Floor Envy......And Attack of the Crazy Colors

It's been a weekend of great progress at our Broken House. But first I have a confession: 

The French pattern rolled edge Travertine floor is the prettiest floor I have ever seen.  I can't believe I'm going to get to see this pretty floor every day. Even though it's only about 1/3 done, I really really think it's beatiful. Better than beautiful but I'm just not word-smithy enough tonight to come up with a word that's better than beautiful. In the pictures of the floor, before you say "oh she's nuts," the floor still has to be sealed, and we are getting new 8" baseboards to set off the new paint (Named Macadamia Nut - love the crazy paint color names... now there's a job.... coming up with paint color names, more on that in a minute).

Some some action photos from this week. Here is one of the very hard working guys who "textured" our kitchen and bathroom walls with a Florida staple... it's called "orange peel." The walls down here, unlike most of the walls up North are textured with "mud" that gives the wall the texture of an orange. Since it's already in most of the house, it's in my current house, it's in the houses of everyone I've ever been to in the State of Florida, we went with the orange peel. It gets sprayed on and has to dry for at least 24 hours before painting.

 
 Here's a little more orange peel for you folks keeping score at home:



 Now. Onto the floor. Here's what the crates came in when the tile was delivered to my house. There is also a pallet of mud or mortar visible in the bottom right corner of the photo. I think you'll agree. That's a lotta tile.

Here is the first day's work, in progress. You can see the color variations in the stone and how pretty it is and the the pattern shows that off.

So at this point in my post, I probably ought to lay off the floor business because no one will ever want to read this blog again. We let the kids pick out their paint colors for the bedroom, and no surprises, she picked pink, he picked green.I think Norah's was "Pretty Pink" and Tim's is "Gecko Green," perfect for the tormenter/chaser of lizards that he is.

Above is a little silliness with laundry room paint. It looks more purple in the photo than it really is, and  the name of this paint is "Budoir Blue."  The laundry room doubles as a mud room when you first come in from the garage, and there's no natural light in there. I wanted this room to be a happy color since it's the first room we'll walk into and the last room we walk out of on every trip to the house, and this Budoir Blue, despite the name struck me as happy. It was either this or a pale orange color, but Tim nixed the orange for some reason. Oh, but if you're married to a girl from Syracuse, you can't nix the orange for long as you'll soon read.   After I took this picture, I painted the whole wall so my love message is lost forever, except for this blog that is. The Budoir Blue is happy and pretty.

Here's a shot of our Master bedroom. This paint is called "Versatile Gray." You'd think after four years of every day wearing gray at West Point, that gray is the last color I'd choose for my bedroom, but it's a very soothing and calm color. And as the name suggests, versatile.

Right outside our bedroom is the lanai and pool area, which are pretty and a nice thing to see first thing in the morning.

 This next room is where I'd really like some opinions. I became a devotee of the Lowe's Paint Department bargain bin this weekend. For those of you who don't know (My Sister Eileen, raise your hand at this point)... you can go to Lowe's or Home Depot or Ace Hardware and they usually have a "mistake" or "oops" or "leftover" rack. They've mixed the paint for someone who has now changed their minds, and the person for whom the paint was mixed leaves the store without purchasing the paint.  The abandoned paint then goes on the "mistake rack" for a greatly reduced price. At the left, you'll see $5.00 worth of creamsicle orange paint in the kids' bathroom that came from the Lowe's "oops" rack. Forget the ugly light fixture over the mirror, what do you think? Is the orange paint cute and fun or wierd and freaky? Tim didn't want it, but I insisted on it... and now I'm wondering if it should have been left on the rack. The jury is still out. 

I also purchased a gallon of "Silver Fox" for my guest bedroom for $5.00 at the Lowe's Oops Rack, and that is a really really beautiful bluish/gray color. Very calm and soothing, and I've already painted it, just need to go back and cut in the ceiling, photo coming soon.

Last photo for this post, big surprise!

Demo Ends but The Money Flow is Just Beginning

We are done with the demo of the broken house. As you can see from the following pictures, it's a mess, dirty, dusty, walls peeled, bare concrete floors. It's now ready to get put back together! Close-up of the existing stove cooktop, complete with a tile chip for a nose. Those things are EVERYWHERE. Even Stove Man is happy that the demo is just about over!

Because we're getting new tile and new countertops, there's really no point in cleaning these surfaces off, they'll just get messed up again until the new stuff gets installed. We are also getting new kitchen appliances since these are about 15 years old, and well-used. The house (and its occupants) deserve something new and beautiful. Painting begins tomorrow, September 23rd, and so does the tile install. Granite goes in on October 1st or maybe even earlier if the tile guys are done. These are *hopefully* the last pictures of the house all pulled apart that we'll ever be able to show:

And now some good news! Our granite kitchen countertops are on order, and here's a quick picture of what our granite is going to look like. The picture was taken outdoors, on our cement driveway so as to get the correct color in daylight (without a flash), and it's got browns and golds mostly in it. The floor tile is on the right, more on that in just a minute:

Onto the master bathroom. Tim finished the great wallpaper peel in there. We also removed the jacuzzi jetted tub. I don't have anything against jacuzzi's or jetted bathtubs personally, but I am not a huge bath person. I am definitely not a huge "looks like fake marble with a big crack in it" bath person. Even more so, I am not a "steps of cracked tile leading up to the romance capital of Florida in the fake marble bathtub" kind of person. So, the fake marble bathtub is history.

Tomorrow the area where the tub used to be will be dry-walled (just the walls of course), the tile will be laid, and we'll cap off the pipes for a future claw-foot, free-standing, soaking bathtub. I think it'll look nice!

We are also going to have granite countertops in the master bathroom with undermount sinks. I went to the warehouse today and I picked out a somewhat funky slab with "a lot of movement" as they say in the granite biz.

My gal Susan at the granite yard had been saving this piece for me, and I'm happy she did. The picture may not show it, but there are a lot of golds, grays, browns, and even pink in this granite. It's called Juparana Classic, and I guess it's from India. All that way to wind up in my very own bathroom!

Our tile installer also took us over to another client's house today to see the exact floor we are going to have installed! He has installed the same product in several houses with great results.

It is gorgeous. It's a French Pattern travertine tile with a rolled edge, and feels beautiful to the touch and it's beautiful to look at, and very nice to walk on.

Tim and I are nervous about the price tag but it's so elegant and nice, and I think will really make our house stand out. I'm excited to see it in our place!

Again, the kids have been so good throughout all this. And, as fate would have it, Norah is the "Student of the Week" or something, which mostly means that she has extra projects to write about all her adventures as a first grader. My thoughts: "Great timing, First Grade Teacher."

Thankfully we are finished with the extra work. Her big project? "My work on the broken house." Way to kill two birds with one stone. Here are a couple more pictures of the kids pitching in around the house, cleaning up Tim's wallpaper peelings:

The next time I submit a blog post, we should have paint up and floors being tiled. I am going to paint the bedrooms, kids and guest bath, and the laundry room, beginning this weekend. I want a funky color for the laundry room. Syracuse University orange or something to that effect. Pictures to follow!