Concrete? Really?

So I had a request to update you on my flooring... Don't laugh but I painted my subfloor concrete after ripping out my carpeting. After having seven puppies, two dogs, and two cats, our year and half old carpeting had seen it's day.

I thought that taking the carpet out was going to be the hard part. Boy was I wrong! That was the easy part! (I also didn't think that the garbage man would take it all... but he did!) We have linoleum in the foyer and the kitchen, so all we took out was the living room (15 X 25) so it really wasn't too much work. We left the linoleum where it was, and I'm glad about it now. After taking up the carpet and the carpet pad, and hauling it to the street, we realized that the tack strips that were laid to keep the carpet in place (along the edge of the walls) was nailed into the concrete.

Jared had to borrow a crowbar from my dad to get them up. After he had pulled all of the tack strips up, we had to concrete putty all of the holes from the nails that they used to lay the tack strips. Those two steps proved to be the hardest so far.

After puttying and sanding, we swept the floor, and then primed it with a latex primer. I wish I would have gotten pictures of each of the steps, but I didn't. The mistake that we made here, was that we used a white latex primer. For future reference if any of you ever consider painting your concrete... prime with a grey primer. OR, better yet, your local Lowe's store will tint your primer to the exact color of your paint (that goes for any type of paint and primer...even your walls!) which makes your coverage more even. We primed in white, so our first coat was very uneven, ultimately causing us to have to add two more coats afterwards. It's definitely cheaper to just prime it the right way to begin with.

After priming the floor, we painted it with a latex garage and porch paint. They had two different types at the store... they have a Latex Paint, and a Paint Epoxy. We chose to go with just the latex paint - because the paint guy told me that it would be more durable and strong (against dog nails, scratches, etc.). After three coats, the floor looks great. We chose a Chocolate brown color to match the paint that we used in the kitchen. All of our walls are a soft blue - white blue- color (called "windswept") except one wall in the kitchen which is chocolate brown. All of our trim is white so our house is very light and open. We thought it would be a great way to move our kitchen throughout the house. Not to mention, had we gone white or light, you would have seen EVERYTHING that fell on it. :) Hahaha, we had to think ahead.

After painting the floors the chocolate brown color, I am going to paint lines on the floor using a black to give it the effect of wood floors. I haven't begun this step yet, but I will make sure to update the next few steps. After I draw the lines on the floor, and everything is ready to go, we are going to go ahead and buy a clear epoxy (the other type of paint at the store!) to cover it. The floors ended up getting scratched as we moved the furniture around on them, so we decided that covering it with the clear epoxy would not only give it a good thick finish, but would look nicer as well.

I apologize for the picture quality, Jared has my camera in the car so I had to take these on my phone. Also, don't look at my messy kitchen... icky.

You can't tell in these pictures, but where the linoleum meets the concrete there is a tack strip that we can't take up. It's a metal tack strip instead of cardboard, and it holds the linoleum in place. We are getting rubber stripping to cover that area. Eventually when we re-carpet, it will come out and be replaced, but for the time being a rubber stripping will work just fine.

Once I get the lines painted, and the epoxy poured... and all of our furniture back in place I will be sure to take more pictures and re-update everyone. To be honest, this has been a lot of fun! Making (somewhat crazy) choices to designing your house can be a lot of fun, a little exciting, and sometimes scary... but it always works out for the best.

Oh, and one last word to the wise, we didn't realize how much it would effect the heating and cooling of our house, but it really does! The thermostat is downstairs above the concrete, so when I turn the Air Conditioning on, the downstairs gets cool quickly and the upstairs stays warm because the concrete cools off so quickly. I have a feeling it will be the opposite in the winter, cool concrete so the heater will work extra hard. We'll see I guess!

--I added a link to a website oh how to paint your concrete floors; if you click on the title of this post. If you are ever interested in this project for your own home, I would definitely suggest doing a little more research than we did!--

Last 3 weeks...

Hello Again! Days pass by, between entries... I know I should be better. However, I do have some good stuff for you today. Wait until you see what has been going on these last three weeks...

First of all, I got into a car accident. Yep, that's right, I got rear-ended by a dump truck. Oh yeah. I was okay, thankfully. But the Honda didn't make it. I have pictures around here somewhere. The whole back end was smashed up really bad, and the insurance company just decided to total it. It was sad to let Mr. Putters go. --- It was such a good car, it was 16 years old, and the only thing that was broken was the knob for the AC... That's pretty good if you ask me. I guess now we are going to be getting another Honda since they seem to be great. I'm looking at the CR-V... they are great to take clients around in, but we will see.

My mom and I are are finally working together!! After a year of working a part, she finally came and joined me at Keller Williams Realty. YAY!!! We are working out the kinks now, and trying to figure out how to merge our businesses. This is going to be a good first year, our goal GCI is $1 Million. Pray for us!

Here's for the really good stuff...

Jared and I went with Grandma and Tyler to French Lick, Indiana. It was so much fun! We gambled, ate ice cream, spent one day drinving around in no-wheres-ville, Indaiana, and so much else! Grandma was the only one who came out on top, the rest of us all lost our money... Boo! This is a sideways picture of G-ma counting her money... she turned $5 into $85 in just a few minutes! That's what we call a great gambler.

How about a little history on French Lick, Indiana. While we were there we were told that in the early 1900's people used to come to French Lick to bathe in the Living Water. They believe that the water there would heal. People would come to bathe in the Wishing Well, and they believed that they would be healed from any infirmity that they had. People still believe in the healing powers. (But boy does the well water stink!!!!) This is a picture of the well...

Jared at the well! While we were there, we could barely breathe because it smelled so bad. lol We thought that this would be a good opportunity for a picture... hey and we got the stinky well in the background! We had so much fun on this trip. We aren't big gamblers but we sure did enjoy ourselves.

This is the last picture of the trip, it's of the beautiful garden, it was a water garden. It truly was beautiful and calming. It was such a great three day vacation.

I also in the last few weeks, have made a lot of adjustments to the house. This is the most exciting to me since our home is one of the most important places. We have painted the kitchen a dark chocolate brown, which looks good since the rest of the house is a light blue... it looks really crisp and clean. Since the kitchen and living room bleed together with only a half wall seperarating them, the blue and brown looks really good.

See? Doesn't it look nice?? Jared and I like it! =)

I've only made one other small adjustment to the house, and that's in the front yard. Jared found these wonderful rocks, so we used them to line the flower bed. We think they look nice, especially when all of the flowers are blooming.

The rocks, that line the flower bed, he pulled out of a big construction area with my dad. They got all dirty for my garden! (And the firewood they were getting... )

This is pretty much all I have for today.... But I hopefully will have more information as the days go on. I'll keep you updated on the car situation, and on how working with my mom will be. I'm sure it will be another fun post, the next time I get online. We will see! Have a wonderful day!