Showing posts with label bedroom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bedroom. Show all posts

We're Rolling Now

Yesterday our rolling wire shelving arrived from Amazon and DH and I spent the rainy evening assembling them. They are really nice and sturdy and will make great stockpile shelves and also for our dressing room. We plan to put all our Tshirts and pants on these rolling racks so that they can be moved around when we need to. I've been looking all over the internet for shelves like these but shipping killed the deal, and tax. Silly me I didn't even look at Amazon til it came up in a google search. So they shipped free and were tax free from Amazon.
 
DH was alarmed at my blog post yesterday suggesting that it meant we never would have guests in our home again. But that's not the case at all. We plan to give up our bedroom to visitors, and then move ourselves in the master bedroom which we use as a dressing room. The stockpile room will also have rolling storage racks which can be easily moved to another area of the house when we have a visitor needing that guest room for accommodations.
 
Anyway, as part of the remodel we've got one room empty and ready to paint and will empty the dressing room this weekend. The ceiling fans should arrive today so they can be installed prior to carpet install next week. Then we can move onto the next project.
 
Here's what we've spent on the bedrooms projects:
 
$985 Carpet, pad purchase and install
$174 Paint (4 gal) and rollers
$398 Ceiling Fans for each room (2)
$200 Handyman replace windowsills, install electric outlet
$ 56  Marble windowsills (3)
$1,813 Total
 
Not too expensive yet. I'm not including the rolling shelves because they aren't really part of the project - we just happen to be getting them to help us move stuff around during the projects and then they will have their other purpose in life later.
 

How To Plan A Remodel

We live in a house built in the mid 50's and it's time to remodel. The wood paneling from the 70's, and the shaggy carpet in brown tones are aging the place. But our thoughts have always been, if its not broke don't fix it. Everything is perfectly functional but it looks aged. Is that a good enough reason to sink thousands of dollars into a remodel? Not really. But since we've paid off the mortgage we have the means to pay for everything as we go. We've cut back on our travel too, as we have everything we need to be happy right in our own back yard. So we've decided to at least modernize the remainder of our house that hasn't been remodeled. If you remember, in 2010 we totally gutted our two bathrooms and kitchen, replumbed the whole house and remodeled the bathrooms and kitchen. It took five months and twenty five thousand dollars, but it has also made life more enjoyable having new rooms with an absence of any problems.
 
Our next project is to remodel a couple bedrooms, our dining room and living room and office area. The bedrooms will be easy with just paint and carpet and new ceiling fans. Its the living room and office that will require more planning. One of the things I've always hated about my house is that the previous owners put up paneling over the stucco plaster walls of our block home. It makes the living room look like a trailer house. The office also has a hung ceiling with big cardboard panels and rectangle florescent lights - Oh and thats in addition to the faux wood paneling. The paneling will be removed and the original walls restored, and the ceiling removed as well giving us a taller ceiling to drywall and change the lighting. We're also replacing the exterior door and adding a window to the room. This is the last room of our remodel plans but it will be the most satisfying and transforming.
 
The reason we're finally doing these projects now is we've decided we just don't want to wait for our dog to die before getting new carpet. We had  been waiting for years to be pet free before remodeling - but have decided its not that big a deal. The dog lives outside in the yard except when we're inside she comes in to join us. She is older and mellow and simply lays on her "place" most of the time, unless she is begging for a nibble when we're in the kitchen. The new carpet will not get ruined by having her around a few more years. 
 
So now that we've decided that we're going to move forward with the remodel there are some steps to take to make sure everything falls into place smoothly. Here are some steps we've accomplished so far:
 
1. Finance the project - either save the cash in advance or make sure your budget can handle the ongoing expense of paying the handyman, the paint store and the online vendors for your supplies. If you need to put anything on credit cards to pay later you probably can't afford the project right now. 
 
2. How will you pay? - Figure out if you can get any coupons from the big box stores where you'll be spending thousands of dollars. I just bought 10% off coupons from ebay for our carpet and it will save hundreds. Also redeem those extra reward or airline points for the big box stores for gift cards to buy your supplies. If they mail you the gift card it will take a couple weeks so do this early in your plans.
 
3. Design - figure out what you want and how you will use the features of your new remodeled room. We've discussed what to do in our guest room and decided since we rarely have visitors sleep over anymore it really is not going to be a guest room. Since our couponing has become extreme, we need the space for our stockpile and I would like a place to read quietly away from the TV, so it will be a stockpile, office area after the remodel. We also are increasing the number of electrical outlets to handle more power strips and to provide power where it currently is lacking. We no longer have a landline so all phone lines and jacks will be removed too.
 
4. Plan - Think through your steps and document them. I wrote of list of what has to happen first, second, third etc. You need to consider moving things, temporary storage of furniture while the rooms are being remodeled, what purchases need to be done first, what are the lead times, what colors will you use and do you have flooring, walls, windows and ceiling items selected and or purchased? Flooring typically requires a measure session be done by the installer before you can purchase, plus they won't schedule an install until the flooring is delivered. This can take weeks. Plus you don't want to paint after new flooring when you can do it easily before and not have to worry about making a mess.
 
5. Action - working on a remodel project often involves tedious tasks like tearing out the old, cleaning, patching and repairing and trips to the trash can. It may involve moving furniture and junk around to another room and ruin your groove. It may also involve lots of errands to pick up something you realize you need. It can be stressful and annoying. Its important to plan a timeline and goal for completion and allow yourselves time to relax each day too.
 
So, if you're planning on a remodel or household project (or not) you can follow along with us as we do ours. So far we've removed the old tile windowsills in the bedrooms and replaced with marble slabs. Now the walls are dry so we can paint. We pulled up the old carpet in the guest room. We've almost done moving everything out of the master bedroom and this weekend we plan to paint the ceilings and walls in the two rooms.

Tangled Up In Blue

I picked that title because Dear likes that song by Bob Dylan, who happens to be touring to Tampa area soon. Plus I've got blue on my mind and its tangling up. There are so many detail and decisions cluttering my thoughts. You know we're in the midst of a mini remodel - just the bedroom. At first we were just going to get a new bed after staying in a nice hotel in Bristol and sleeping like a queen on a fluffy, plush pillow top mattress - I was sold. So we came home and listed the waterbed on CL and it sold pretty quickly. Maybe we should have asked more than $150 for it, but I feel like we got our moneys worth out of it. The waterbed mattress was from 1996 and it cost about $500 back then, so $150 is good in my book.
 
Anyway, the bed is gone and the room is empty so why not fix it up first before getting another bed? So the last couple nights we've been running errands getting supplies and shopping. We decided we'll probably get our mattress at Sears because its on sale and we get free delivery. After dealing with that waterbed, we're not real excited about moving in a mattress and boxspring. I guess its just a sign we're getting old, when we'd rather pay someone to do a crappy job, than save the money and do it ourselves.
 
But we're still doing some crappy jobs ourselves. Like doing demolition of the old tile windowsills so our handyman can come install new marble ones. Like ripping out the old carpet in the bedroom and tack strips to prepare for our new flooring. I think I mentioned we were planning on blue carpet. But as we thought about it a little, we've changed our minds and decided to go with blue tile. The tile will be cooler, easier to see dirt and keep clean, better for my allergies and cheaper. About half the cost. Plus it speeds up the process by not waiting to schedule a carpet measure and wait 10 days for delivery and install. So we found some nice azul color tile at Floor & Decor and got a couple hundred tiles to do the bedroom.
 
This weekend we'll get everything ready, demo the sills, rip up the rug, paint the walls a light blue (rain drop is the color) and our handyman can wrap it all up next week.

Time To Remodel Again

Once again as the summer winds down, its time in our house to consider another remodel project. If you remember, last fall we gutted our two bathrooms and kitchen, replumbed the water pipes and built entirely new bathrooms and new kitchen. Our next project is the bedroom and the dressing room. We're kind of non traditional folks and decided to use our rooms in the house as we see fit which isn't always what other people do.
 
We made our master bedroom into a dressing room since it had a larger closet and bathroom connected. When we first moved into the house we had different work schedules with one of us getting up earlier to get showered and changed for work. It was more convenient and considerate to do this in a different room than the one the sleeping person was in. Also, I happen to have asthma and try to keep the bedroom allergen free by minimizing surfaces to collect dust, clothing or materials that shed skin cells and attract dust mites. So our bedroom is pretty bare, all it has is a bed and a dresser for the TV.
 
Anyway, we sold our vintage waterbed (thru craigslist) the other night which was drama in itself, you can read about it here. So now the bedroom is empty. Since its empty we decided to replace the carpet and update the window sills with marble, rather than the mid century tile. We may also replace the ceiling fan and we'll definitely paint it a color (yeah another white room bites the dust!), and get new blinds or window coverings.
 
The first step is to schedule a measure for the carpet. Home Depot has a deal now for $37 install. plus I signed up for the HD movers club and they emailed me a 10% off coupon the same day. I also redeemed a bunch of AMEX points for HD gift cards that should arrive in a few days. So after the measure it will be another 7-10 days to get the carpet installed. By then the windowsills and painting would done.
 
Next its bed shopping for us and paint selection.
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