There isn’t, all 3 floors are hardwood. Carpet is on the list but I’m just buying off the roll because that kid trashes everything.
I’m so relieved to have a bedroom just for sleeping & dressing. No more computer, yoga gear, video recording equipment. & best of all, no more teenagers coming in the room to help themselves to the bed, I HATE that.
Plaim thick carpet off the roll is actual a good deal. We don’t have anything too precious in our house since we have cats that like to scratch, vomit, and poop on stuff. I have replaced our bathroom area rugs several times, so…
We also bought a bunch of remnants at Ollie’s (a discount store). I am glad our style is eclectic because nothing matches! ha ha And, I do like that look anyway!
Gah, even the cheapest carpet off the roll is nearly $2 a sqr foot. That + underpadding = too much $. We’ll have to figure something else out.
The back patio door is leaking, we just finished that room inside & out 2 years ago & the eaves last spring.
The new ceiling paint in our room is flaking in a couple of spots.
But I got these shelves up for kiddo in the basement so he can finish unpacking his room finally.
At least the shelving looks really good!
Leftover or used carpets is sometimes offered in buy nothing groups here. If you’re not too picky about a particular colour or material you might find something there?
After our renovation, we used sheet vinyl remnants to put something on the floor while we saved (money and energy) for the real floors. I was shocked at how expensive those remnants still were.
Taking advantage of today’s beautiful weather!
So many of you have been moving along so nicely! @Magpie You all have done sooooo muuuuch! Leaks are some of the hardest problems to fix, it can be so mysterious as to where the water starts and how it gets to where we see it.
I am pretty much at a stand still with the switcheroo-ing of our guest room/office/library/craft room until we get the cabinet bed. I was really struggling finding something online that I trusted to hold up, look good, and actually be delivered to our house. I mentioned this to some former neighbors that I saw recently and they gave me the name of a friend who makes custom furniture including murphy beds who might be interested. He is and is quite excited at the opportunity to make this new-to-him thing that is a good thing to add to his offerings. He should have final drawings soon, so I can get him a deposit and he will put us in the queue! Maybe by June we’ll have that bed which would make me comfortable passing along our old guest bed which would free up space to continue the switcheroo project.
In the meantime, I’d started on a prototype for recovering our outdoor dining chairs (currently vinyl wicker over a metal frame). After some internet searching and pinning, I’ve found a method for using wood that I think will work well, look nice-enough, last a long time, and save the metal from the recycling process (which uses energy, etc., but is better than the landfill). I love that these chairs have arms and that they stack!
Anyway, I’ve been playing around with a “prototype” using scrap wood and one of the six chairs. The seat is the pic on the left, the back is the pic on the right (laying down on the work table). I have to find a particular clamp locally to verify it will fit the metal tubing of my chairs, then order up a couple hundred of them if they do! And of course, acquire better quality wood.
Looks good @Whistlefish and @TheMistressT ! Getting ready for summer. @TheMistressT is this the last step in your long deck improvement project?
My friend and I went around the house doing minor tweaking yesterday. Just the little bits that never get done, but do make you happy when they’re finally finished. The builders replaced the door handles a few years ago, but they weren’t installed properly (the tiny screws should have been a bit tighter) so the handles were a bit wobbly. It really annoyed my friend whenever she visited so we fixed it yesterday. While she was here she also fixed a light fixture that worked, but the top bit wasn’t completely parallel to the ceiling (can’t blame the builder, I put it up and couldn’t figure out how to make it parallel) and we also fixed a light switch that was fine, but not completely straight.
Our builders were the typical builder that’s really good with heavy things and big machinery, but no eye for detail. I’m completely satisfied with the actual technical aspects of building, they built an extension and a seperate outbuilding and they passed the technical inspection with flying colours, but they weren’t as good with the tiny details, like using a level when installing a wall switch, or making sure the tiny screws are tight enough even though tiny screws are super annoying. I had heard positive things only for this builder but if I would do it again I’d hire a different builder for the finishing part.
I think that is typical of most builders. They are big picture people and not detail people. My nephew, the one who painted our house and kitchen, is extremely detailed. After he was done painting, he went around the house and did the same thing!
I helped, of course, where I could. I cleaned every single piece of kitchen hardware. I was going to buy new, but it was going to cost a lot of money. I just did not like the “gold” finish. He cleaned one handle to show me that the “gold” was actual caked on grease and grime!! Ewwww! After cleaning they were actually pewter colored and perfect for the gray cabinets!!
What a handy friend to have! I do think women tend to see all those little details more than men for the most part.
I changed out all the door knobs in the main part of the house with black, smooth knobs. I also changed all the door stops or put them in where there were none. We still have some ceiling fixtures to replace, but I am pretty tired from two years of construction, so I am giving it a break.
I do want to do some sort of kitchen window covering and garden work. That is enough!
That’a a great save on the kitchen hardware! Eww, I didn’t know pewter could appear gold just from grease and dirt.
We took a bit of a break last year but we’re picking up again. It just costs me a lot of energy to live in an unfinished house. I want to at least finish the things that really cause practical issues (like spaces that have no light fixture).
What a great friend-project! SO satisfying for you both, I imagine. I think that I have found the opposite to be true for details. In my experience the subcontractors that typically do the stuff like install door hardware (finish carpenters) and switch plates (electricians) tend to be detail oriented. Things are level, screws all have their slots facing the same direction, etc. But if for some reason someone on the general contractor’s crew does them, they may be slap-dash.
As for the deck project, we still need to replace the hot tub cover. We’re waiting for a small inheritance to come though, but it may have been smarted to have done it in 2024 when I built the deck. I imagine the already high cost has grown A LOT in these not-quite-two years.
@AIMR Oh dear! I’m so glad you were able to use your existing hardware, but 
. We had a similar situation here where I thought that the indication marks on the stove dials were a golden yellow, but nope! They were white, just maybe never pulled off and cleaned! Based on the circle of grime under each one, I think that the former homeowners didn’t know that the knobs just pull off for cleaning… both the knobs and the surface under them.
Most of the stuff we have left is cosmetic and things we want to change to our taste. All the hard stuff like the doors and garage and finishing the basement is done. I still have some pictures to hang and some things to make ( a macrame wall hanging for the big space in the living room!), but no messy stuff.
I forgot to post pics of the painting of our bathroom vanities and linen closet and the kitchen almost done. The color of the cabinets is slightly darker gray than the picture, but you can see the knobs are more silver than “gold” like I thought! ha ha
Guest bath:
I didn’t like the clear glass on the top cabinets so we had those replaced with frosted glass. We are debating putting in an island/bar that will divide the kitchen from the dining room. But, like I said, I am tired of the work and spending $$$$!
That all looks so fresh!
Considering that the entire house, inside and out, was urine yellow and brown, and quite filthy, it is nice to feel it is clean and fresh! As we live here, we can make more cosmetic changes (I would like my craft room to be a brighter color!). I am also a clutterer, so I have tons of patterns and colors of art, curtains and books all over, so the neutral back drop is at least a bit calming!
@AIMR I think the original colour of the hardware looks really good with the cool grey colour you’ve picked for the kitchen.
I just ordered a brad tacker. I have been making a mental list of things I want to have done before summer, and the hallway is one of them. I’m doing wood panelling there and we cut the wood to size last year (it’s leftover floorboards). The only thing that’s stopping me is lack of a brad tacker. Brad tackers aren’t too common here because we use brick for most things rather than timber. But timber frames are becoming more common, partially due to the Internet and youtube videos. I had hoped to run into someone with a brad tacker eventually who could help me figure it out, but I just bit the bullet tonight and ordered one. I think I can learn to use one on my own.
@TheMistressT you are right, the finishing touches were done a while later by the owner’s retired dad and one of the jack of all trade guys on the crew. We renewed the wiring in the whole house, that job was done by certified electricians. Then the plasterer came to plaster the whole house, it needed to dry for a couple of weeks and by then the main crew was working on a different site. They just sent those two men over for one day for switch plates, outlets, baseboards, bringing the doors back and replacing the hardware (the doors had been in storage the entire time). They were in a hurry and the owner’s dad was very strong willed. It was hard for him to understand that I didn’t want things the way he wanted them, and that in my house, I decide. So I guess the crew put in the hardware in a slap-dash way while I was arguing with the bosses dad over baseboards 
(they brought the wrong ones, I thought they were ugly). To be fair, the hardware was 1940s reproduction to match the original doors so probably not something they’d installed before. Just typeing this makes me feel relieved I’m not dealing with builders anymore! Eventually we called the contractor, he sent his dad home with half the job undone and decided to partially refund us so we could do it on our own, to our standards. We’d had a death in the family like a week before this all happened so we probably weren’t in the best of moods either.
I ordered the cable clamps I need for my outdoor dining chair project today and hope to have them by the end of the week. I wasn’t able to find a small pack locally to test, so I hope they work - 2 pkgs of 100. From what I can tell based on how I think these are going to go together, I will need 204. D’oh!
I also ordered up flush outlets and the folding mattress for the cabinet bed we’re having made, so I can get a final estimate pretty soon. I have a meeting with the woodworker in a couple days.
My craft lab/guest room/home office/library switcheroo project has been mostly on hold for a few weeks while we ironed out having a cabinet bed built by a local furniture maker who also does custom murphy beds. He hadn’t done a cabinet bed before, so it took longer to get down to actually getting it made. I put a deposit down last week and he sent the contract which I had to print and sign and deliver yesterday. He will now do a drawing for approval then when he has his current project done, he will start ours. Maybe we’ll have it by mid June? I bought the trifold mattress for it and a queen mattress protector/pad along with new pillow protectors. I have been purging and donating supplies and furniture, but still need to get rid of the full size guest bed. I am hoping I can give away the mattress, box spring, mattress pad, sheet set, and comforter (which we had inside a duvet) to someone in need. It would be nearly a full set up, minus pillows. Perhaps I’ll include the bedstead, too. Hopefully, it being a guest bed for all this time will mean it can be given/donated fairly easily. I just need to find some pics of it set up and then get pics of the comforter, which does happen to match the sheets even though they weren’t bought for that.
ANYWAY, over the weekend I set up this vintage (OUCH) CD player so I could play CDs and this happened. And it was great.
Unfortunately the mechanism that lifts so the discs can be inserted and removed is glitchy so, I don’t feel “safe” playing them. I might be brave and open it up to see if it just needs cleaning or a some other simple fix that I can diagnose and fix.
Our curtain rails downstairs were put up by a relative. Very nice of them, but they apparantly used the wrong plugs and screws for the type of bricks used in our ceiling. So they were slowly coming lose, in some spots the rail hung an inch down from the ceiling. It’s a miracle it hadn’t fallen down yet. It has slowly been coming down all winter.
Today I finally bit the bullet and replaced the screws and plugs. It was a bit of a hassle but I’m so glad I did it. Once I pulled off the caps that covered the hardware, the screws and plugs basically fell from the ceiling by themselves. It was worse than I thought.
The stuff I used this time is recommended for this type of ceiling so fingers crossed this will hold up better!
Now I’ve got the drill and the screwdriver out anyway I hope to do some more little odd jobs this weekend.
this wire shelf we already had will work & I’ll order another one.