Our Home Becomes Wheelchair Adaptable!

Originally published May 21, 2013

Apple Green and Stone

After finally having our new bathroom finished and our home restored to some semblance of normalcy (tidy and cleanish) we are (let me rephrase that "I am") back living in a construction zone.

I will admit that I am happy about finally getting some of the work done that I've been nagging about for the last 3 years, but when one has work done, one lives in disarray (considering that my whole life seems to be in dissaray at the moment, I suppose I should be getting used to it).

Does anyone else find it odd that my husband finally decides to get the house fixed up while he's holed up in the hospital and doesn't have to live with the work that's being done, or the resulting mess? I do appreciate that he's forking out the money to pay for it - I honestly can't complain about that, and appreciate that he's been pretty agreeable about the colour choices we discussed. It's just kind of frustrating to be one who always ends up moving the stuff, doing the cleaning, putting the house back in order ... when you're alone. (If I'm going to be totally honest, given what he's had to live with the last little while he'd probably be happy if he could be home to help.)

Bedroom Storing Stuff From Livingroom

The initial idea was to get the painting on the main floor done, and then replace the vinyl in the kitchen/hallway/ entrance with the same tiles we used in the bathroom, so the house has a continuous-flow in the main areas. But my husband decided (without letting me know, which is par for the course) we might as well go ahead and have the livingroom floor replaced and buy enough of the same wood flooring to do the bedroom. The bedroom won't be done right now, but at least when do get around to doing it, the floors will flow well (the bedroom is directly off the livingroom).

Cupboard colour is not a good match.

Now we're talking about maybe replacing the cupboard doors in the kitchen (future job), and the counters and adding a backsplash (the second photo shows the darker cabinet whose colour I'd like to match). One of our friends and neighbours across the road invited me in to see their kitchen reno, which they pretty much did themselves. They didn't remove the cupboards, but replaced the cupboard doors and the end facings and it looks terrific. We'd looked into "refacing" cupboards in our old house, but back then, the cost was excessive because our cupboard doors weren't a standard size.

Painting is done!

Our neighbour got theirs done at Home Depot - you measure your doors and take the measurements and they supply you with the doors and facings. I'm leaning towards just painting out the facings though, because we only have a couple, and the facings seem quite thick. The colour choice we're planning to opt for in cupboards is one that will come as close to matching our dish-dresser as possible, so getting a paint mix to match that colour isn't going to be hard - I've matched that colour in paint before and it looks pretty decent. I guess we'll see when the time comes, but the kitchen reno should cost a lot less because even I can screw on cupboard doors myself.

I'm leaning towards replacing the counter top with 12" tiles (done that before), but not regular ceramic. I'm looking at granite tiles (that's because we can't afford a solid granite counter, and this house isn't worth spending that much on a countertop anyways), and the tiles have two pros - they cost less than a full granite build, and are thinner, so the weight on the cupboards is less. Not everyone will like that look but I plan to have the tiles very close together with very narrow grout lines. I found the sink I want at home depot - it's a single basin (yeah, really ...) but very large and comes in black. The drawback is the cost $369.00 (for a sink no less). I did look at a few of the metal sinks, but even some of them are in that same price range, so when the kitchen is being done, I'm probably going to push for the black one.

Anyway, tonight we go floor shopping for the livingroom floor (we already have the tile floor). I checked Home Depot and found two I liked (okay, well actually I found half a dozen I liked, but we do have a budget to stick to). At least, I found 2 laminate floors that don't look like laminate wood, and fit within our budget and are 12mm in thickness. I'll show those to Dan the contractor-man tonight. I also found some real hardwood on sale for $2.99 a square foot - less than some of the laminates. It's dark (which is what we want), but in the store seems to have a black undertone, so I'm not sure how that would look with our furniture, or how much extra work it would take to lay it down. And I'm not sure the finishes are as durable as that found on laminates designed to withstand a certain amount of abuse.

One of the laminate floors I fell in love with resembles a polished cork floor - it's beautiful and I'd choose that in a second, but it's more expensive than the two I marked as possible candidates, and I'm not sure how the man would feel about it. He has to live in the house too, so he has to have some say in what goes down on the floor ... after all, he's springing for the cost.

Anyway, in a week or two the mess will be gone and the house will look new and fresh, and not long after that ... my hubby should be heading home (fingers crossed, and prayers in progress on that).