Bye Bye Bad Flooring PT. 2

 We have updates on the flooring.

Firstly... This is what our floor looked like yesterday morning.

This is what it looked like when we left last night.

And this is what it looks like today.

Oww owww.

It still needs to be sealed and what not, but this is very exciting.

Alejandro is also almost finished with the bathrooms upstairs. They looked like this yesterday.

And now:

Yes, so that's the update on that.

We also decided to start progress on another nasty problem in the house: The carpet.

Not a great picture, but EW, right? It was actually relatively new carpet. But these people were just THAT dirty.

We took up all the carpet in all of the bedrooms, but we still have the hallway and stairway to do.

We decided to go back to a place we found while we were driving one day: Dalton Direct Carpet Outlet Inc. in Norcross.

The remnant warehouse.

We don't need that much, so we went to the their showroom/warehouse and looked for a piece for our project.

After 30 seconds of looking, we both saw one that we loved.

It's the Casanova carpet by Beaulieu, in the color Delta Sands (buy here). We a little under $300 for the whole remnant piece, which will cover the hallway, closets, and stairs. And since we're going to put it in ourselves, labor costs will be $0. And that's a win.

Here is an upclose shot.

We liked it because its a really tightly woven carpet. So, when we get our dog we don't have to worry about him/her pulling it up.

So that's the end of part 2 of our Horrible Flooring Adventure. More to come soon.

Bye Bye Bad Flooring PT. 1

As I'm sure I've mentioned before... we hate the flooring in our kitchen and bathroom.
 

 

It's gross. And really dirty. These two rooms might just be the dirtiest in the house. And obviously, that is not an ideal situation for rooms where you cook or clean yourself.

So we decided it was time to finally commit DIY-blasphemy... it was time to hire someone. 

We could have laid the tile if we wanted to... really... but, it would have been really hard, cost a lot of money in tool rentals, and... well, it just would have sucked.

My mom suggested her friend Alejandro to help us out. He laid all of the Travertine tile throughout her whole house, and did a fairly amazing job. And his prices are AMAZING.

Mom's dining room.

So, we called him and he told us if we got the materials, he would be able to have everything installed by the weekend. And we did.

He got started this morning. And of course, being a blogger, I was there over his shoulder obnoxiously taking pictures.

Good Bye Peel & Stick !

Barenaked Kitchen Floor.

Alejandro and Marvin working in the bathroom.

Bare bathroom floors.

Mike, destroying the old downstairs laminate.

Thinset !

When we left today the tile was still setting, but it already looks so much better.

Just Me & My Paint Roller

You really don't realize how creepy a place is until your their by yourself.

Today, since Mike had to work, I decided to attempt to get as much done as I could alone. No need to waste a whole day, right?

I painted the kitchen. Well kind of. We bought a quart of paint (for both the kitchen and the bedroom accent wall) thinking that a whole gallon might be wasteful. That ended up being true for the bedroom (as you'll see), but not so much for the kitchen.

A quart is really small. I mean it did one coat. But with this color (Caribe by Behr) two coats are necessary. I did as much as I could, minus the backsplash area (tile will go there), but we will need to go back and get another quart.

Ignore the filthy kitchen

We really are very clean people. I promise.

After I finished that, I moved on to the master bedroom accent wall. I was SO excited to do this. I got really tired of staring at the gross Kilz splattered wall, next to its freshly painted neighbors.

Before, taped off and ready to be accented.

After, which is just as amazing as I hoped it would be.

The color we used is Blue Agave by Behr. This is one coat of the flat Behr Premium paint I wrote about before. Its amazing.

After that, I tackled repainting the trim in all of the rooms. It was all pretty dingy and nasty (from a combination of the dirty previous owners and our not-so-perfect painting skills). I just repainted everything with Kilz, and it made a crazy difference.

The Guest Room

The Office

Side, note. Look how amazing these rooms look!

Seeing this really kind of made it feel like we're doing something. Like I can actually almost visualize this house being done.

All that is left in these rooms is the laminate flooring.

In the middle of my painting, my daddy stopped by and brought me refreshments :-)

He also helped me move the fridge into his proper place.

This actually kind of looks like a real house now.

Picking Up Flooring + Happy Birthday Mikey !

Today... was a very hot day.

I think maybe, that because we had so much to do today, the sun decided to show out. Really make us understand just how powerful it was.

This accurately depicts what today felt like.

It was almost as if we were being punished. Punished for defying the sun by trying to do anything but tan and swim all day.

Ok. That's dramatic, but it was very hot today.

But despite the heat. We did a lot today. And most importantly, we used the hell out of Mike's dad's big truck, picking up and moving things all around Atlanta.

Our first stop. Lumber Liquidators to pick up our flooring. Mike had this funny idea that we would be picking up something like... 10 boxes of laminate. I guessed closer to 20. We learned a lot about math and estimation today.

Not 10 boxes. And not 20 boxes.

It ended up being 50 boxes. And 12 bags of underlayment. And it was kind of like... "Duh, there's only a few square feet per box." But this part was fine with me, since I actually didn't do much but take pictures of Mike and his brother moving things.

If you can't tell, It was still obnoxiously hot.

They did a great job. So great that we were done really fast. So fast that we were at the house before I knew it, and I was suddenly delegated Underlayment Duty... but it didn't take long before we were done.

Organization at its finest.

So we moved on to the next project.

For those who didn't know, Mike turned 27 on Sunday.

We had an amazing time with his parents and their friends that night, cooking recipes from the Neely's, drinking wine and Costa Rican beer, and showing them this blog :-)

He got some pretty cool stuff for his birthday. Stuff that will come in handy in the house, and especially in the kitchen... but the best gift of all... we picked up today.

YES! They got us the most amazing thing you can get to food-loving new home owners-- a new fridge!

This may not be very exciting for the average person... but for Mike and I, this is pretty close to heaven.

Details wise... its the Frigidaire FFHS2612LS (sold here). It's 26 Cubic Feet, and a side-by-side. With water and ice in the door... amazing, no? I've seriously already imagined (and been excited by) the idea of putting groceries away.

So we went to pick it up today.

Getting it in the truck? Easy. Driving with it UPRIGHT (thanks loading dock guys) all the way home? Easy. Getting it in the door?

Easier said than done.

We hit a wall. Well technically we hit styrofoam, which we took off. Then we hit door knobs, so Mathew (Mike's brother) removed the door.

And finally. It made it (very close) to its new home.

After defeating the doorway.

Finally!

It won't actually be operational for while. The kitchen still needs to be primed and painted, and the tile floors are being installed next week... but we are sooo tempted to just plug it in right in the middle of the dining room. But we will restrain ourselves.