The Home Improvement Thread

[You Need a Thneed]

After a number of long evenings, it's finally starting to look like a kitchen again.

Since Thursday, I've finished installing drywall, taped, painted, and finally today we got some cabinet boxes in place.




Today was the day that it felt like a lot of progress was done, but there's still so much work to do.

None of the lower cabinets are fastened to anything yet, they are just moved to the right place. The pantry boxes aren't sitting on their toe kick yet, and aren't in the right spot.

[You Need a Thneed]

Finished doors (no pulls yet) installed on the pantry box. These doors are over a metre tall.

[surferguy]

Love the wall color!

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by surferguy

Love the wall color!

Lots of coats required!

[Hugh Jahrmes]

Backyard almost fully fenced in! Have to add a man gate & rv gate (trying to find someone who wants to move in under my "one year free rent if you buy me a sweet hot tub, or own a badass wake boat you will leave at the house and give me free reign on" program .. Not working so far), plant all these little cedars I got and find some more shrubs and trees for along the back fence, and figure out how to properly make a neat fire pit area. I'd like to go with flagstone, seems like I'm less likely to screw up doing that than some extravagant paving stone design. Finally taking advantage of the awesome retaining wall and staircase my buddy whipped up for me at the end of last summer.

Almost four years as a home owner, and I've almost got my backyard.. Up til last August I may as well have owned a condo (with a crappy maintenance contract, since the back was just a huge mess of weeds )

I'll toss some pics up soon.


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[jeffporfirio]

Can anyone recommend a good/honest/reliable painter in the NW? We want to paint our 2 year old's room in multiple colors (something beyond my limited skills).
Thanks

[You Need a Thneed]

Doors with pulls on:

[Fuzz]

Nice work!

[Hugh Jahrmes]

Originally Posted by jeffporfirio

Can anyone recommend a good/honest/reliable painter in the NW? We want to paint our 2 year old's room in multiple colors (something beyond my limited skills).

Thanks

It's really so easy. I'm pretty stupid as far as being handy and knocked my son's room out (2 colours) one morning after a night shift


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[jeffh]

You need a thneed,
Cabinets look excellent. Have you thought about adding some crown moulding? I think it would give a rich complete finish as you only have like <6" to fill the gap(flush to the ceiling). Something that could be added down the road, for sure.

[surferguy]

looks great! Keep up the updates!

[photon]

Originally Posted by jeffh

You need a thneed,
Cabinets look excellent. Have you thought about adding some crown moulding? I think it would give a rich complete finish as you only have like <6" to fill the gap(flush to the ceiling). Something that could be added down the road, for sure.

I was going to suggest the same thing. It's just a space to collect dust and get gross from cooking over the years anyway. With ours we have a small crown moulding at the top of the cabinet, a flat piece that goes up to the ceiling and a large crown moulding along the top of that and the ceiling. All stained the same colour.

EDIT: Kind of like this, though you'd have to do something that would fit the style of your doors.

[V]

I like the space because it hides the fact that your cabinets and ceilings might not be fully parallel throughout the room. At least mine aren't. The ceiling seems to weave up and down all over the place.

[You Need a Thneed]

I definitely agree that the space needs to be filled up.

My plan is to put some translucent plexiglass in that space, with some LED light strips behind. I have a plugin installed above the pantry side cabinet, with a low voltage wire installed in the wall to make this happen. I figure I'm going to use some kind of a brushed metal "u" trim top and bottom to hold the plexiglass.

I am planning on getting the LED light strips from Lee Valley.

[GoinAllTheWay]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

After a number of long evenings, it's finally starting to look like a kitchen again.

Since Thursday, I've finished installing drywall, taped, painted, and finally today we got some cabinet boxes in place.

It's quite a job, isn't it? I'm just finishing doing up the same thing. We had a super old kitchen that was in desperate need of an update. S/O was getting concerned as to how long it would take to get back to a functional kitchen. So I laid out a timeline that suggested maybe a week before we could use it again. Ya....that ballooned badly.

I had to take down two half walls separating the kitchen from the dining room and also wanted to take out all the carpet in the dining room to install hardwood in the entire area.

No big deal there but I remember as I busted out and removed the first half the countertops, standing back and thinking "My God, what have I done??" which got exponentially worse when I turn around and see two walls and a crap load of carpet were also gone along with quite a few power outlets. Panic started to set in a bit for a moment there.

lol, good times. It was ridiculous how happy I was to at least get a sink back in so we could do some dishes.

[Fuzz]

So how long did yours take? I'd like to do something similar.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

lol, good times. It was ridiculous how happy I was to at least get a sink back in so we could do some dishes.

I've managed to keep the dishwasher hooked up the whole time until now, the other option would been to use nothing but disposable dishes.

[Calgary4LIfe]

Anybody recommend someone to do fences? Damn wind tore down my dad's rotten fence, but it was definitely time for a new one. I don't know anyone that does it anymore. Very much appreciated if anyone can give me a decent referral!!

[EldrickOnIce]

Has anyone any experience with darkening wood floors without full sanding?

Am nearing the end of a project I wish I had never started, simply because it is turning out so good that the list of what follows has grown way too long, and likely beyond my handyman skill set.
I am 'modernizing' our main stairway from golden oak to dark stain/white. Now as well as doors, baseboards and trim ending up white, she wants the floor in the formal dining room and salon darkened.
I will post some pics of the progress/process so far. The transformation has remarkable, and there is no way I could have done it without a few days help from a couple very handy friends.

Some pics... fans of light oak may be appalled lol.


Steps have to be stripped. The dark stain covers the grain and looks painted on. The white covers nicely.






Fortunately the railing/bannister was not glued. It would have been impossible to make clean lines around all the spindles. Decided to outsource staining of the spindles to a paint shop, where they could hang them instead of flipping them over and over. They turned out perfect, but was a bit pricey.






Treads stripped, stained and lacquered. As like dissolves like, there is no way to do this without the harsh stripper, or none that I could find anyway. Not fun.






Railing and spindles reattached after staining white/dark. Railing/spindles come off much easier than it goes back on!!!





This is the point where I am at this morning. 1 of 5 nasty angle trim cut pieces done. Might get this finished up this weekend, hopefully. I think I will paint/stain the parallelograms dark like to stair treads.





Again, thoughts/advice on darkening floors without completely stripping/sanding would be most appreciated.

[surferguy]

that look very sharp. A lot of work but the pop factor is really there. A quality modernization, well done