Fun with Layouts - Kitchen

Three cheers for progress ... at least of the planning variety



The cabinets I've been looking at are from Ikea and I like the Adel Medium Brown so far, but that could change. I would like to get a tall cabinet in the space between the fridge and sink cabinet but don't know if there will be doom yet until I demo and prep the kitchen and take better measurements. I already have my stove and matching overhead microwave.

Heading out from work early today to meet with a duct work guy.

Fun with Layouts - Living Room

I did this in MS Word because I am limited in the programs I have available to me (it is to scale +/- an inch or two in a couple places):



I got a great deal on a front loading washer and dryer set a few weeks ago so I have those sitting in my kitchen right now and that got me thinking that it makes more sense to have them accessible on the main floor than having to hunch over in the basement every time. Also, getting them down there would most likely damage them in some way since there aren't really any openings wide enough. I thought about putting them in the kitchen, but since I already need to have that part of the room sectioned off for plumbing and possibly HVAC ducts, it wouldn't be too hard to frame out an enclosure there.

I contacted someone to come out and give me an idea of how the duct work will need to be run and what I'll need to work into my layout; I'll post an update once I get that info.

I'm working on the other rooms now and will try to put my ideas out there so I can have a record somewhere to compare against when it ends up being completely different.

This 1 post a month thing has got to stop

I've been terrible with posting over the past few months but hopefully that will change. I've been doing a lot of planning for my house and been working extra hours so I can take off an extended amount of time and get a lot done in one shot. Some random stuff from the last month.

The holidays were a lot of fun and it was nice to spend time with the whole family.

We had our first big snowfall of the year; getting about 20ish inches. Chloe had a lot of fun but decided to run away when she got wind of a deer. Of course since she couldn't catch the deer, she decided the next best thing would be to find a group of dogs playing while their owners were shoveling. While posting my "lost dog" craigslist ad after searching for about an hour, I got a call from one of the people who's dog she was playing with. Only about 5 minutes away from where I turned back during my search, I was thankful she was found and went back out to get her.



The house directly behind me is being gutted and a sign on the front indicates they'll be building up, adding a third level and a rooftop deck. While cleaning their back yard, they tore down the cement wall between our property. I'm pretty sure this was mostly on my property and now there is nothing preventing people from breaking into the back of my house. I think I am going to research if I can take them to small claims for the cost of the wall, and they also broke some of my concrete yard. I'll post pictures when I take them tonight.

Lastly, I'm having trouble finding a vendor for metal stringers. Right now the company I'm planning on going with is in Canada and freight would be several hundred dollars. I may contact a contractor, but I'm planning on installing them myself and don't know how that would go over just to get the info from them.

Progress, but not on MY house

I haven't really had much of a chance to work on my house because I have been installing flooring at my friend's house. She bought engineered hardwoods from Lumber Liquidators and decided on Brazilian Walnut because she liked the level of variation among the boards. The floor is around 650 square feet and the layout has some fun challenges.

When she ordered the wood I took a couple days to prep everything while waiting for it to come in. There were three types of flooring that needed to be pulled up; pergo-type, carpet, and linoleum with a thin subfloor underneath. I moved all the furniture around and with the exception of the craptastic subfloor that was stapled down every 2 inches in the kitchen, it was all pretty easy. I started rolling out the underlayment and decided to start the wood along the front of the house, since it was the longest continuous wall.





It took a lot longer than I anticipated because of a lot of unusual angles and obstructions in the floor I had to cut around (such as floor outlets and central air registers). I finished the floor and am pretty happy how it turned out and I think my friend is too. I do like the color variation a lot, but don't know how well it would go with the brick in my house.



I still have the molding left to do, but am only going to cut it and she and her dad are going to hammer it in. I enjoyed this project and hopefully it will get me back on track to work on my place (probably not), plus, I got some saws out of the deal and now have just about everything I should need for my place.