Bothell House Projects

Photo Journal

Living Room

The timing of the project was fueled by the pee factor, but also by a particularly frustrating board meeting after which I either needed to drink heavily, blow something up, or tear out the carpets... I opted for a combination of A and B.... most gratifying. 

The next morning however I could not help but notice that the hardwood floors had aged to a bright orange color that clashed with, well, everything.   The only exceptions were the spots of the floor that had become badly urine stained.  Ironically, these spots had turned a lovely light ebony color.... I briefly considered collecting Sierra's accidents and spreading pee all over the floor in hopes of achieving that nice color everywhere; in the end however, my desire to retain my housemate (the landscaper) overrode the pee project. 

After some research I arrived at the conclusion that having even one room's hardwood floor sanded down and re-finished properly was prohibitavely expensive (especially considering the pee factor). I eventually found a company that provided a cheaper quick fix that essentially scuffed up the finish on the floor enough to make a new coat of finish stick.  They were able to color the new finish enough to change the impact of the orange floors to something closer to neutral... closer being the operative word....there are no less than 15 different tones in the floor depending on the spot, the angle and type of light, etc....

So, at this point the room is completely empty and I had always wanted to do something about those horribly boring white walls, and that terrible fake wood baseboard, and while I was at it, frame the windows and doors.... and the mantle / accent wall certainly could not continue to be mauve now that the pink carpets were gone.... well, as you can imagine, one thing let do another and it turned into a major month long project, complete with painting all my mismatched wooden furniture black (thank you Shannon at Lowe's!).  My friend Stacey who is good with colors came over and helped me pick out wall, trim and accent colors.  We went with a funky taupe because it was the only color that matched the weird floor.  From there I had to decided weather to go with white trim (which we could do cheaply with MDF) or with real wood trim and try to find a color that did not clash with the floor and weird wall color.  MDF was the clear winner in the neutrality, ease of use, and price.  So, of course, I went with the real wood.  Stacey came up with the idea of staining the wood ebony and painting the door and mantle black.  Another problem that evolved was the slate that I uncovered by removing the hideous tiles (and even more stunning linoleum underneath) from in front of the fireplace.  The slate was great except it was turquoise colored....  That ended up having a happy ending after I accidentaly spilled the ebony wood stain on it at 3am and was unable to get it to come off.... Turns out wood stain works just fine on slate, and so I was able to turn that turquoise disaster into very spiffy looking black slate in no time....  since it was 3 am I also accidentaly got some stain on the bricks around the fireplace and was likewise unable to remove it.... so the bricks went ebony as well.  It ended up being a lovely way to tie the brick red into the rest of the room....

The trim ended up being a huge project.  I ended up becoming very proficient with the chop saw, but the hours and hours I spent bent over sanding, staining, and putting polyurithane coats on it (compounded by the hours painting everything black) ended up actually herniating a disc in my back (bummer). 

After the walls and trim were finally done, the next problem was that Sierra was too old to deal with getting up and down off of a slippery hardwood floor, so we had to find her an area rug.   10 rug purchases and returns later, Mom suggested I look on Craig's list.  There it was, first one listed, and it had just been listed 15 minutes before I checked.... $50  perfect solution...

A ridiculous cascade of a project, but I am really pleased with the final outcome....

I want my own show on the home garden network!