The Loft Improvements Continue, Built in Shelves

I really wanted some built in shelving in the loft.  We have a ton of books and some empty space in the loft and I've been reading about so many other awesome built in shelving projects in blogland--it seemed doable and at my skill level and I was loving the end results.  This was my thinking and now I'm over thinking because this project is way more than I seem to be able to chew.  But, back to the beginning.

I really loved the way Centsational Girls Ikea Billy Built Ins turned out, so I used her ideas and instructions.   Well, I'm still mid-project but this was the jumping off point.  We went to Ikea and purchased 3 of the 15" deep Billy bookcases.  They were $70 each.  This was a day long activity.  Ikea is about 1 hour away.  Just getting all of the boxes out of those huge shelves and onto your cart, then through the checkout is such a process.  Then loading up the car, driving home, and getting the big heavy boxes upstairs was a whole other struggle.

We put together the first shelf and started to move it around to see how the whole unit would fit in the space.  Here is the wall I thought would be the best, to one side of the window.  I swear I had more and better pictures of this but they apparently are hiding from me right now. 

What you can't see in the picture is the 6" baseboard and how the Billy is sitting next to the wall.  In order for the Billy's to have the built-in look, we were going to have to raise them up so the baseboard would be even with the bottom shelf.

We came up with this I design using 2x4s and screws:




Using some L brackets, we secured the I frame to the bottom of the Billy.




We made 3 I frames, I for each shelf.  I'm sure there are better and easier ways to do this but we are novices and wanted to make sure the frames were sturdy and secure.



Then we added a few screws to secure the Billy's to each other, making it one unit.


We did the same with the 3rd Billy.





Then it came time to secure all 3 Billys to the wall.  Ikea includes some L brackets for this with the Billy, we just used those.  We did have to shim our platform first to get the unit to sit flush against the wall.


OK, here is my best picture of the whole unit so far. 


Now, time for the trim to make it look built-in.


---Adrienne

Loft Floor Using Allure Waterproof Flooring

First off, this is NOT a sponsored post, no one is paying me to write this, all opinions and 100% my own.  Hello, I've been wanting to share my latest home improvement project  and I have no excuses except for laziness.  I guess I'm much more of a doer than a sharer.  Always something more to get done.  Well, this project is very close to done, at least Phase 1. 

This project started off as a necessity.  We have a really nice loft space in our home, its the 4th floor, the attic space, its completely finished.  It has an open area, a bedroom and a bathroom.  The open area is where the kids watch TV and its also the space that houses the cat litter boxes.  After 2 years of living in this house we had to face facts.  Cat litter plus carpet equals yuck!  The carpet was getting so soiled, didn't matter how much I vacuumed (OK, I probably didn't vacuum that much).  Add to the fact that our cats seemed to think of the carpet near their box as an extension of thier box...double yuck!  One day I got fed up and went up there with a blade knife and removed some of the carpet and padding under their boxes.

We were thinking that we would put down a laminate floor.  The stairs leading up to the loft are a dark cherry hardwood.  Very nice.  We knew we didn't want to spend the $ on hardwood and weren't sure we could diy the installation.  Since most of the house is the dark cherry hardwood I wanted the loft area to be different and lighter.  With the whole cat box situation I started thinking that I wanted something completely waterproof. 

We went to HD to look at options and the sales guy showed me this product called Allure, they only sell it at HD.  Its not laminate, its vinyl, and its waterproof.  Allure has a LOT of different products and most are water resistant, this was the only one that I saw that was waterproof.

It comes in a ton of colors and patterns.  I choose this maple honeywood color.  I liked the different tones and variations in the tile and thought the color would complement the hardwood in the rest of the house.

This wasn't the most inexpensive option for flooring, I think it was around $2.60/sqft.  Not bad but we could have gotten laminate for under $2/sqft.

I don't have a lot of pictures of the process but there were 3 major phases:

1.  Rip out carpet, padding, remove tack strips and discard.  Think many, many trips up and down the stairs out to the curb.

2.  Lay vinyl tiles.

3.  Install quarter-round and transitions.  Paint or stain to match, cut all the pieces, nail or screw down, sand and paint to finish.

To lay the vinyl tiles, we just followed the directions.  The cuts were made by scoring with a blade knife and snapping.  For trickier cuts, we used tin snips like scissors to cut, you have to be careful when you do this though because the tin snips are not too accurate.  I also used my wire cutters at times to make small cuts.

BTW, I don't think I could find a more unflattering pic of me if I tried, keeping it real here.

Alex figured out to use a flathead screwdriver when we got to the end of the wall and were trying to pull/snap in the last pieces.

Here is a view of the finished floor, end of Phase 2 as I call it.  The next step was to add quarter-round to the baseboards and stairwells and transition pieces.

Here is one of the transitions where the stairway meets the loft floor.  You can see the dark cherrywood that is in most of the house.  We used a piece of of trim from the moulding section for this transition and stained and polyed it to match the stairs.  Here you can also see the quarter-round that we stained for around the stairway.




Comments/opinions on the Allure vinyl tile product:
-- I love the way this floor looks!  Such an improvement over the dirty carpet.
-- I'll have to see how it wears but so far so good.  I have a busy household so it will definitely get alot of wear and tear.  I'm crossing my fingers that it holds up well and as promised on the package, I can't imagine starting over with this floor....
--Installation was fairly simple once you get the hang of it.  There is a bit of pulling/pushing and maneuvering to get the tile to lock in and join to the adjacent tiles.  I do notice a few seams showing and this is not supposed to happen.  I'm not happy about it but I'm hoping that they are not too noticible and that no more appear.
--Because this room was carpeted, the subfloor was very uneven, there are even bumps that I can feel through the tile.  Thankfully we used this product because its flexible and forgiving of the uneven floor.  Otherwise I think we would have had to level the floor before installing any other hard product.
--Also because this room was carpeted, the doorway mouldings are now floating almost an inch off the new floor.  :(


While at the store to pick up quarter-round, I also purchased this nail gun, Arrow Fastener 2 in. Electric Brad-Nail Gun.

Sadly, we returned it to the store.  I only tried it with the 2" brads which were maybe too long (although this product is supposed to be able to handle them).  Only 1 out of every 10 brads went all the way into the wood, the rest stuck out and either had to be yanked out or nailed in with a hammer.  Bummer though because this was easy to use.

.................

So, the floor is done but this room is not.  Next step is to build in some IKEA Billies like Centsational Girl did here. 


Thanks for reading....  Adrienne

Closet Door: Mission Accomplished

I did it!  I moved the closet door!  Now, instead of opening into the closet and taking up all of the space with the door swing, the door opens out, into the room!  I just found 9 squart feet of closet space that we either couldn't use or couldn't get to before!  This is the best feeling.  Finally, I can actually use this closet to put Ms. Princess' stuff in.

I talked about how the different ways I could accomplish this task in my last post and ended up deciding to move the hinges.  I started by dry fitting the door in the outer frame.  The door fit even without notching out for the hinges.  I put 2 boards under the door so it would sit at the proper height.

Dry fitting door (I used boards under the door to get it to the proper height):

Next I had Alex help me open the door, keeping the boards under for the correct height, and figure out where to screw in the hinges. 

I started with the center hinge. 

Traced the screw holes, predrilled, and attached the hinge. 

Then we attached to the door and closed the door, checked to see if it fit.  The first time I did this, I had to move the screws in the center hinge over about 1/4 inch.  I'm glad I only did 1 hinge at this point.  The second time worked though.   I did the same with the top and bottom hinge and closed and opened the door making sure they were in the proper place.

OK, time to notch out the hinges.  Since I had just screwed them on, I was able to trace around each hinge and score with the utility knife.  Then I got out the chisel and hammer and made this mess:

I don't own a router and even if I did I don't know how easy they are to use.  So, I went out and bought an early Valentines gift, Dremel 3000.

I spent several hours just reading the directions and trying to figure out what all of the attachements that came with the Dremel were for.  Then I realized it didn't come with a router bit.  So I decided to give this a try:

 After a LOT of noise, smelling smoke, and wrestling with the Dremel I realize that this tool is going to take some practice.  But I did get the hinges in.  I'll show you a pic but its not pretty.

 The important thing is that the door works!  It opens and closes and I just hope that no one ever stares at these hinges.

 The last part was to make the hole for the latch.  I looked through the drill bits (?) to find the right size for the hole.

 Then I opened and closed the door a few times to get a mark on the frame to determine where the hole needed to go.

This part, I can honestly say, was easy.  And it works great!  I screwed in the latch plate over the hole (and don't have a picture of this).  I didn't notch out the latch plate because the door is opening and closing fine without it and there is no need to make another big mess in the frame.

My last task I finished this weekend.  Reattaching the moulding that I pulled off, filling in the old hinge recesses with wood putty, caulking and painting. 

I finally finished this past weekend and all I can say is that its DONE.  I'm not too happy with my filling in the hinge holes and the moulding is all beat up (I'll have to add a pic here) from where I pried it off in the last post.  But its really not too visible, unless you look for it.

I used an off-brand of caulk and have to say that it didn't seem to be as smooth and easy to work with than and name brand I normally buy at HD.  Disappointing. 

I have to say that although this project isn't overall 'pretty' I learned a ton, almost enough to discourage me from attempting more projects in the future.  But I'm not going to do that.  I'm going to continue on because I enjoy these projects and its an education.  Can't beat that.

Operation Gain More Closet Space

Want to see some pictures of a messy room?  How about a messy closet?  I love looking at beautiful pics of peoples homes, but that is not happening on this blog. 

Every few months I go through the daunting task of decluttering my daughters room and trying to organize it.  Each time feels like the movie "Ground Hog Day", like, wasn't I just doing this yesterday?  She has a decent sized closet and its time to really utilize all of the space in there.  First order of business is to flip the door.

With the door opening into the closet (as it currently is), only 1/3 of the space is really usuable.  If the door can open into the room we'll gain almost 9 square feet of accessible closet space.  Worth it?  I think so.  Can I flip, or rehang a door?  I'm not sure.  Here is where I am right now.

This is the usuable closet space right now, pretty much all you can see when the door opens into the closet:

I'd already removed the door when I took this picture but the door swings open to the right side of the shelves.  All the floor space is taken up by the door swing.

This is the potential space we'll gain with the door flipped (door opening into the room).  I put another shelf (shown to the right inside the closet) that is not accessible at all.  The few times I actually used this shelf I had to 1,  step into the closet, 2, find a sliver of space that I could stand in and have room for the door to close, and 3, shut the door completely.  Then I had to do the reverse to get out. 

So I've been reading online about how to reverse a door, how to rehang a door and how to install a door.  Looks like I have 3 options. 

1.  I can remove the whole door jamb and casing and buy a prehung interior door and install it.  This is what Rachel did recently. 

2.  I can remove the whole door jamb, pull out all of the nails and flip it around and rehang it (if I don't damage it too much).

3.  I can just remove the door and rehang the hinges on the other side. 

Last night I started my exploratory research.  I first wanted to see how easy it would be to take off the door jamb and casings. 

What a mess!  This took me about an hour:

Options 1 and 2 involve removing this whole jamb.  There are a ton of nails to saw through and then pull out.  I don't own a nail gun and compressor.  I did lots of gouging of the jamb and casing while pulling this off, not sure if I can really reuse it.  Also, not sure what kind of saw to use to cut through those nails.  Will my jigsaw work?

If I choose option 3 it requires creating another hole for the door latch.  Also, notching for the hardware.

 Can I really notch out 3 of these hinges?  I'm not feeling too confident here.

In the meantime I have a door in my hallway.  Complete with One Direction posters.   

I'm going to give Option 3 a try.  I am really not feeling confident about this but I feel like I should at least give it a shot.  I'll keep you posted.

----Adrienne



Family Disney Trip 2012 (Disney with 4 tweens)

In early November we took the kids to Disney in Orlando Florida for 5 days.  I have to admit I am a recluctant traveler.  I get motion sick on almost any moving object, I have very little patience and have 4 kids ages 9 to 13.  We tried to make this a frugal trip but that's hard to do at Disney.  Here is our experience.

Getting there.  We flew Jet Blue out of Regan National Airport.  I love, love, love Jet Blue!  I love the satellite TV, wide, cushy seats, extra leg room and the free bag check (only 1 bag per person).  That made the flight soooo nice!  We each checked 1 bag (each child had their own) so we didn't have to shove a ton of bags into the overhead compartments.  The satellite TV occupied all of the kids, and me, during the whole flight.

Getting around.  Since we weren't staying on a Disney property with tram access, we opted to rent a car.  This was a good idea.  Problem was that we rented a Jeep Grand Cherokee which wasn't quite large enough for us the 4 kids.  The kids were uncomfortable even though we weren't in the car for very long.  We should have rented a minivan.  This was a cost savings fail. 

Lodging.  Since we had a timeshare trial (that we purchased a year or so ago for about $99? can't remember exactly) we were able to rent a 2-bedroom, 2-bath Mariott vacation suite for 4 nights provided we went to their 90 minute timeshare spiel.  Honestly, I am a total skeptic and I would never purchase a timeshare but this worked out for us well.  The suite we stayed in was beautiful and clean with maid service each day.  There were 3 pools and a game room on the property that we got to use, and the 90 minutes of our time was really only 90 minutes. 

Tickets.  We purchased 4 day passes to all of the Disney parks (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, Disney Hollywood Studios).  These weren't park hopper passes, we could only go to 1 park each day.  We purchased them through the Mariott where we were staying and the price was a little better than any other that I could find while searching online.  This was the most expensive single expense of the entire trip.

Weather.  Early November was surprisingly (to us) chilly at times.  I wore pants and a hoodie each day.  There were a few times I was really hot (so good thing I had layers) but that was only in the direct sun.  It wasn't warm enough for shorts and sandals the whole day and at nightime I could have used a jacket.

Day 1 (Tuesday).  We took an early flight, so arrived in Orlando before noon.  We picked up the rental car, picked up our tickets at Marriott and drove to Magic Kingdom.  Parking at Disney parks was $14 for the day.  We got to the park around 2PM and the park didn't close until 1AM so we had plenty of time.  We loved the option of taking a ferry to the gate and seeing some of the Disney hotels along the way.  There were almost NO lines this day.  We waited around 20 minutes for some rides but most we practically walked right in.  The kids loved "Space Mountain" and "Splash Mountain", I loved seeing the castle lit up in pink lights at night.

We didn't stay for the fireworks, I can't remember what time we left but there were a ton of people lining up waiting for them.  It was really cold by the time we left.

Day 2 (Wednesday).  We slept in and took our time getting to Epcot.  There was way too much to do here in 1 day.  We had to endure lines this day but they weren't too bad.  I found this park completly overwhelming.  At first I didn't want to go to any of the countries because I'm fascinated with the science stuff at the front.  Being Disney novices, we were very hit and miss with the attractions we choose to visit.  The kids loved "Mission: Space" but weren't too thrilled with "Ellen's Energy Adventure" and "Journey into Imagination with Figment" (this was for 3-year-olds) but the 'play' areas when you get out of the rides are really cool! 

In the afternoon we headed to the countries to meet up with a friend who was visiting Disney with his family.  I really enjoyed this part of the park and this is the part I didn't even really want to visit.  It is so cool the way they make the whole area look and feel like you are in another country. 

Unfortunately the kids were not thrilled with the country area of Epcot so I didn't get to explore nearly enough here. 

The kids were very amused with:  the dancing fountains (my daughter wanted to get drenched even though it was 50 degrees outside and I had no change of clothes for her), the banisters (they were fun to slide down) and the light up sidewalks (areas of the blacktop that would light up and fade out) at night.

Day 3 (Thursday).   Once again we slept in and took our time getting to Animal Kingdom.  This park closes early, at 6PM.  I LOVED this park most of all but I was starting to understand the Disney thing of making the entire park (the streets, buildings,  characters, even the bathrooms) part of the experience.  The Safari was so awesome, just blew me away! 

I loved these beaded animals we saw in Africa in Animal Kingdom.

Day 4 (Friday).   Once again we slept in (this is the theme :)) and took our time getting to Disney Hollywood Studios.