Floor Plans

When ever I read a magazine article about a remodel I like to see the before and after floor plan. So, I thought I'd post the before and after plans in case anyone else who might read this is like me. The plan above is as it was when we bought the house. There was a double door closing the entry off from the living room. The dining room was completely open to this wierd entry and there was a pass through from the dining room flanked by collumns on the angled wall. I removed the columnns and closed the wall between the entry. I also removed the wall with the strange double doors opening the entry to the living room rather than the dining room.




The other major change to the plan was to close off the hallway. This added a measure of privacy to the rooms that open off the hall so that you can't sit in the living room and look directly into the bathroom and bedroom. I also deleted the hideous wet bar. Yuck! The hall now separated from the living room has a lower ceiling which created the really cool alcove above the hall where I have installed cove lighting and gives us a place to display our little Christmas trees.



The interesting thing about the demolition was the discovery of the original floor plan(above) which was very different than either of the configurations shown here. After removing the tile the original chalk snap lines could be seen. In the original plan the hallway was not open to the living room. The current closet was a short hall that connected to the main hallway with a coat closet on one side. I think I like the way it is now better.

One of my current favorite programs on HGTV is a show called "Holmes on Homes". It is a Canadian program as many of the best ones are. Holmes is a contractor that fixes renovations and new construction that was done incorrectly or that have gone bad. It is very interesting to see some of the disasters created by licensed contractors and builders that have to be completely torn out and re-done. Renovating this house I can really relate to that.

The Dining Room

These two photographs are of the walls in our dining room after I sanded the texture with a belt, and random orbital sander. After I finished sanding it had kind of a cool distressed look. If not for the peeling part I might have left it that way.
The next two pictures are of the same walls after I skim coated them with drywall compound.



I decided it was time to get moving on another room remodel. The dining room was next on the list. I walled in the opening to the entry a couple of years ago and had it professionally textured when I had the living room done with a nice knock down texture. The other three walls were still the same wierd texture that the rest of the house has. I am not sure if it was applied with a trowel or a roller, but I could not match it. I successfully skim coated and re-textured three walls in the spare bedroom recently and it turned out really well. I decided I would do the same in the dining room. I hand applied the skim coat in the bedroom and it was a lot of work. I thought I would try a different method in the dining room. I used the texture sprayer and sprayed on a thinned coat of drywall compound then troweled it smooth while it was still wet. It worked pretty well and went a lot faster than the trowel on method.

I sanded down the highest spots on the wall before applying the mud and I think it helped a lot. Now all I have to do is sand it all smooth, re-texture and paint.

The floor in this room is not level. There is a low spot in the corner nearest the front door and a high spot just in front of the opposite wall near the door to the kitchen. The difference in the two is 3/4 of an inch! I had the same problem in the entry and tried everything I could think of to level it out. I rented a large floor grinder, which was heavy and very hard to control and did very little to take down the high spot. Then I found a diamond grinding wheel that fit my 4.5 inch grinder and it worked a lot better. It made a lot of dust though. To finish the job I tried the self leveling underlayment. I finally did get the floor level enough to lay the tile.

I used the grinder on the hump in the dining room with moderate success. Although I burned out the motor on the grinder. Oh well, lesson learned; don't use a 6" wheel on a 4.5" motor. I think I will fill in some of the lowest spots and let it go. Carpeting will hide the rest.