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About
We bought our house before the housing burst in 2008, we over paid for a fixer upper house in Fremont. We could hire people to do some of the remodeling, but we decided to do them ourselves...more About...
The faucets are leaking and the vanities look old, it's time to give them new faces since we do spend lots of time in the bathroom. We want to replace the Formica with granite top and rectangular sinks. We can buy pre-fab ones for very good price, but the stones we want they don't make. We have to get a slab, cut them ourselves to accommodate the rectangular sinks or have them customized for about an arm or a leg. We want to keep our body intact so we decide to do it ourselves.
Old Master Bathroom
We would like to turn this into this
other angle
Well, without any experience in any of the these work, we read and took a chance to do it ourselves without hurting ourselves and do a good job... Since I'm a person who likes to try new things and passionate about my stuff, what can go wrong? Never hurt to try if you do your homework and believe in yourself.
First we need to go shopping for a great granite pattern, the more patterns and colors it has, the higher the price. Since out vanity top is extremely long 9', we could get 9' slab, but...
Well, it's that time again to improve our Pink House. This time it's the gas cook top and the hood for our kitchen. We had to do some research on the hood and the 57500 total BTUs of the cook top (the higher BTU rated the hotter the burner). Bosch NGM5654UC is an older model from the new 800 series, we didn't want to spend $300.00 more for the stainless steel knobs on the 800 series. All the BTUs are pretty much the same. The hood is rated by the CFM (CubicFeetperMinute), the average with one fan is about 250CFM, the Zephyr Hurrican series is rated 695CFM.
Shopping for these are also fun. On the internet, we found some great prices with free shipping, but beware, some websites claim to have free shipping but if we read carefully, they have diesel surcharge of $30.00 for transportation . We got our from AppliancesConnection and they're great, it took exactly 10 days from the day we ordered to the day it got in our door and true free-shipping and other fees $859.00. The hood we got from a local Western Appliances for $489.
Preparation... This is the most important part of staining cabinets. It's tedious, tiresome, that's why the pros charge lots of money to do it. If the glossy old stain is still there, the new stain won't stick and if it's not done evenly, the job will be very spotty because some parts will stick and some won't. We use jasco, and brush to apply, and remove with plastic scrapers, small one for small areas. We bought sander all types and steel wool pads with various sizes at home depot or lowes. After removed the old stain with Jasco, use steel wool pads to remove all the residue and make a very smooth surface before staining. Jasco is really bad for the skin, make sure you wear gloves to do the job, it it gets to your skin, wash with water right away, it's extremely itchy and bad burn feels.
Our house was built in 1979/1981 with an old brick fireplace that both of us didn't like. We decided to give it a face lift with natural slate tiles from Lowes/Homedepot. The total cost is about $150 & 3 days of work. The original brick fireplace.
We painted the wall with warm color. Get multi-color natural slate tiles and the some smooth tiles for the bottom. I bought a 7" wet tile cutter from Harbor Tools Freight for $59.00 when it's on sale since we will use it a lot around the house. Home Depot and Lowes would charge 1 cut for 25 cents. It's amazing to have one. We started with the bottom bricks first, cut & lay out the tiles to make sure they fit nicely.
We use the already mixed mortar in a big bucket at Home Depot ($2 and 1/4 trowel for tiles 8-12" ($4). Spread mortar evenly at 45 degree angle across the back of the tile and place them over the bricks, twist a little to place the tile well to the brick surface. Put spacer in between tiles to make them fit to the size of the brick area. I use 1/4" and less since...
We bought our house just before the market crash in April of 2007 when the housing market started to slow down and the credit tightened. The house was built in 1979 by Ponderosa Home Builder. We love the high ceiling with the open living & dining rooms. The stairs way is wide and straight. It's tri-level. The house was a fixer upper with a premium price tag due to highly rated elementary schools and nice neighborhood. This is the last area that still have big grown trees on the sidewalks and houses that have some types of architecture designs compared to all new development boxes these days.
Category: Our House | Posted by: ltooz | Viewed: 359 times |
Never hurt to try if you do your homework and believe in yourself.
and 1/4 trowel for tiles 8-12" ($4). Spread mortar evenly at 45 degree angle across the back of the tile and place them over the bricks, twist a little to place the tile well to the brick surface. Put spacer in between tiles to make them fit to the size of the brick area. I use 1/4" and less since...
