Archive for March, 2009
Construction Project – Flooring – Part 11
by squiggie on Mar.07, 2009, under Construction
About 3 months ago we started looking for hardwood flooring. We knew we wanted something fairly dark but other than that we didn’t really know what else. We started looking at the usual places, Lowes, Home Depot and some local flooring companies around here. We found some that we really liked but most were pretty expensive and were just out of the budget. We then started looking online. We were pretty comfortable with the idea of ordering them online because we did that in our last house. We bought some engineered Bruce hardwoods from www.iFloor.com and were pleased with the quality, price and looks. The cool thing about them and other flooring web sites is they usually let you order samples at a pretty cheap price so that you can actually see the color and quality. We found some really nice chocolate colored Asian mahogany solid wood floors from www.builddirect.com. We decided to go with these and we are really pleased with the results. They compliment the cabinet color very well. Buying hardwood floors online saved us about $1,000 over what the same hardwoods would have cost locally. Even with a couple hundred dollars for freight, it still ended up saving us a lot.
Also, we had previously picked out tile and knew what kind of tile we wanted. We had previously picked out a color called Truvian Stone from American Florim. We chose the lava color as it had darker tones in it to match the wood. This ended up looking amazing and we really like it. This tile was a little over the budget price, but to offset that, we found some tile at Lowes on clearance that was a neutral color and looked nice. We snatched some boxes of that for less than $1 a sq. ft. and then just installed it downstairs. It still looks really good and offset the price of the truvian stone.
The carpet is one of the last things that will go in so I won’t have pictures of that until next week, but other than that, all the floors are down and we will start installing lighting and fixtures next week. Hopefully we will be in it the week of March 15th barring any unavoidable circumstances.
Also, they got the driveway poured and got some piles of top soil sitting in the yard waiting to be spread. Hopefully this week they will get that spread, the irrigation system installed and the sod and seed down so we can start getting some grass (not that I’m looking forward to mowing it or anything).
Driveway and Entryway
Construction Project – Paint, Trim and Cabinets – Part 10
by squiggie on Mar.05, 2009, under Construction
So this post is more than overdue. The last month has been slammed with things keeping me busy both with the house project and outside for other things. We have made a significant amount of progress on the inside of the house. All the cabinets are in, the painting is done and the trim is laid (all of it that can be).
With the exception of a few color choices, we didn’t really have any hard decisions or choices. We had to alter the stain color 1 time to try and get it as close to the hardwoods as we could but other than that, everything went pretty smooth. Greta picked out all the colors. We didn’t paint too many rooms different colors because for a while we will really only be using a few of them. So we decided to paint the mast bedroom a green color and the office a blue color. Everything else got a nice coat of neutral tan and the doors and trim got shot with white.
As far as the cabinets go, our hardwoods are a chocolate color and although we wanted the cabinet stain to match, we didn’t want it to be an exact match. We thought that would make it to monotone and uniform so we wanted a slight variation. Like any wood, there are always going to be slight variations in the color of the wood as it gets stained. Our cabinets are Alder so they have quite a but of variation in color. We settled on a dark color but not too dark. It is slightly lighter than our hardwoods are, but matches great when the stain picks up the darks in the wood. It looks amazing!
As far as the outside is concerned, all the brick and stone have been put on and it looks great as well. We didn’t do too much with the brick or stone as this is where you can sink a lot of money into the house. The all brick cost alone was pricey, but worth it in the long run. We decided to stick with the standard window outlines and ledges and stone accent the entry way but nothing else. We plan on getting some cedar planters for underneath the windows and cedar shutters to tie into the cedar around the garage doors. I think it looks nice and although we could have done a lot more stone work or more stone accents, I’m happy with the balance of cost and the result.
Exterior
Interior
