Hallway ideas

I have been working on the hallway this week.  It is a long, L-shaped hall that leads to three bedrooms, a bath, and the laundry room/garage.  When we got the house it had vinyl planks meant to look like a dark wood floor.  The pieces held together so well it was easier to bend whole sections until they cracked.  Here is the demo in progress. 

At this point all I have done is remove the baseboards and start pulling up the vinyl.  We will likely keep the vinyl for now in the laundry room (left in this picture)  so I made sure to keep a clean break.  You can see how dusty things are from all the plumbing demolition when they broke through the concrete slab to move drain pipes.  I am looking forward to running a mop over all of the flooring.




Here are both ends of the hallway after demo:

I am installing the same floor that runs into the bedrooms so I wanted to make a seamless transition from hall to bedroom.  I spent a lot of time just laying out the pieces to make sure it was going to work.  Then I drew lines to show exactly where the pieces joined at the L to replicate that after I applied the glue.  Here is the layout:

I had a half empty container of flooring adhesive from when I did the bedrooms but it had dried solid.  I had one more unopened container which had a thick dried skin on top but was still liquid underneath.  I don't remember for sure since it has been many months but I think this adhesive has thickened a bit.  I hope that doesn't mean it will have problems.  It certainly causes problems to my hand muscles in having to manipulate it.  It may just be that the temperature is low with our recent cold snap.

A few tips about using the adhesive.  You need some kind of scoop to dole out the adhesive.  Once the glue dries on something you cannot get it off so I tend to make a disposable scoop out of water or milk jugs that have a handle.  Also, your best friends are your kneepads.  Concrete floors are hard on the knees.  The name of the game during installation is trying to get the boards in place without getting glue everywhere.  I wear disposable nitrile gloves and with each plank I get a little glue on the tips of my fingers.  I keep a container of Goof Off towels handy which does a good job of breaking down the glue quickly.  I try to wipe up any residue that gets onto the floors as soon as I see it.  It doesn't dry that quickly, but it does tend to spread as you work over the same place again and again.

The first few rows are very frustrating.  Every time you install a new plank, the other ones move around.  I have found that, if time allows, it is best to put in a few rows perfectly placed and let them dry overnight.  After that it is much easier because you have the solid rows to push against.  When you stop in the middle of a room like this, make sure to wipe up an residual glue that might be coming out from under the flooring.  That dried glue will cause problems when you come back to start the next row.

I also noticed that some of the longer boards tend to bend up in the middle.  They are pretty flexible so that is not generally a problem in getting the boards to go together.  However, sometimes that causes the floor to pull up away from the glue.  I put a heavy thing like a paint can on top of the planks whenever I see this is happening.  This maintains contact with the glue and once the glue dries the plank will be held in place.  Here is the front hallway with my first 4 rows.  That took about two hours to glue, not counting the time to lay out and cut end pieces.

One thing you have to do to make the project look right is to cut away wood around the door jamb and trim.  The floor really needs to go under those.  It is best to do that with an extra piece of flooring before starting to glue.  I use a tool that cuts using vibration.






I thought the next part of the floor would go very quickly but I actually had a few difficult cuts to make around the doors.  It ending up taking another 3 hours to finish gluing this part of the hall.  And that does not include the final row which will need to be cut lengthwise into 2 inch pieces.  Yuck.














So after I finish the floor I am thinking of other things I want to do in the hallway.  You can see in this picture that the walls are painted paneling, as it much of the house.  In the front hallway there are picture shelves to place family photos.  While I like the idea, I hate the placement of these.  However, once I remove them I will need to repaint. Instead of going with the same white color, which would be easier, I am considering going with a greige color.  I like the idea of making this long hallway a gallery for interesting art pieces.  To do that I might also change the lighting out to have directional lights the length of the hallway.  I like the type that attach anywhere to two low voltage cables running over a length of ceiling like this:

 

 

 

At the other end of the hallway we have an wider opening.  We recently closed off a doorway that led to a large closet.  That closet became parts of other rooms and closets.  We have not yet replaced the paneling to match the other walls.  I am consider adding built-in shelving there but I am not sure if that would be useful or not.  There is already a large linen closet which you can see in this picture (the dark doors).  I guess this would be more for display and books.  I think I really just don't want to go purchase more of this ugly paneling.

 

Staining a wood plank ceiling

Just the idea of staining wood on a ceiling was a little daunting.  There do not appear to be any specialized tools for this task which makes me a little nervous.  Additionally, there is not a lot of help on the internet.  Most diy pages recommend that you stain and finish the wood planks before you put them up.  The idea is that staining is much easier on a flat surface.  I considered that option but of course I had not come close to deciding what color and type of finish to use at that point!  There are also a couple of problems with staining prior to installation.  First you would need a good deal of space to spread out all those pieces of wood to dry, or you would have to do it piecemeal.  Second, on installation the nailgun can make a dent and could remove some finish.  That would mean touching up stain.

Anyway, once we had raw wood on the ceiling we had to make a decision.  I finally decided to use a light gray stain.  There will be gray curtains and pillows in the room and I thought that would go well.  After shopping around and trying a few different options I ended up using Rustoleum in two colors: Driftwood (light) and Weathered Gray (medium dark).  I didn't like either alone and wanted something in between so I just blended them in even amounts.

My friend Sonia, a glutton for punishment, agreed to help me on this project.  I wasn't sure how much time would be needed between application of the stain and wiping of the stain so it really was a job for two people.  The first thing we did was to staple and tape up plastic sheets to cover the painted walls.  Given the amount of stain that ended up on them, this was definitely worth the 20 minutes it took.

We shopped around for many tools, not sure which would work.  I had no intention of staining and wiping by hand up on a ladder so everything needed to be on a pole.  I wasn't sure the best way to get the stain applied into the crevices of the tongue and groove planks.  We went through several options and we ended up using a lambswool pad that had a pole attachment.  Other than the first couple of swipes where I loaded too much stain, causing a waterfall from above, this tool worked very well.  Make sure you wear gloves and a hair covering because there will be drips.  Generally I would dip the pad into the stain, lightly, and make a first pass along the length of the pieces.  Then I would rub back and forth using some pressure and that was what got the stain into the grooves.


Now for the wiping.  Our concern was finding a tool on a pole that would allow for a long continuous smooth wipe from wall to wall.  Some of the options were too rigid and did not allow for different angles.  We also weren't sure how often we would need a new wiping pad so we wanted something that could be changed out.  We ended up using an old Swiffer I found at the house.  It had lost it's pad so we duct taped a folded kitchen towel to the flat part.  Then we used rags made from t-shirts over the homemade pad.  This "tool" had everything we were looking for.  You can see it in this picture.  Our only problem with it was that the head was a little too flexible and would flip up pretty regularly.  Luckily the stain was very forgiving and allowed for multiple passes to get it consistent.  Fortunately for me, I was not working the wiping tool so Sonia was able to get everything perfect.  I would recommend finding someone with a little perfectionism for this job, but not too much because you can drive yourself crazy!



All in all I would say this project turned out just the way I wanted it.  The stain goes on fairly dark but lightens as you wipe it.  Then once it dries it has a little of a paint quality that gives it a lightness like a pickling stain. I think Driftwood would be a good way to describe the color.  I will stain some trim pieces the same color and tack it around the room like crown molding to hide the ugly edges.

After this, I have a few electrical things to do in the room, including installing a ceiling fan/light.  Then I can install the wood floor and baseboards and the master bedroom will be ready for decorating.  Hooray!

Installing a plank ceiling

We finally finished installing the wood plank ceiling in the master bedroom.  It looks so much better when it is complete than it did halfway through.  Not, just that it's done, but you don't notice the flaws once you have a uniform ceiling.  It is great how much this type of ceiling can cover up.  We had old ceiling light boxes, seams where old and new drywall met, and three different types of ceiling material underneath.  That has all disappeared now. 

I thought I would go ahead and record some tips that we learned along the way:

*  The biggest thing we learned has to do with the timing of nailing.  For the first half of the room we were using the nailgun to nail two nails at each ceiling joist - one near the tongue and one near the groove.  However, we sometimes had trouble getting the next piece to fit snugly.  We found that nailing the first board tight to the wall made it hard to wiggle the next board into place.We figured out that if we only nailed the first nail (for us the groove side) and left the leading edge free it would give more flexibility to fit the next board.  Then once we had the next board in place we nailed the previous board and the first nail in the new board.  It's hard to explain but a pretty simple process.  This change allowed us to move more quickly and with less frustration.

*  I read some online tutorials about installing wood planks and many of them suggested that you needed to install nailer boards or that you needed to glue each piece in addition to nailing.  We did not do either of these things.  I guess only time will tell whether our method will hold up.  I think it feels pretty sturdy just using 2 inch finish nails shot with a nailgun into each ceiling joist along that plank.

*  Generally you should try to have seams on a joist to provide stability.  We staggered the seams as much a possible to provide a random look, similar to wood flooring.  Every once in a while we allowed for a seam between the joists but we made sure that the tongue and groove fit snugly.

*  If you are going to paint the walls, especially a bright color, it is best to do that before installing the ceiling.  This is mainly true if you are not painting the plank ceiling.

*  Many of the pine planks that we used had knot holes in them.  In order to avoid the holes showing the ceiling underneath we taped black tape over the back of the hole.  This just makes them look like knots instead of knot holes.

*  Plan to put a piece of crown molding, even a small one, to cover the edges and give the wood a finished look.

I will be staining the ceiling next and may have some pointers after that.

Master Bedroom

Sorry it has taken me so long to post but we have had a whirlwind of things happening in our household, a change in jobs, marching band competitions, new musical instruments, trying to train new dogs, making room for a foreign exchange student....Whew!  It feels like October has just flown by.

After finishing the bathrooms we decided to move on to the master bedroom.  This is a room which originally was smaller but we knocked down a wall to get rid of a walk-in closet.  You can see the post where we took down the wall back in April by clicking here.  Once we removed the wall we had a pretty good deal of sheetrock patching to do.  Also, the door that will lead to the master bath was previously a closet door and therefore too small. So we widened the doorway.  We also incorporated some leftover deadspace behind the new bathroom to become a second closet to service the master.  So a lot of our time lately has been doing boring stuff like hanging drywall, taping and floating, texturing, and painting.  There's not much to see as evidenced in this photo of the new closet.

I would say that the big impact thing we have been working on has been ceiling paneling.  After much debate about how to repair the ceiling where the room and closet came together, we finally just decided it would be easier better to cover it up.  We could have hung new drywall and patched but the existing ceiling already had some sag in it because the rafters are 24 inches apart.  So what to cover it with?  I looked for a reasonably priced ceiling plank that was already primed white but couldn't find anything.  What we ended up with was a raw pine plank from Lowes.  These planks are a few inches wide and 8 feet long.  They are only about 1/4 thick so they are super lightweight.  Hopefully they are rigid enough to hold their shape but light enough not to sag.  Only time will tell. 

These are tongue and grove pieces across a 13 foot span so we set up our scaffold set and another ladder and started working.  I was worried that it would be hard to get the long pieces aligned but it has turned out easier than I thought.  Since the boards are thin they are pretty flexible.  Also, when things are fitting together right we just scrape off the back part of the groove in the problem spot. 

We are using a finishing nail gun to attach the planks.  Some people said to use liquid nails or caulk but that seemed like way to much trouble. 






It wasn't long before we got into a rhythm.  The room is about 20 feet long and we did probably 1/4 of it in 4 hours.  The next time we were out we moved a little faster since we were familiar with the process and we finished another 40%.  So we still have a little more than 1/4 to do.  Here are some pictures of our progress.

I had read on discussion forums that you see a lot of mistakes right at first but as you add more planks, they start to disappear.  I definitely agree with that.  Your eye is not drawn to the mistakes when there is a bigger expanse of ceiling.





Here we had to cut the wood around an air conditioning vent.  Just to be on the safe side I coated all the edges of the wood with duct tape (the real kind) to make sure the wood did not soak up any condensation.




One thing I wished I had done was to paint the walls all the way to the ceiling before we started.  I have since gone back and painted close to the ceiling.  I plan to put a piece of trim around the edge anyway so the paint doesn't have to be perfect.



Since the wood is raw, I plan to do something to finish it.  We considered doing that before we put it up but decided against it.  I am hoping to use a sprayer since our room is empty - I will just have to hang plastic over the walls.  Originally I planned to paint it white.  But, as usual, I am starting to love the wood look.  Boy am I a sucker for wood grain.  I have a hard time covering it up!  So then I started to think that a whitewash could be nice.  The room is a teal color (not sure why it shows like a bright cornflower blue on the computer).  The drapes are charcoal with a white geometric pattern them.  So then I thought maybe I would try a gray tinted whitewash.  I went to the hardware store and the paint guy convinced me to get an oil-based wipe-on stain by Minwax in their new color Common Gray.  I am so lazy with cleanup, that I generally avoid any oil-based product.  But I took this one home and tried it out on some scraps.  It is interesting but I think it makes this wood too dark for a ceiling.  I went to another store and saw that Rustoleum has a stain line with a transparent gray called Driftwood.  And it is water-based, hooray!   I took to home and tried it, but it might be too light.  I feel a little like Goldilocks!  Anyway here is a shot of the test stains with the single board raw, the top group Driftwood, and the bottom group Common Gray:

I may have to go back and get a darker gray Rustoleum.  My plan to apply this stain is to tape up plastic to cover the walls and then spray the stain using a hand pump sprayer.  After letting it sit for a few minutes I will wipe it with some type of cloth.  I would like to try putting the cloth on a pole for ease but I am not sure that will work.  What I have found with stain is that the import part is that you make one long continuous wipe for each board.  This could be a pain and maybe not worth it. 

Hopefully we will finish with this ceiling.  Once we complete that, I have a lot of flooring to lay.  My knees hurt just thinking about it!

DIY art

Here is a quick tutorial on making this artwork.  It was inspired by the Pinterest pic on the right.  I needed something combining gray and yellow for this room so I decided to do two tones.

So the first step is to get a lot of paint chips in your color(s) of choice.  Then you have to decide the pattern.  I went with the chevron pattern above but there are many more interesting ones on Pinterest. 
Here are a couple I noticed:

Once you pick your pattern you know the general shape the paint chip needs to be.  For mine it needed to be twice as long as it was wide.    Then you have to lay out your pattern to make sure you have enough chips.  I made some guidelines on the cardboard insert that came in my frame.















My biggest problem came from my choice of backing sheet and glue.  I started with a regular Elmer's glue and a paintbrush and worked in segments.  My problem was that the glue was so wet that it made the cardboard and paint chips wrinkle up.  Once I switched to glue stick, the problem stopped.  If I were doing it over I think I might cut a piece of foam board to fit my frame and work on that with a gluestick.

As I worked, I put something heavy on that area to make sure it laid flat.  The edge pieces had some odd shape since the matboard would cover them.













I happened upon the frame at Michaels in the clearance bin because it had a small ding in the paint. It was all white with a white mat inside.  I decided I needed a little contrast so I painted just the raised area around the frame which makes it appear to be a thinner metal frame with two matboards.  You could do your frame however you like.  I really like the rosy gold one in the Pinterest picture above.






Here is my final product:

Laundry hamper redo

I needed some type of laundry hamper for the new bathroom and was tired of looking at all of the cloth lined baskets.  They all looked the same to me.  When I was at our local thrift store I came upon a vinyl hamper that was $9 and decided to try to give it a new life.  The hamper itself was in great condition and very sturdy.  It was all dark brown and had the appearance of rattan.  Here it is in all its glory:

So the first thing I did was spray paint the body.  I was able to unscrew the lid to set it aside.  I decided to go with a gray to compliment the gray floors in the bathroom.  There were not a lot of gray selections in the spray paint section, mostly silvers.  I didn't realize until I got home that the one I selected was really a primer.  I tried it anyway and liked the mat finish of it.  Here it is with the lid sitting on top and some fabric I picked for the cushion top:














 
 



The next step was to attach the fabric to the top.  This lid was pretty easy because the underside had a little cover that was glued on.  I was able to peel back the cover enough to slide the fabric under and shoot a few staples in before covering it back up.

If I were doing this over I think I might spray and adhesive on the old seat to give the fabric something to adhere to on top.  I don't think it will matter much but it would be a little more secure.

Once I reattached the lid and put it in place it makes an interesting addition to the bathroom instead of the same old boring basket hamper.  And all for about $15.

Final bathroom pics

I am finally getting the last touches made to the bathrooms and getting to posts some pics.  So here is the newly expanded guest bathroom with tub/shower and separate toilet room.  I don't have a picture of the toilet room because there is really nothing to see.  I have been whitewashing a cabinet to hang over the toilet for storage, but otherwise, it is just a toilet.  I found a really cool painting at a resale store that brings together the blues, greens and whites.   You can see in the tub picture that I have changed the bathmat to add green.   .       

 

 

 

For the vanity area, I focused on trying to set things up so less water is likely to sit on the wood. Mainly this meant that I tried to keep things off the counter. I was able to find a hanging cup/soap dish at IKEA that works for this purpose.  And to take advantage of the space beside the vanity I found a hairdryer holster.  I added a small glass shelf to the left side as well. (You get a quick bonus view of one of our new puppies in the vanity picture!)

In the half bath I am trying to pull some yellow around the room.  I added a yellow door pull to the vanity and created some "art" which was inspired by Pinterest.  I'll post details on that project in a different post.

Now that school is back in session I will have more time during the day to finish some of these projects.  The next big one is the new master bedroom.  One of the biggest problems in that room is the ceiling.  The room was expanded to incorporate a closet which had a lower ceiling.  When we added the header to allow us to remove the closet wall we discovered that the closet ceiling actually had two layers, reflective heat barrier underneath drywall.  We have removed the top layer of drywall to make the layers even so now we are faced with either replacing the reflective insulation with regular drywall and texturing the ceiling or we can cover the entire ceiling with a ceiling treatment.  We are leaning toward the later but I haven't found exactly what I am looking for.  I would love to find a lightweight ceiling plank, tongue and groove, that is already primed.  So far I can only find raw cedar and pine.  That would be OK but would take a lot more work to paint.  Maybe if I spray it once it is up, painting won't be too bad.  I'll update as we go along. 

Back to work!

Back porch

This post should not be under the heading "DIY by Kerri" because it is my husband's handiwork that I am showing off.  While I have been working on the bathrooms inside, he spent a weekend outside staining the deck and finally putting some siding on the wall.  If you recall the house originally looked like this:

Very nice.

 

We had the deck/siding contractors add a covered patio and cap the unfinished stone wall.  My original intent was to cover the wall above the stone with a cedar shingle.  But then Pinterest got involved and I became enamored with the reclaimed lumber walls that seem to be the rage right now.  We were able to get some old fencing from a friend, plus we had some leftover wood on hand that we could use.  We bought a few new boards just for a variety. 

 

 

 

 My husband spend some time staining, painting, and whitewashing various boards so they would all look different.  We even have a few with real leftover imprints from their previous lives:

A small branch.








Cool star.












We still have some work to do.  The last boards need to be scribed to match up with the uneven stone at the bottom.  Also we need to fill the gaps with dark brown caulk.  But overall, I think it has turned out great.  The deck looks much nicer now that it is stained too.  Thanks honey!

In the final stretch...

For the two bathrooms at least.  After my last post, I found a guy to tape, float and texture the walls of both bathrooms.  I learned a long time ago that mudding isn't hard, it's just hard to make it look good.

I also finished tiling the tub. Using spacers, tiling is pretty easy.  My kids even did some of it.











We grouted with a medium gray grout instead of the usual white.  I think it makes it look more interesting and also a little retro. 
The kids also helped with the grout.

Sticking with the gray and white theme we added gray penny tile with a marble bottom tray to the niche.

At this point I was really focused on finishing everything necessary to get the plumbers back to install all the fixtures.  The big deficiency at this point was the floor.  I had several worries about the floor.  In the old full bath, there was vinyl floor that we pulled up.  However, the backing of the vinyl was still on the concrete.  I used an oscillating tool with a scraper bit to get more of it up.  After several hours of scraping, I finally decided it was good enough 

In the half bath, there were trenches where the plumbers had jackhammered the floor to add drain pipes (see picture above).  These definitely need to be leveled.  Instead of just trying to fill those trenches evenly I decided to just pour leveling cement over the entire room.  That involved mopping all the texturing mud that fell on the floor and then rolling on primer to get the floor ready to receive the cement.  Then it was time for the leveling cement.  This stuff dries really fast; it starts to set up within 5 minutes, so you have to work quickly.  This room took 1 1/2 bags of concrete which meant two rounds of mixing for two minutes each.  I dumped it and spread as fast as I could before mixing the second batch and dumping again.  My helper was responsible for running outside to wash the tools and bucket before the cement set up.  It didn't take long but it was a little stressful.  The final product was pretty level although I have to say, not as level as I expected.  There were ridges where the mixture contained more cement and less water than other parts.

I chose a sand colored 12 x 24 inch tile with striations (lines).  I tried out a new tiling system that is supposed to help with keeping the height of the tiles the same.  That tends to be my biggest problem when using larger tile like this.  The system uses spacers that have a piece that sticks up between each set of tiles.  The part that sticks up has a hole big enough for a wedge that comes with the system.  In theory, when you insert the wedge, it forces the tops of the tiles to line up exactly.  However, in reality, that did not happen.  The pieces were hard to insert and made laying the tile more difficult.  They also made it impossible to clean up all the mortar as you went, making for a lot more scraping later.  Needless to say, I quit using the system about halfway through the room.  The part I did by hand actually came out better.  After finishing the tile, installing baseboards, mirrors and vanity, the plumber put in the toilet and the faucet.  Here it is.  (The walls are actually gray, not blue.)  Now I just need some chotchkies and artwork.


Back to the full bath.  We decided not to level the floor of the larger bathroom except filling a couple of very small spots where the jackhammering showed.  I was cleaning up the texture mud and noticed that the old vinyl seemed to be releasing when it got wet.  That definitely meant I could not tile over it or else the moisture in the cement would cause it to come off, giving the tile nothing to bond to.  Ugh, more scraping.  Nothing is more frustrating than being ready to pull the trigger on something and having to stop, back up and redo something you thought was done.  Oh well.  Once the water would not release any more of the vinyl backing, I decided to go for it.  The floor in this room is a more modern looking gray tile, also 12 x 24 inch.  The tile looks a little like pieces of concrete.  The edges are not tapered which makes it look more modern.  I didn't want this bathroom to be completely old-fashioned.  In addition to the subway tile in the tub, we had some antique pieces to use for the vanity and storage cabinet.  So the tile went in fairly easily.  The grout was just slightly darker than the tile.

Again, rushing to get things ready for the plumbers, I installed all the baseboards behind the toilet and vanity.  These are much easier to install and caulk while things are still open.  The vanity we are using is an antique buffet.  So I had to add some extra layers of polyurethane to try to protect it against water damage.  I also had to cut holes for the vessel sink and the faucet.  The plumber was reluctant to make the cuts into the furniture because it was too nice.  The funny thing is that I spend about $200 on both the vanity and the cabinet we are using for towels.  If I had bought pieces of the shelf at Lowe's, they would have cost much more.  So really it was a very cost effective decision to use these antiques.

It was so nice to get the vanity into the bath so I could start to see it put together.  Once the plumbers were done, here is what we have:

Now I just need to add shower curtain, towels, doors, trim and a few decorations.  But at least for now it is really nice to have three toilets instead of one :-)