Weekends Warriors
Posted on December 10th, 2007 – 4:25 PMBy Jason Hammond
This weekend was filled with projects. We finished painting the first coat of paint on the Hardiboard siding. The design calls for a two tone color system of Turkish Coffee and Black Bean. To save the siding crew from tons of headaches we just painted everything in the Turkish Coffee color and next spring we’ll go back and paint the appropriate panels with the Black Bean color, when it’s warm enough to take paint.
We got a coat of polyurethane on about half the birch plywood flooring. This will be a big task for us to complete this week as we race towards a certificate of occupancy at the end of the week.
On Saturday Fred Lutz and one of his sons showed up to pour the pan for our shower and lay some of the tiles in the bathroom. I love the way the tile is coming out. We got a great deal on a nice tile from Menards. We had them put it up in a staggered pattern running vertically in the boys bath and horizontally in the master bath. At first I wanted to have zero grout lines but we decided to go with a small (1/16″) grout line and use a dark gray grout to contrast with the bright white tiles. I was so pleased at how this was looking.
On Sunday morning we were the first to arrive at IKEA (this made the trip quite enjoyable as the place was almost completely empty) and got some cabinets picked up to use in the laundry room. We had originally planned to have custom cabinets built for here as well but it felt like over kill to have high end custom cabinets built for an area that won’t get that much use or sight. The IKEA cabinets were readily available very affordable and more than sufficient for this use.
Corey from Benedict and Associates laid down the plywood sheeting in the laundry room, boys bathroom and and office on Saturday. Then on Sunday I installed the rubber coin flooring in the boys bath. I think I measured this piece 15 times before I rolled it out and made my cuts. I have to say I was pretty proud of myself, as it fit the room perfectly. Then late Sunday night I put down the tiles in the laundry room. We found a great apple green colored tile and figured the laundry room was a perfect place to put down a bold punch of color to contrast our black washer and dryer and white cabinets.
Tonight we are going to try and finish the office flooring and lay down the flooring in the master bath so that the plumber can set the toilets.
Corey Benedict puts a later of plywood down in the office.
The boys bath with the great looking over-sized tile on a vertical pattern.
Stacy putt down a coat of poly on the birch plywood flooring.
It’s amazing the contrast in grain from one sheet of plywood to the next.
Friday nights work. You can see the old knotty original ceiling contrasted with the clean lined birch which will get a coat of poly on it to bring the color out later.
What IKEA looks like when you’re the first one there.
A perfect fit. I was nervous to cut the rubber coin flooring but after taking multiple measurements before making my cut, it fit like a glove.
6 Responses to "Weekends Warriors"
Jason, I have HardiBoard siding and love it. We built our house 7 years ago and had to paint this siding as it only came unpainted. I understand that it now comes pre-painted with a multi-year guarantee. Is there a reason that you elected to paint yours on your own rather than get the pre-painted stuff?
Hi Judi,
Yes, I am a design control freak. I wanted a very specific brown and they offer a limited number of colors in the pre-painted products. We will have to finish painting the siding next spring, but I am excited about the colors we have selected.
Jason
Hi Jason,
Thanks for the generous pictures. It helps to be able to see what’s going on.
I have a question about the plywood flooring. Are you cutting tongues and grooves into the edges to help hold the panels level with each other? Or are you using biscuits, or just relying on the fasteners to hold everything in place? Also, some veneer plywoods have a very thin (1/32) face veneer that does not allow for sanding, refinishing, etc. Does your plywood have a thicker face veneer that allows it to be sanded if needed at some later date?
The colors in the laundry room sound terrific…
Weathurman,
It took some serious searching but we found a cabinet grade plywood with a thicker veneer face (about 3/16 of an inch). This would allow us to sand it down some if needed but I hope that is not the case. I know in architect (Michael Huber’s) home floors look incredible and they have been in for several years. They are protected by a couple of good coats of poly which ours will be as well.
As far as joining the pieces together let me tell you it’s been a dilemma. We are trying to decide between cutting a channel and sliding in a joining piece or just nailing it straight to the sub-floor. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. I thought about biscuit joining the pieces together but there are some serious challenges when you have to join more than one one side together at the same time.
Jason
Hi Jason,
Thanks for your explanation. I’d go with the spline connection, if only because if the direct nailing doesn’t keep things level it will be an even bigger job to pull it all up and re-fit the splines. Somebody will be spending a long day with the router to cut the grooves in the plywood edges, though.
Aside from the look, was there any reason you went with plywood rather than strip flooring? By my calculation the materials were probably cheaper - $2/s.f., but the installation can be tricky - especially in the corners.
Good luck - and please keep us posted as to what you decide to do.
