Which naturally led me to rip up all the carpet in the room and snap a picture with my phone (see above). The floors need some major TLC, but I'm so excited about the character they'll add to our home when the whole refinishing process is done. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we'll discover something similar in the other two bedrooms (I know the hardwood runs across the hallway, but I was afraid Adam would lose it if I started tearing any other rooms apart last night).

Oh, and to top it all off, I won this totally cool linocut in designwali's week of giveaways! How awesome is that?!

This week Adam became his own boss and started teaching drum and guitar lessons out of our house (he taught lessons as a contract employee for a music store for the past six years). It's great for a whole bunch of reasons, but most importantly because it makes him happy and I love having him home in the evenings, even though he's working.

Now that the basement is his studio, we want to create a more inviting workspace down there (we probably should have done that before it became his studio, but whatever). We've hired a company to insulate the exterior walls and crawl space with spray foam while Adam tours Eastern Canada with his band (you can find tour dates here), which should give the foam plenty of time to cure properly. Once Adam's back and the drywall is up (yes, he'll be teaching lessons upstairs for at least a couple of weeks), I think it's a good idea to tackle the concrete floors (you know, so we only have to move our junk in and out once). And I love the idea of staining them, thanks to this inspiration (and this):


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Found on Pinterest here

 I think it's gorgeous, but what do you think? Would you try staining your concrete floors?