My Weekend

Wow the weekend really flew by! While my hubby was out of town I had my own honey-do list to contend with. First to avoid the chance of dust getting onto wet paint I decided to strip the kitchen floor of the torture it has endured for many years. When first tearing away at the floor you notice that there is mortar on straight wood flooring. At first glance, you think OMG what am I getting myself into and how long is this going to take?!? Tearing away with an air chisel I start running into what feels like concrete board aka underlayment. With a deep sigh I was thrilled to run into this as this meant the job was surely to go by much more quickly.

Ahhh the first layer of tile -- no problem....

second layer.... underlayment (that should have been used for wall tile)......

third layer ..... masonite WHAT? obviously this is why the tile was lifting and breaking because somewhere along the line the masonite expanded from spilled water, and who knows what else.


fourth and final layer... 30+ year old nasty brady bunch tile....


All... finally.... gone....


YIPPEE!!

After the floor was all completed and cleaned up I started working again on the bathroom. My goal was to finish the painting by midnight. Goal completed. The look I am going for is serenity. Bathrooms that are this small should try to maintain simplicity within certain boundaries. Too much pattern or crazy colors can sometimes be a burden in the long run and leave you feeling a bit suffocated. I LOVE spa's and the tranquility that you walk into. With natural essence like lavender or jasmine.

Chose among several ideas of color this particular one I kept going back to. I knew it was important to keep some sort of brightness to the room. I am exhausted with beige!! Let's take it up another notch here. I kept hitting the green family and it kept calling for me. So at further glance this color kept popping up at me.

After 3 coats of kilz latex and 2 coats of Baize Green I would say the room is starting to finally come together and should be completed over the next couple of days with the kitchen completed soon thereafter. We are tiling both rooms the same day.


The kitchen I feel has more components to it but overall will be much easier to deal with as a whole. We are repainting all the cabinets and adding new hardware. I thought to myself is there ever going to be a time where I will need to spend 30K+ on new cabinets? Ok well maybe when I win the lottery, however the liklihood that will happen is slim! Along w/ the cabinets we are redoing the counter tops to the main area and the movable island with a laminate counter which I was actually impressed with -- laminate has come a long long way!



This illustration below shows what the cabinets will look like when I am done. Most of the cabinet doors have been done I have a few more doors and drawers to strip paint off. The process involves applying the paint stripper which I have used "Citristrip" Be sure you have the following available before you even get started:

--Bottle of Citristrip -- obviously.
--Bag of rubber gloves. If your skin is very sensitive invest in a few pairs of long rubber gloves -- dish gloves for example.
--A cheap chip brush
--Dremel tool with the wire wheel brush (the one that looks like a miniature chimney sweep) -- IF you do not have a dremel tool you can use tooth picks, tooth brushes, etc to get into the fine detail).
-- Paper Towels for clean up
-- Steel wool (plain).
-- mineral spirits
-- plastic tarp or plastic drop cloth
-- safety glasses
-- breathing mask (just in case you are sensitive to fumes) -- The fumes were actually not bad at all -- pretty much like oranges with some liquor is truly what it smells like.

It is pretty fascinating to watch the paint literally lift and start wrinkling up after just a few minutes (results vary).

Once that entire process is completed I will spray them with a lovely off white color and then utilizing faux finish glaze along with a coffee brown paint I will start creating what you see below. Truly I am excited to see how these turn out.

More to post soon!!