WE HAVE A FLOOR

 

As I hinted at in my post on Monday about the lighting updates in the kitchen, WE HAVE A FLOOR.

If you don’t understand why I am using all caps, let me just catch up up on this floor saga. It went a little something like this:

* We did not plan to replace the floor, and so did not include it in our original $10,000 renovation budget. We knew our reno plans would leave us with some gaps in the existing floor that would require about a dozen replacement tiles (out of 380 square feet), but foolishly assumed we could find a match at a Big Box or specialty flooring store.

* But then we discovered that could not find a match for our current tiles anywhere. We looked, we really looked. And you came up with some great ideas for creative approaches, but you also overwhelming said that we should bite the bullet and replace the floor since we didn’t like the tile much anyway.

* So we decided to take the plunge, and we tore out all 380 square feet of tile with a sledge hammer. Sam is a hero. That left us with a coat of dried thinset all over the plywood subfloor, which we painstakingly removed with a series of trial and error techniques and several Home Depot tool rentals.

* I ordered new tile for $2/square foot, which is so cheap but still felt like a steep price for a floor we didn’t original plan on buying. But then the tile arrived, and I did not like it. Fortunately I convinced Lowes to come back and pick it up, so I only lost the original cost of shipping.

* I just couldn’t find tile I liked at an affordable price, and did not relish the difficult installation that 380 square feet of tiling promised to be. So I searched high and low, and that’s when I discovered Marmoleum Click, a floating floor linoleum product that seemed perfect except for the price. I resigned myself to increasing our planned spending from $1,000 for tile to $2,300 for Marmoleum.

* But despite the entire internet swearing that Marmoleum Click is DIY-friendly, I could not for the life of me install it. I just couldn’t.

* So I added to the pile of unexpected bills and hired a professional to do the install for me. Nick, one of the guys who worked on our wall removal, was up for the challenge, and he did an awesome job for a very reasonable price (more on that soon).

* But we ended up being one box short, and so he had to stop halfway through installing the dining room floor so I could order two more boxes (to be on the safe side). Fortunately the company where I bought the floor, Green Building Supply Company, very generously agreed to waive shipping. Two boxes added $240 to the floor costs.

* The final two boxes arrived last week, and so this past weekend Nick returned for a few more hours of work and HE FINISHED THE FLOOR. After all the unexpected surprises I still can’t quite believe we’re out of the woods (and we still haven’t installed trim and thresholds, so maybe that will be our downfall), but after 2.5 months of nothing but plywood subfloors there is actual flooring under our feet and it is amazing.

(A quick reminder that the color will change slightly as it’s exposed to light, so in the photos above where you can detect some bluer and some greener sections that will change within the next week to be all blue.)

With the floor finally down, we were able to move some furniture back into the dining room. It’s all very temporary, but here’s how things were looking a mere two hours after Nick wrapped up the floor:

I’m so excited! I love the floor, and think the color is going to work perfectly in the space — nice and neutral, allowing us to add color through furniture and accessories. And with the floor down, we can move on to new projects at last!

The next two big projects (which I won’t be able to tackle until later in July/August given that we’re traveling the next few weekends) are to tear out and retile the backsplash and to paint the cabinets. I’m intimidated by both, but excited to be moving on to them! Of course we have a million smaller projects to tackle as well. I need to share a list of what still remains for us, but for now I actually wanted to share a budget update since we’ve completed all our biggest projects expense-wise.

Here’s what we’ve spent so far, with a link to the posts where you can get more detail:

• Corian counters in “White Glacier” — $1,033 for 39 square feet, including installation (Home Depot)
• Lighting & electrical — $290 (new light for above island from Home Depot; new circuit breakers, outlets, and switch plates for various wiring projects)
• Wall paint — $60 (two gallons of Behr premium in eggshell finish, “Chantilly Lace” by Benjamin Moore)
• Fridge surround — $50 (nice plywood from Home Depot for the sides, everything else we already had)
• New glass wall cabinet — free because we used one of the cabinets we salvaged/pillaged from that local school last year
• Pantry — free for now because my dad has been building it for us and not charging, but I actually have some money tucked away in the budget that I am going to try to convince him to take when all is said and done
• Island — free because we cut down and reused the buffet
• Wall demolition — $5,188 ($3,200 for labor, $1,100 for supplies; $678 for permit and engineering drawings; $210 for a Bagster for debris removal)
• New floor — $3,591 ($210 for Bagster for disposing of old tile; $170 for tool rental to demo the thinset from the old tile floor; $65 for shipping for tile I ended up returning; $2,281 for 386 square feet of Marmoleum Click flooring plus $240 for 40 more square feet; $625 for professional installation)
• Cookbook shelf under the new longer countertops — free because we already had the scrap wood
• New fridge — $1,300 (from Home Depot)
• New sink — $200 (from Home Depot)

Total spent to-date: $11,712

That feels pretty reasonable to me, given that it includes all our big ticket items of tearing out an entire wall, new counters, a new fridge, and an unexpected $3,600 floor expense. Based on the projects we still have left and the budget I’ve set for them, we are on track to spent another $2,000, which will bring our total costs in at $13,500 hopefully. That’s more than the $10,000 I originally budgeted, but if you exclude the totally unexpected floor project then it comes in right on budget.

And now here are some before and “now” shots to show what that spending has gotten us so far:

It’s been a busy few months! I’m excited to keep plowing forward, and of course will update you every step of the way. Thank you for all your encouragement and advice so far, it has meant so much especially in those moments of frustration and impatience!