The Great Laminate Debate!

Last week, I share the progress we have been making in Elliott's new bedroom. I had just completed painting the cement floors in both his room, and the family room. I was digging the rich, charcoal-brown colour that we chose but there was a hitch.

Dude. Concrete is hard. And cold.

So we decided to go ahead and buy the laminate flooring we planned on using down the line in the basement. Simply put, I want to enjoy this space. My family needs this space. We are so cramped in our little ranch. And we knew that if our family room and Elliott's room felt cold and uncomfortable come the middle of winter, there would be no way we would ever enjoy being down there.

Here is what we chose:

And we are so, so happy with the decision. It does mean that we will have to save up a bit longer to finish the laundry room and bath down there, but in my eyes, it was the right decision. I only wish I hadn't spent so stinkin' much time cleaning those hard floors up and painting them!

Additionally, we've narrowed the lighting fixture for Elliott's room down to these two, both from Barn Light Electric.

I'm taking votes!

Xo Meg

Elliott's Room Progress

I hope all my Canadian readers enjoyed their long Canada Day Weekend!  I did what we always do on long weekends - mixed family fun with crazy amounts of hard DIY work.  We made loads of progress though, and I'm so excited to show you the latest shots from Elliott's room.  

I took all the pictures for this post with my iphone.  I'm sorry they're not better quality but I promise to have excellent photos for the reveal post.  First, Jay installed the doors and trim in the room.  Baseboards, casings, window trim and jams are all in.  Here we are:

The window has an apron sill and backband around the trim.

  Then I got to work scrubbing the floors.  I don't think we'll ever learn the lesson to cover floors up if you don't want a ridiculous clean up in the end.  The concrete floors were covered with dust and debris, but also globs of mud from the drywall process.  I scrubbed and scraped, swept and vacuumed, scrubbed again... you get the point.  I'm so sore today, but this was the outcome of all that clean up.

   Originally, we planned to install laminate as the flooring in here.  However, we decided against it for the time being.  This is for two reasons.  First, the laminate flooring at my work has cupped and pulled up badly in the areas where there is moisture and this is the basement level of our home.  I'm worried about that happening here too.  Second, we are out of budget for the flooring we want to put down.  We're eventually going to go with hardwood with a Delta subfloor.  But that will take us some time to save up for and we need to be able to use this space, like, yesterday.  

Enter plan B:

 I painted the floors with concrete paint - which went on suprisingly easily.  I had it tinted to Benjamin Moore's Willow, a grey brown colour.  I also painted the family room floor and will show you that room's progress later in the week.  

BM Willow CC-542

Next Steps for this space include:

1. Choosing a flush mount light fixture that a) is affordable; and b) doesn't look like a boob. 
2. Installing outlet covers.
3. Caulking, filling, and painting the trim and doors.  

We're in the home stretch, baby.

xo Meg

Basement Update

I sure do miss my little blog.

We've been working hard around here with all the things that come along with homeownership.  Not really blog-worthy stuff, just maintenance and regular work. Like weeding the garden, mowing our giant lawn and doing the laundry.  All stuff that really doesn't warrant a post but takes up so much of our time.

Any time we can find, we are spending in the basement working on Elliott's Room, the Hallway and Family Room.  Here are a couple progress shots from my iPhone of the family room.

So far, we've completed:

• Electrical layout
• Electrical Installation
• Framing
• Drywall, Mud and Tape
• Painting

I just finished priming the room and will be painting everything out in my fave Benjamin Moore paint colour, White Down (CC-50).

The trim and built-in cabinetry will be painted BM White Dove (OC-17).

And Elliott's Room is already painted with BM Grey Owl (OC -52).

Our goals for the weekend include:

• Complete the painting in the family room
• Select Flooring 
• Sand Mud in Hallway
• Prime Hallway
• Door Installation

I'm really hoping to get back into posting regularly - it just seems that activities and life are constantly keeping me busier than I would like to be.   I've moved from working part time to a full time schedule at my regular job so I'm finding it hard to make time to do everything.  Hopefully I will be able to find some balance soon.  

xo Meg

Currently

1.  Reading

This book was Canada Reads selection this year and I love, love, loved it.  Heartbreaking and beautiful.

2.  Watching

My team is in. the. playoffs.  For the first time in nine long years.  So exciting!  So much fun!  

3.  Wearing

In honor of my team, I'm donning the blue and white.  I pretty much wore this outfit last week.  Minus the shoes, cause mine aren't swanky like that.  

(my team)

4.  Eating

 I can't get enough oatmeal with berries.  Every single day for breakfast.

5.  Working

It was a sunny weekend here so I spent as much of it as possible outside in my yard pruning, weeding, raking, and mowing.  Progress is slow but very rewarding.  I'm hoping to have a reveal of my patio this week.  It's starting to look pretty nice.  I mean, relative to the before:

And moving on the basement.  Family room all mudded, just onto the hallway now.  The left side of this picture shows the framing for my laundry room.  The right side shows the spot that still needs new drywall and will eventually be my built-in storage area.  We certainly could use the storage.  

What'd you get up to this weekend?

xo Meg

Basement Reno

 

Oh, I hope you have better plans than me this weekend.  

I'll be down here shop-vac-ing the dust and priming the walls.  

Living the dream.  

I'm looking forward to showing you some of the progress we've made down here next week.  What are you getting up to this weekend?  

xo Meg

Let the Demo Begin!

It's an exciting day here, the demo has begun on our lower level.  If you remember, there will be a family room, laundry room, bathroom and bedroom for Elliott down there.  

hallway at the bottom of the stairs

view into the family room

current laundry will be moved and bathroom will go in there

Elliott's room

I'm so excited that work has already started.  Before we can do any of the fun stuff, some leaks and foundation issues need to be addressed.  So that's the first priority.  That and a new dryer.  

Happy Tuesday!

xoMeg

The Basement

When we first looked at our home, we were thrilled with the amount of usable space in our basement.  It's uncommon in a neighbourhood like ours to have a high ceiling or large windows on the lower level.  But our house does.  It has also been renovated - sometime in the eighties, but renovated nonetheless.

The basement houses a family room, the laundry area,  Jay's little office nook and lots of storage. Great usable space, right?

There's a couple of problems though.  First off, it's being used as a total dumping ground.  I'm talking leftover supplies from projects, laundry piles, sports equipment, boxes of questionable contents, extra furniture more sports equipment... you get the idea.

 I want to make the space function well for our family.  I want the family room down there to be somewhere I might actually watch a movie and the laundry room to be a place I don't cringe when I have to throw in a load.  However, I don't want to spend much money on re-designing the space right now.

The first step will be to remove the strange kidney-shaped counter.  That's free and I can do it myself.

As far as the storage area at the bottom of the stairs goes, we need to store the following sports items:

•  hockey equipment & tree for hanging it to dry
• goalie pads for road hockey
• skis (three pair, plus boots)
• snowboards (two boards plus boots)
• soccer gear (including balls and equipment bags)
• lifejackets
• baseball gloves
• assorted balls & outdoor gear

Additionally, there needs to be a place for the kids to hang up their winter gear.  It all needs to fit into the area at the bottom of the stairs (see below).

 I'd like to create two lockers, like these, which Jay made for a client:

These lockers will be where the kids can put their winter clothes and boots.  

We also need some closed storage for the sports gear.

This one's my all time fave.  I love the cupboard and hook combo.

 via

Today, I've been focused on clearing out the junk and re-organizing the rest. I took some photos of the before mess.   I used my blackberry so you wouldn't be able to see the mess very clearly. I'll show you those tomorrow, along with the progress I've made so far.

xo Meg