DIY
Dyeing Grout [A Floor Update!]
Months ago, I think it was the day after the grout guys left and we were feeling a little let down by the results, I ordered grout dye. The grout is the only thing about our floors that we don't love. Which is hard to swallow, because it is the only part we didn't do. […]
read more
June 17, 2014
DIY
Removing Grout Haze the Easy Way
Although we showed you the "finished" floors in yesterday's post, there is one part of the process that we haven't covered--grout! In my post about Tips for Achieving Realistic Faux Wood Tile, I mentioned that "opting for a grout color a shade darker than our tile will keep things looking more natural." Our grout lines were the […]
read more
April 1, 2014
DIY
Faux Wood Tile: The After Photos!
We're so excited to share with you our finished floors today! Replacing almost all of the flooring on our main floor (we opted out of doing our master bath since we'll be tackling a full renovation in there next year) was daunting beforehand, a lot of work during, but now we're on the other side […]
read more
March 31, 2014
Toolbox
Tools For Making Tiling More Bearable
Chris and I just keep looking at each other in disbelief. The floors are done and it is unbelievable!! It has been an incredibly long 6 weeks. While we are so happy we were able to save the thousands of dollars on installation doing it ourselves (we were originally quoted 17K, but since we decided […]
read more
March 28, 2014
DIY
Slow and Steady Lays the Tile
Y'all wanna know what I've been working on lately? Shhh... it's a secret... Psyche. Not a secret. Everyone knows. Floors. Floors, floors, and more floors. As you can see from the above photo, Saturday we made serious progress in the great room. But, here's how my daily schedule breaks down: 7am: Wake up, get ready […]
read more
March 24, 2014
DIY
Tips for Achieving Realistic Faux Wood Tile
This weekend, with the help of a few friends, we started laying our faux-wood tile floors and made some real progress, extending from the entry into the nursery, half bath and starting in the master bedroom. The process is slow, but exciting! Now that we can see the actual end product, our spirits are definitely […]
read more
March 17, 2014
DIY
Tilemageddon and the Point of No Return
Right now we're in the "what were we thinking?!" phase with this project. We just started week 4 of what we're calling "tilemageddon" and we haven't even started laying tile yet. We finished up laying a second subfloor of OSB last week, and this week the concrete board is going down. It's a back-breaking long […]
read more
March 11, 2014
DIY
A Sneak Peek at the Floors
It's been a really hectic week over here. I thought I could get a painting in, but I am glad I didn't push it. I haven't been feeling the best (pregnancy-wise) and Greta, Charly and I were stuck in the basement all week while the particle board sub-floors covered in mortar were being torn up […]
read more
February 28, 2014
DIY
Snowballing Projects
Last week, in this comments portion of this post, reader Jacqueline wrote: In a similar vein to your post about painting the ceiling, do you think now would be the time to paint the cabinets too (if you’re planning on doing that as an interim step to replacing them eventually)? Or is that just tackling […]
read more
February 26, 2014
DIY
Why Particle Board Subfloors Are Bad
Let me first preface this post by saying, DIYers sometimes get a bad rap. But honestly, sometimes we earn it. We cut corners, we find shortcuts, we think to ourselves "Oh this is good enough. You aren't going to see this or that." Even Jules and I have been guilty of this in the past. Nothing that […]
read more
February 24, 2014
DIY
Tilemageddon: The Removal
Monday we were able to get all the carpet torn out of the main floor and the tack strips up and last night tile demo started. When I say "we" unfortunately I am excluded from all the fun while trying to keep this baby of ours in and Greta downstairs. But I did peek up […]
read more
February 20, 2014
DIY
The Beginning: Demo Day 1!
Our day started early on Saturday, waking up in our bedroom to our normal house that we've lived in for the past six months. But the difference was, Saturday was the beginning of demo to prep for our new floors. As I mentioned in this post, we are replacing all the flooring on our main […]
read more
February 17, 2014
DIY
A Heated Flooring Update
It has been an intense 3 weeks since we pulled the trigger on going for faux wood tile for our first floor instead of hardwood (as well as a few other options we looked at). A few of you asked how the process was going, so while we are technically still in the same place--womp […]
read more
February 12, 2014
DIY
Pre-Prepping
Now that we've decided on flooring for our upstairs (you can read about our choice here), this weekend we officially started the prep. Or maybe pre-prep? Our home is a ranch-style home meaning it is two levels of the same size basically stacked on top of each other. You walk in on the first floor […]
read more
January 27, 2014
DIY
Our Flooring: Solid Wood vs. Faux Wood Tile
We have, literally, been researching and planning to replace all the flooring on the first floor in this home since last August. We were initially going to go with a bamboo, but the one we were looking at wasn't very thick and we didn't feel confident it would outlast the daily wear and tear of […]
read more
January 23, 2014
