Home Improvement Today?

Have you thought about putting down Tile planks that have the wood look. I had some installed in my dining room and all the bedrooms and couldn't be happier. With having dogs I leaned toward this versus the laminate flooring which was in the house previously.

 

I feel like your toilet is installed too close to the front door.

On a serious note, that is a NICE door.

 

Would be OK if you live in a warm climate year round.

I have the wood look tile in my master bath and laundry. I like it a lot. But its very very cold. I wouldn’t lay it on a large area on the bottom floor of a slab home without floor heaters.

I like your creative tile transition there in the dining room.

 

Been rocking and rolling on getting our new floor installed. Going pretty well so far.

 

Is that the luxury vinyl plank?

Love the color.

 

Did you nail it to the concrete?

 

Thanks. I incorporated the transition in the door ways to the bedrooms also. It wouldn't have looked right if I had then but up two different style tiles.

 

Yep this is Smartcore Ultra in Savannah Oak. Thanks! Wife and I are very happy with the color as well.

Damn it I knew I was forgetting something

 

I've seen that approach taken in older homes we've remodeled with mixed results . Usually we find that moisture migrates up around the fasteners used to hold the plywood to the concrete . Here its code to put a 6mil vapour barrier under the slab so we typically glue to the concrete or use a floating floor product . In either case I would not use a natural wood floor over concrete and would opt for an engineered wood product because they are less moisture sensitive

Another approach fairly common here in an older home with no sub slab vapour barrier is to install DriCore over the slab and framing / flooring over that . Its underside acts as the vapour retarder and it is elevated off the concrete so there is an air space underneath to disipate water vapour and thermally break the flooring from the concrete

http://dricore.com/nw/index.php

 

That's what I'm doing to the kitchen/dining room/in front of the front door.

 

I'll have to look. I need to take full measurements of downstairs to see what the materials would cost.

 

Dricore is becoming more common here in the States

 

This is where we are at on our current job now that we are back at it after the holidays

After getting our outside perimeter drainage work done before we shut down prior to Christmas , we have temporary walls built inside to carry the floor joist system




New footings for the centre bearing line have been dug in at a lowered elevation so we can lower basement slab height




We poured footings today




On Monday we will remove the rest of the existing centre bearing beams and posts and cut joists to accept new flush beam at centre bearing line . A new built up beam will then be installed , new posts added to our newly poured footings and piers and then we will begin to remove existing concrete floor and dig to lower slab .

 

The guys are working fast but not sacrificing the quality. I think feeding them good food helps.

The flagstone for the main area is cut and fitted.



They also fitted the steps and cemented them in place.

 

Thoughts on what the best way to get this ready for paint? We were spackling it till we realized what we were using was putty not spackle and attributed that to why it wasn't sticking. Planning to get a large amount of spackle to put on, sand it down, then paint. If there's a better/easier way, please inform me!!

 

I’d tape and float it

 

Do you have an air compressor? If so the easiest and cheapest way would be to use a texture spray gun (about $20-30).




Get a box of pre-mixed joint compound ($15) and water it down. Test it on cardboard scrap to get the texture you want. It will have different holes and use air pressure to adjust.



Spray away. mask off what you don't want compound on.

 

What if we don't want texture?

 

Float it smooth

 

Guessing this is a viable method.