Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Renovation Update

Hi everyone! We've been slowly but surely making progress on our new floor installation. So far we've finished the kitchen, laundry, pantry and half bath…and made it into the dining room! There is so much furniture displaced into our office we can barely stand going in there for anything. We just keep reminding ourselves that all the mess & shuffling are temporary and we'll be happy with the results.

One of the challenges we ran into in the dining room was the subfloor. For some weird reason, we discovered it is about 1/4 inch shorter than the kitchen. To fix this we were able to buy a roll of underlayment to help match the difference, but for a while we were freaking out! So now we have Pergo in the dining room. We moved my empty china hutch on top of it so we have room to lay more floor. Because of the way the floor boards run, we're now at a standstill until we remove the tile in the foyer. Once that is gone we can continue with the floor, running it across the foyer and on into the office. Andrew is pretty sure he's going to rent a machine to help chop the tile and cement board up this weekend.

I've also been painting the trim here and there. My goal is to have the woodwork throughout the whole house end up white {eventually}. I would say I roughly have 50% of the downstairs painted, and 10% done upstairs. Slow and steady wins the race.

Here are a few photos of our continued progress:

 
Thanks for checking on us!

Thursday, April 9, 2015

DIY Ironing Board Rack

Hello out there - long time, no post! Since you last checked in, we finished laying the flooring in the kitchen and I've been busy painting all the trim white. I also repainted the walls & cabinetry in the little bathroom across from the pantry. Pretty soon the kitchen zone will be finished, and we'll move on to the dining room…which will hopefully be a snap since it's a square room. Time will tell!

Today I'm going to share a quick little project I did to help keep organized in the laundry room.

IRONING BOARD RACK

Supplies:

  • 2 hooks
  • 1 chunk of wood
  • paint
  • screws
  • stud finder
  • power drill
  • right angle/level

STEPS

I completed this project in 1 afternoon using a remnant piece of wood from a previous project & hooks from Lowe's that were $4/ea.

Pre-measure for hook placement. Use a right angle to make sure your marks are level.

Find the middle of your wood backing and mark holes top center and bottom center. These will screw into a stud in your wall. Drill your holes. Use a bit that is slightly smaller than the size of your screws.

Paint {and prime if necessary} your wood and let dry.

After locating a stud with the stud finder, draw a pencil line on the wall & line up your pre-drilled screw holes. Power drill into the stud, then screw the hooks into their pre-drilled holes.

Check to make sure it's level, then hang your ironing board. Tad-da! All done and under $10!

Thanks for stopping by Old Elm today.
Keep creating, DIYers!