Flooring Install - Finshed in Venitia - Part Three

Well to finish the whole house, we needed one more thing, new flooring. The fun with this one is the flooring runs around the kitchen, through the front hall, entryway, powder room and closets. Yahoo! Well as you can see we did it, now we'll show you how.

The old flooring had welcome mats melted onto it by the sun and was showing wear.

We used Allure resilient vinyl tile from TrafficMASTER. The pattern we chose was "Ashlar" to keep with the warm tones in the house. It comes in 1 foot by 3 foot planks.

This flooring goes right over your old stuff if you have a solid floor. We decided to trim the baseboards and slip our pieces under rather than removing all the trim.

The Fein can get any interior corners the saw can't reach.

We recommend you start in a solid corner. We didn't have that luxury. Our first piece had a vent and a doorway. We also decided to alternate the tiles so the seams were offset.

Once the initial cuts are made the flooring goes in rather quickly. Be sure to tuck your corners and edges in nice and tight.

You can use a utility knife to cut. Make sure you have a good hard surface and a nice straight edge to work with.

All the fun spots are back behind stoves refrigerators and into closets

The main floor went on quite nicely

Working around stoves and refrigerators can be quite challenging when there's no place to put them. We moved ours into the corner in front of the closet. We then installed the flooring up behind it and  rolled the refrigerator back onto the new floor.

Next came the final thin row along the edge of the wall to the basement door way, into the front hall and closet

Fun times cutting thin little pieces. be careful not to bend or flex thin pieces, it can break off.

But then you get to install nice full pieces and keep the floor rolling

Once we got past the closet we had the powder room to contend with. The toilet was removed in the flooring placed through the bathroom.

The worst piece was in the entryway at the bottom of the stairwell, as you can see.

But something that trivial didn't stop us!

Then it was fitting the final pieces in along the entry and the front door.

There you have it! A beautiful entryway with the tack strips replaced and the heater vent back in place. 

The hall with the powder room and the closet all finished. 

And the kitchen in all its glory.

We use a wood threshold to match the flooring in the family room to separate it from the kitchen. 

Here's a few parting shots. 

Enjoy

Retouching For Your Woodwork

Being a painter we see lots of things that are done wrong. In this example will be looking at a really horrible paint job done in the past. 

Some of the paint is oil based and all of the paint is dripped onto beautiful woodwork. So how do you get it off or fix it. If you have the time stripping it off is the best way to go about it. However if you don't have a lot of time or money we have a quick solution for you, retouching. 

You can pick up sample colors of paint at any home improvement store. What you want is a mid tone brown and a dark brown similar to the woodwork you have. You can also use liquid acrylics in small amounts. Also pick up a few foam brushes or small touch up brushes.

Here we can see lots of big white drips. We start with the foam brush in the mid-tone and cover all the white.

The mid-tone will help hide all the light areas, then use your darker brown to put the wood grain pattern back in to the area you are retouching. 

It  doesn't have to be perfect, the eye will naturally blend it together as you look over a room.

Depending on the type of wood you have you may want to pick up a brown with more red in it or more towards the neutral.

Even old roller marks can quickly fade away.

In this area they went pretty crazy with the white paint On such great old woodwork it makes me want to cry.

But after some quick retouching in a very short time we have it looking good.

We'll leave you with one last window pane. Let us know if you have any questions regarding this or any painting project!

Enjoy

Windows, Doors and Dogs

Yes it is the busy season. Sorry for not having the time to post things but here's a few of the jobs we've been doing.

These are a few of the many doors we are painting over in Upper St. Clair. High gloss ivory on all the trim! Also painted a really groovy color combination in this bedroom and bathroom area.

Next was a large picture window that had wear and tear plus condensation damage.

We taped off the area sealed it with plastic to keep their house free of dust.

And then sanded it all down.

A fresh coat of stain and new spar urethane brought it back to a like new condition.

Lastly was a kitchen remodel we helped do the painting on. Yes its pink.

Had some trouble as you can see here. Somebody was in our paint tray!

We found the culprit. Many more things going on and many more jobs to post. Now I just need to find the time.

Enjoy

Decks, Porches, Posts and Railings. Let The Good Times Roll!

Still playing catch up. Did this one back on May and just getting it up now.

As you can see the deck had multiple layers and was peeling a good bit.

The railings were already removed and we got right to sanding off the old layers with an industrial strength drum sander.

The wood under all the old paint and stain was solid so no repairs were needed and the new stain went on smoothly.

Once all was removed a nice coat of Benjamin Moore Arborcoat Solid Stain was applied.

Porch and posts all painted....

And here we have the new railings in place and everything ready for a relaxing summer.

Let us know if we can help you relax this summer!

Enjoy