neglect
Dear yard, I’m sorry we’ve neglected you. It’s just…your tenant (you know, the house) has been very needy lately.
This weekend, we promise!
kitchen materials palette
There are still a few decisions left to be made, but this is how the kitchen is shaping up in terms of materials and products.
And as I sit here in the basement, typing at a vinyl-covered folding table, I cannot wait for this new kitchen to happen!
progress report: week 4
We’ve officially passed our one month mark – so far, so good! Here’s the re-cap from last week:
1. After the Benite dried, we applied a coat of SatinThane, a non-toxic polyurethane finish.
The old growth fir soaked up the finish nicely and we decided one coat was plenty.
2. Since the joists will be exposed, we needed to add blocking in between so the drywall will have something to attach to.
But first we added a layer of rigid insulation to help reduce thermal bridging.
3. Kyle also framed in the wall for the new bedroom/flex space! We need to pick up some more lumber for the door header, but the width you see will be the actual opening. There will be a barn door track above (something like this) with two doors that slide to each side. The idea is that the space could be a second bedroom (doors closed) or an extension of the adjacent living room (doors open).
4. Today, Kyle and Dustin started the framing for the vaulted ceiling. So fun to see the space begin to take shape!
And sometimes, living in your house while you remodel it can be beneficial. (Sadly, the fridge is too tall to fit in the basement.) I also have a new found respect for the “work triangle”. Having the fridge, sink and cooking area in different rooms and on different floors does not encourage actual cooking.
5. We’re still trying to find the right countertop material! We’ve amassed a collection of various quartz products and are leaning towards one of the middle options – not too white but not too busy – we like the ones with small flecks of blues and browns that match the cabinet color and island top (the butcher block sample below is lyptus, still deciding on the exact material).
6. Tonight, we laid out and painted the first two sheets of MDO. This will go over the exposed joists and become the finished ceiling.
One more coat and we should be good to go! We’re using the same paint that was used in the mudroom – Benjamin Moore’s Aura in “super white”. We painted our exterior with Aura and used the mudroom/porch as a test for their interior product. We were happy with the color and quality of the paint, but Aura is only low-voc, so we may try out their Natura line (which is zero-VOC) for the rest of the interiors. Has anyone tried out Natura? We’ve used other low and zero VOC paints on past projects – but love the quality and consistency of Benjamin Moore.
But really…painting seems like a long ways away.
cork + quartz
There are two major material decisions that we still haven’t finalized: our countertops and our flooring. I know, I know…we talked about cork here and here, and completely had our minds made up here, but as things evolve we are rethinking our flooring one more time. Bottom line – we still love cork. But the two major considerations in the type of cork have changed. #1. We now have a fancy, perfectly level subfloor throughout the whole space. This means we could do a glue down tile rather than a floating system. The advantage? The glue down tile is a through-body product, meaning it’s the same color all the way through (the plank, floating system is a thin veneer over a natural color cork). Which brings us to consideration #2. We have a large dog. While our earlier cork test was mostly a success, there was one event that became cause for concern. One evening, in a rare burst of golden retriever energy, Bailey leapt off the bed and skidded across the cork plank sample that we had set up at the bedroom door way. His excessively furry paws couldn’t stop the claw action. The result was a 6″ gauge that wasn’t too deep, but enough to expose the natural color cork below. We also knew that creating a bigger, more open space would only encourage such behavior.
So, even though we loved the color and pattern of our first choice, we’re back to cork tiles and have narrowed it down to two choices:
On the left we have a dark brown cork that is created from a steaming process (since cork does not naturally occur in this color). We love that it is different and it seems to go with our other color palette. We also love the “strip” pattern on the right, which is fabricated from scraps of other cork to achieve the variation in golden brown hues. The patterned option involves more labor to produce, so it’s a bit more expensive – but because we’ll be covering most of our floors, we want to make the right choice! Also, both options can be ordered with a wax finish (which we’ve found is the way to go since it allows spot repairs without having to refinish the whole floor).
Now on to the next challenge – back in January we talked about our top two counter choices. Since then, we have secretly fallen for the quartz product (below, left), which would be about $60-$70/SF (installed). This quartz comes in either a super snow white or a warmer off-white hue – neither of which are a perfect fit with the rest of our palette. Then, at our post-IKEA trip to Ecohaus last weekend we saw this. Eco quartz countertops are made with 75% recycled product and bound by corn resin! They’re also one of the few green residential products I’ve seen that is Cradle To Cradle certified. Best of all, their white color, “polar cap” (below, right) has flecks of blue-gray that would fit right in with our new cabinets (we would do a simple 2 cm square edge though, not the built-up version shown in the photo). The downside – it’s expensive. Very expensive…as in, $90/SF (installed) expensive. Our number one sustainable goal with the countertops has been to pick something that is both durable and a color/pattern that we could be happy with long term. Recycled content and eco-friendly resins would be icing on the cake, but we’ll have to weigh the added costs with our overall budget goals. Like the sink and faucet, we recognize the countertops will get a lot of daily action so making the right decision will be key.
So now it’s time to take it to the people. Darker or lighter cork? More affordable quartz or super sustainable, crazy expensive quartz? Or…are there still more options yet to consider? Now is the time!
progress report: week 3
Lots to report this week!
1. When we bought the house, we were so excited to find oak floors under the yucky green carpet. Well, they’re getting covered again! Even though the floors could have been refinished, we would have had to deal with a toe-stubbing threshold between the oak and the new cork and the location of the transition would have been awkward with the new floor plan.
And how about that sweet blocking at the base of the wall? A big thanks to Dustin for giving up his day to help us out (again!).
2. Dustin and Kyle also built the new basement stair and installed most of the side wall framing! It is now entirely possible for one to carry a basket of laundry up the stairs without ducking or turning sideways!
We’ll keep the stair like this for a while, so we don’t have to worry about mucking up the finish treads and risers (which will be installed when we do the rest of the finish work). And even though the basement is a project for another time, we’ll also go ahead and sheetrock and paint the inside face of the side walls too.
3. Next on the list – finish sanding the living room joists!
After Kyle was finished, he took off his safety gear and smiled at the wonderful mess he had created.
4. On Saturday we got down to business and installed the two glu-lam beams (which will support the new vaulted ceiling). The shorter one (shown behind the ladder below) went up fairly easy…
…but the 20′-0″ one was more of a challenge (not to mention a bit wet from laying in the yard).
Fortunately, we devised a strategy that involved the careful placement of ladders and muscle…which resulted in a lot of back and forth between ladders until the beast was fully seated.
Finally, Kyle installed a series of nails and we were golden.
Break time! (We moved the MDO inside since priming and painting time is coming up.)
5. Sunday morning we woke up early, too early…to the sound of the compressor powering up. (We had forgotten to unplug it the night before.) So Kyle got up and put a coat of benite on the joists.
The benite helps fill the pores and harden the wood, prepping it for the final finish.
6. After the benite was on and breakfast and coffee were consumed, we headed down south to IKEA. That’s right, we bought our cabinet package!
We went ahead and bought everything now in order to take advantage of the 10% off kitchen sale that ends this weekend. During the design process, we used IKEA’s free kitchen planner program to lay everything out. The program also creates an itemized list with prices that we printed off and brought with us. After handing the list off to one of the salespeople, an aisle-by-aisle shopping list was created for us (almost everything was in the “self-serve” area). Fortunately, the system worked pretty well. They arrange the aisles so you pick up the largest, heaviest items first, then work your way up to the small things like hinges and legs. As instructed, we aligned all the bar codes to make the check out process a bit easier. The image above is the smaller of the two flat carts we had.
In fact, we were a little skeptical it would all fit in the car…
…but the RAV was a champ! Suffice to say, we were pretty exhausted by the time we got home, but it went about as smoothly as could be expected. We’ll see how the assembly part goes. (Also, we were told that IKEA will give you a $10 gift card if you bring in a “before” and “after” photo. Ha…if they only knew!)
On our way back from IKEA, we stopped by Ecohaus again to look at more cork. We’ve been giving more thought to a through body product (rather than a veneer) and now that we’ll have a nice even subfloor to work with, the glue down option is more appealing. But more on that later…
