Let's Talk Remodeling

[SplshMtn99]

We are the proud owners of 32 sheets of the brown travertine (the dark one) shown in photos in previous posts. Glad we were able to look at each sheet individually because those colors really range into some DARK territory.

Not what I originally had in mind, but its growing on me.

Now DH & I just need to finish the "are we installing it" or "hiring someone" arguement. lol After the holidays for sure!

 

[binny]

Congratulations splash! they will look wonderful I am sure!


Well we are on to a new project. DS12 came in last night and said " I think the girls and I should switch rooms, they are REALLY going to need the bigger closet soon" LOL

He got the corner room because it was already blue and it belonged to his friend that we bought the house from. It was just easier to move him in there and then paint just the girls' room.


So now I have a Blue and white room that will need to be painted a PINK room that will need to be changed.

So I am off to the paint store to see what we can find.



Here are the rooms as they are now. The girls are thinking the want pink and purple on the walls. Above the chair rail of course. Cam doesnt know what he wants to do. I am not going to buy all new comforters and such thats for sure!



The will be girls room

the will be Cams room

That last one is dark but its really a light pink.

 

[shovan]

Splash, I think that's going to look great! Glad you were able to make the decision!

binny, Kids room are fun to do! Pink & purple will look great with that chair rail!


Our vanity will be finished this week. But my DH went & told the contractor that it was okay, if he finished up another job he started & didn't get back to us until after the holidays!!! WTH!!! Then after all my moaning & groaning about the awful wall in the den, he called the contractor to see if he could sheetrock that wall before Christmas & of course now he can't do it. So yesterday I painted over the closed in closet/brown section. I painted it white but it really didn't help much. I might try to put my Christmas tree in front of it, but that might just draw more attention to it. OH, my DH did make amends for his big mistake with the contractor, he ordered a 52 Sharp Aquos TV last night! We've been looking at entertainment centers and have seen a few really big ones we like. So that's what we're going to do with that wall. Close up the book case and sheetrock the wall & put an entertainment center there.

 

[mickeysgal]

Now DH & I just need to finish the "are we installing it" or "hiring someone" arguement. lol

We usually have this argument during the actual project when we decide to do it ourselves. Like this past weekend.

DH was tiling (finally!) the downstairs bathroom. Yes, a large part of the delay was me choosing tile and the pattern. So far, it has taken three days to just do the tub. A standard 3x5 tub. One day to finish prepping the area - which he said was already done. Yeah, right. Second and third days to tile. And he's still not done. Lots of cuts in the tile, lots of cuts that were wrong, lots of shifting and repositioning. I swear, never again. I can't tell you how much arguing was going on about tile joints being straight, grout widths being too wide, cuts not right, etc. But since we're now the proud owners of a superdedooper wet saw that he HAD to have, we're going to have to muddle through other tile projects. We still have the floor to do but that should be straight forward as they're just 13x13 tiles laid on a diamond pattern. Should only be a 3-star argument day instead of the mega 10-star that we had this past weekend.

I honestly don't know how married couples survive a whole house remodel that they undertake themselves. They must be made of stronger stuff than I.

Either that or I'm just getting too old for this remodeling stuff. Between our teenagers and the remodeling, I'm just worn out.

 

[SplshMtn99]

Mickeysgal, I can relate. YEARS ago when DH & I were renting, we decided to wallpaper our kitchen. Arguement started over something. I ended up wearing an 8ft section of PASTED wallpaper.

Can we borrow your wetsaw? lol

Our biggest problem is the contractor neighbor with BAD taste who butts into our projects. Remember him? The guy who wanted to put $5 bathroom plastic roll molding to cover the gap from Silestone to countertop?

See, his son just used this tile on a flip house. Its how I found about it. He brought over a sample. So, since he just helped son install it......you just KNOW he's going to want to do ours. I've never liked his work in the past. I haven't seen the flip house.

 

[Miss Jasmine]

We usually have this argument during the actual project when we decide to do it ourselves. Like this past weekend.

DH was tiling (finally!) the downstairs bathroom. Yes, a large part of the delay was me choosing tile and the pattern. So far, it has taken three days to just do the tub. A standard 3x5 tub. One day to finish prepping the area - which he said was already done. Yeah, right. Second and third days to tile. And he's still not done. Lots of cuts in the tile, lots of cuts that were wrong, lots of shifting and repositioning. I swear, never again. I can't tell you how much arguing was going on about tile joints being straight, grout widths being too wide, cuts not right, etc. But since we're now the proud owners of a superdedooper wet saw that he HAD to have, we're going to have to muddle through other tile projects. We still have the floor to do but that should be straight forward as they're just 13x13 tiles laid on a diamond pattern. Should only be a 3-star argument day instead of the mega 10-star that we had this past weekend.

I honestly don't know how married couples survive a whole house remodel that they undertake themselves. They must be made of stronger stuff than I.

Either that or I'm just getting too old for this remodeling stuff. Between our teenagers and the remodeling, I'm just worn out.

This is why we just spend the extra money to have someone do all the work. I figure the money would end up going to a divorce proceeding instead. So no real savings.

 

[Am_I_There_Yet]

I honestly don't know how married couples survive a whole house remodel that they undertake themselves. They must be made of stronger stuff than I.

The majority of them are probably like us, and never get the project off the ground in the first place.

Either that or I'm just getting too old for this remodeling stuff. Between our teenagers and the remodeling, I'm just worn out.

Well, you mentioned "never again" and tiling is the one project that we wish we could do ourselves, to save some $$. But, I'm certainly not getting any younger, and I do think DH and I would try to kill each other.

 

[SplshMtn99]

We've done 2 small tiling projects in the past. This one should be easier since they are on mesh already. And there is no pattern to deal with. Just the cuts & polishing at the ends.

We don't have funds to do projects AND pay people. So if I want several projects, we have to do it ourselves or we just end up with 1 project done. We used to like doing it, but I think we've gotten old too. lol

 

[shovan]

My marriage has lasted 31 years so far and I can tell y'all it's because we realized early on not to attempt remodeling projects together!!!!

The one project we did together many many years ago was to wallpaper a small bathroom. It was very very bad idea. A whole lot of " Well just do it yourself, then! " and " Don't you walk out of here now!" . Since that incident it was either his project or mine, not both! I really like hiring someone else, then we can both tell them how to do the job!

In the 80's, we were on the brink of building a new house when the oil field boom crashed & DH was layed off from his job. We were able to get out of the contract on the purchase of the lot & decided to just stay put. Thank the Good Lord for those bad times! I'm quite sure our marriage would not have survived the building of a new home!

 

[mickeysgal]

Well, you mentioned "never again" and tiling is the one project that we wish we could do ourselves, to save some $$. But, I'm certainly not getting any younger, and I do think DH and I would try to kill each other.

Well that was exactly what we were thinking too. We've paid out too much lately in having things done, so DH was insisting that he do this himself. He has tiled before, many many times, and had done beautifully. I do contend however, that after the costly wet saw, exactly what were we saving?

This time though....some of the 13x13 field tiles had to to be cut into four equal squares for the diamond pattern above the border tile. Fine, easy enough. Then some needed their corners clipped so that we can make space for a metal square accent piece. (Most tile patterns sell field tiles with the corners clipped already, but no, not ours.) Sounds easy enough, except if all the corners are not clipped absolutely exactly the same, when you put the accent piece in, the grout that will surround it will be less on one side than the other. It looked like a child's art project. Then, some of the accent pieces were built-up with mud so that they were even with the field tiles, others stuck out, and some were below level. After a lot of "are you blind?" comments and a lot of adjusting, I think we may end up with it looking ok.

 

[Hixski]

I am laughing my butt off at all of you and the remodeling arguments!!! DH and I can argue about which way to hang toilet paper but remarkably we are pretty good when it comes to remodeling. Neither one of us can figure out why we don't really argue when we are working on stuff. There must a hole in the space time continuum when we remodel or something equally as weird.

 

[shovan]

My vanity was delivered today & it looks great, even in pieces.

But it will be sitting in the garage until after Christmas, when our contractor can get back to us.

 

[SplshMtn99]

 

[Ranatra]

I honestly don't know how married couples survive a whole house remodel that they undertake themselves. They must be made of stronger stuff than I. .

We survived it without any arguements, but I wouldn't do it ever again.

I love this thread. I'm always here reading, love seeing everyone's progress reports and pics.

Well finally after 2 years, we have picked our countertops for our master bath and sinks. The bathroom was gutted along with the main floor of the house. The tile shower is in, the tile floor, the cabinets and toilet. I just couldn't find any granite that I liked for the bathroom and time kept going by.
I think I was just burnt out.

We are going with a soapstone (cause I still couldn't find any granite I liked)
And yet, finding granite for the kitchen was SO easy.

The guy was here yesterday doing the template (sp?)
Here it is:

I can see both green and blue in it. And the brown veins should go nice with the cabinets.

 

[shovan]

Ranatra, I've never seen anything like that! Soapstone is not very common down here. I can't wait to see some pics after you have it installed! That should be very nice.

 

[Am_I_There_Yet]

Ranatra, I've never seen anything like that! Soapstone is not very common down here. I can't wait to see some pics after you have it installed! That should be very nice.

As many houses as I've gone in, I've never seen it here either. About the closest thing, is honed granite for us.

I can't wait to see it installed!

 

[shovan]

My sweet husband decided that we needed to just sheetrock that wall in the den & purchase a big entertainment center. So yesterday we went out and purchased a huge one! Then my DH realizes it's going to be really hard to move it once it's set up, so he got on the phone to find someone who could sheetrock that wall this week! He thought he had lined up a friend's son but after looking at it, he felt the job was too big. DH called our contractor again to see if he had anyone else to recommend for us. Well Santa must be taking care of us, because the contractor's other job is held up waiting on some materials & he will come here himself tomorrow to do the wall!!! But now I have a lot of boxing & cleaning to get done before tomorrow morning!

 

[shovan]

I have a new wall in my den!!!

Our contractor started yesterday morning & finished up about an hour ago!

Here's pics:

Before:

After:

The entertainment center will be delivered tomorrow afternoon!

Picking out paint color sure is tough. I bought several samples & had them all over the walls yesterday. One was too dark, one too green, another just muddy. Aaaaah! Ending up having Sherwin W. making up one a shade in between. The color was a bit scary this morning. But I'm already liking it! We'll get to sheetrocking the rest of the room sometime soon I hope. (After the bathroom is finished.) We're thinking we are going to keep the beams and paint the rest of the room including the ceiling a lighter beigy gold. What do y'all think?

 

[shovan]

Here's a pic of our new den wall. With the entertainment center & new tv. We love it, but I can't wait to do the rest of the room!

 

[Miss Jasmine]

Shovan,
That is looking great! Really nice entertainment center.