Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Pretty pretty floors!

Finally! The living and dining room floors are refinished, and the patch in the living room redone! I went with floor guy C from my flooring post, and he really did a great job. There's still dust everywhere, and I haven't entirely put the living room back together (and the whole house still smells like poly), but they look really great!

So we've gone from this:

From Dining Room
Please note the ugly floors in the above...

To this!



Hooray floor guys!

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Why is my paint peeling?

A marvelous question. Why, oh why, IS my paint peeling? At least - some of it. Mostly in the hallway.

On Sun I spent three hours scraping off loose paint, creating an extremely ugly patchwork effect on the upper part of the wall. I was a little unsure what the next step should be - do I have to patch all the spots I scraped, as that would almost be skim coating? Can I just feather the edges? How come it's peeling????

So I applied Google. And discovered that in the absence of a leak, the problem sometimes occurs when the house has several old layers of oil paint and is then covered with a latex paint. Sometimes it's because there was originally calcimine paint used ("Since calcimine is essentially a water-based mixture of chalk and glue binder, in time any modern paint applied over a calcimine base will fail." courtesy of http://www.oldhousejournal.com/cures_for_calcimine_ceilings/magazine/1015).

The question now is - what do I do with the areas where the paint is still firmly adhered? I'm thinking I'll just clean what came down, seal it with a nasty sealer, and then maybe just feather the edges. But that might make a really wavy wall... Anyone dealt with this one?

Monday, January 4, 2010

The tale of three floor men

Last week, in a fit of pique at my hideous floors, I actually did the research, found three floor guys that were well recommended, and called them. Surprisingly (based on my past floor guy experience), all three were responsive and all three came to see the floors and gave me estimates.

Now - which to pick?

Floor guy A - $950. Hard to understand (not so much on the English), and the only guy who didn't point out the difficulty of the repair I was asking for. But cheapest.

Floor guy B - $1300. But dustless. The most professional of the three, judging only by his printed estimate form, and fancy laser measuring tool.

Floor guy C - $650 for the refinishing, then either $200 or $400 depending on the level of repair I ask for. The only guy to give me options. Also the only guy I had to chase to get the estimate. Pretty sure he's dustless as well, but not positive.

Leaning toward C...

New kitchen ideas?

I..am...going...to...get...this...house...under...control.

I am. Going to. Enough already.

On that note, I spent some time with the ideas floated out by all you lovely people about my original kitchen layout, a tape measure, and a mapping program. And I'm a little stuck.

Here's the new layout. Changes you can see - moved the bathroom wall out, knocked down the funny little closet, built a pantry against the wall that used to have the kitchen, swapped a door and a window.



I can't really figure out where to put the fridge and the sink. If I leave them where they are now, the fridge (square with the x) will block light from the door. Which maybe is ok? I don't think I want to move the door more over to make more room from the wall to the doorframe, as then it would be asymmetrical with the spacing of the other windows.

If I leave the sink there, I'll either have to get an under sink dishwasher, which is possible, or put the dishwasher in the island...

So. Thoughts?

Update:
Casey suggested an under-counter refrigerator and freezer. (Idea nixed. Those things are ridiculously expensive!). And yes definitely a dishwasher! While I don't have to move the door, moving it will allow me to create door that exits at floor level (so no two steps up) without dealing with the nightmare that would be redoing the basement exit. Plus it would create more light in the kitchen part.