Home Remodeling Project 2008

I've been sick since the third week of April and am finally getting over a really bad sinus infection with the help of antibiotics. It took me awhile to go to the doctor since every day I was just a little bit better, so when on day 15 I went and saw an on-call doctor she said that if I kept feeling bettet to not fill the prescription she gave me. So I did feel better and I didn't fill the scrip - and then about 5 days later I was even sicker than the first round because now I was coughing, too. I saw my personal physician and she prescribed something different and said if the first 10 days don't knock it flat refill it (which I called in this morning). I am starting to feel better, altho still coughing quite a bit so I don't spend much time on the phone. It's weird to wake up coughing and choking at 4 am or some odd hour.

So here is my first personal post in May, barely making it before the end of the month. I also have some hosta pics to post, altho now they are fully out, so I may take new pictures and post all of them together so you can see the difference.

When most people think of home remodeling they may think of major renovations. For us, the home repair and remodeling challenged, just changing out flooring is a major undertaking. Steve actually completed this entire project himself in about 10 days. It has made an amazing difference and I wanted to share it with you.

Our personal experience with Forbo Marmoleum


This is a follow-up to a post titled "Forbo Marmoleum and Me" that I posted last month in which I told the story of saving my sanity by covering up an old ugly vinyl floor with Marmoleum. Last summer we sold our house and bought a townhome in the Built Green certified redevelopment of High Point in our beloved community of West Seattle. My dog, Sophia, a wonderful Italian greyhound, had a little trouble with the transition from a home with a dog door and 1/4 acre fenced yard to a home with no outdoor access other than that afforded by me and three walks a day.

So the "flex space" off of the garage, which is subterranean, has been a site of pet accidents more than we knew and before long it became a problem that wasn't fixable. We were not able to get the smell out of the carpet pad. We considered tearing out the carpet and painting the concrete floor a neat color until we were ready to put down bamboo or cork flooring. As you know, everyone's budget is tight these days and we're not ready to spend the money for the permanent fix. But we couldn't live with the carpet anymore, so something had to be done.

Deciding painting would tie up the space for too long with drying time (and inconvenience the cats) we turned to Marmoleum, a wonderful natural floor covering that we had previous experience with. ecohaus (formerly Environmental Home Center) has carried Forbo products for years. We stopped by the shop on 4th Ave South and discovered Marmoleum now came in a "click" format, easy to install tongue-in-groove planks. Even novice and reluctant home remodelers seemed sure to have success with it. And it is on sale! (Still being advertised at a sale price on their web site here.)

We came home and played with floor patterns. Plank-style click flooring lets you create various patterns. Altho I am not a big fan of checks, I did want to do something interesting in the space. Strangely enough, we both agreed on red (called Van Gogh) and yellow (called Natural Corn). Steve used one of his computer programs to design the pattern and compute how many boxes of planks of which color we would need to do the space. (It's amazing how many ways you can design with this flooring, be sure to check out the gallery on their web site.)

I am happy to give credit where credit is due - my husband did this entire project in about 10 days without any help. That includes moving the piano all around the room, and also our near-ceiling high closets, with sliders. It was not an easy job. I've spent most of the last month sick so can barely recollect most of the project, except I do remember some saw noise from the garage and him banging the planks together.

He did one half of the room, than moved the furniture to the finished side and did the other half. The finished result is great - the floor has a great natural smell to it (a million times better than the smell that we had been living with), it looks neat, and we even moved the loveseat down there so when it gets too hot this summer we have someplace to escape to and read (since we have decided to be Earth-friendly and NOT buy an air conditioner).

Here are some photos from the project. Thank for doing such an amazing job, Steve! He was horrified to hear me declare this the most interesting room in the house and that the rest of the house looked really "blah beige carpet boring" now. Perish the thought!

Now if only the dog would learn that this is the room to have an accident if she needs to - not "the carpet". Unfortunately I discovered a little wet spot in our walk-in closet the other day! I've put a little throw rug down here now to see if that solves the problem (and it is easily launderable). We can't afford to redo all of the floors quite yet!