One Room Challenge: Week 4

Whew. My One Room Challenge is really creeeeeeeping along. If you’re thinking I’m making any semblance of good headway, please visit OneRoomChallenge to see the AMAZING things people have already accomplished in such a short time! The good news is that this week, we managed to knock out one project I’d been dreading and tackle another two high on my to-do list.

Let’s talk about the big one. The floors. We have a floor installer scheduled for this coming weekend and we knew we had to make some headway today since we don’t have much time at night/after work to make lots of noise before the kids go to bed. We’re trying not to overspend on this reno (plus we’re crazy people) so we decided to demo our existing tile floors ourselves. We’ve never done this kind of work before (details!) but figured we could likely figure it out as we went along. This first part of it actually wasn’t half bad (likely bc my husband did most of the work while I got the kids out of his hair).

Granted, we’ll likely need to make a few returns since we started the work this morning and quickly realized we’d bought several tools we imagined we’d need (INSANELY aggressive 48” pry bar, I’m looking at you) and not, as it turned out, the tools we actually would need (tiny hand chisel).

Need to do a little paring down of the art on this wall but the floors are tile-free!

Also- have any of y’all demo’ed a tile floor before?!? The tool it seems like we’re supposed to use is this tiny floor scraper thing in the photo above. But how on EARTH will it get all of this up!?

So much thinset!

I know that sometimes tile floor also features an aggressive mud bed. Fortunately, we don’t have that to contend with - our tiles were just glued down to the plywood. Will this make removing the thinset easier? Harder? Who knows?! (Not us!)

Right now, a wheelbarrow is parked in the middle of my kitchen.

In other news, I finally settled on hardware (from House of Antique Hardware) and ordered it. I opted for an unlacquered brass because I love LOVE LOVE the look of antiqued brass. And also because I couldn’t find reasonable pre-finished antiqued brass knobs that were an exact match to any of the pre-finished antiqued brass drawer pulls I liked. Even the slight difference in finish would drive me crazy. (Nuts- I know, but sometimes you just need to understand what your pain points are and roll with them!)

I’ve bought unlacquered brass pulls from this site in the past and the quality is great. I’ve also aged them using a brass ager (which is really easy and fast) - and I still have some left. Right now, the knobs are a bright and shiny brass (not quite the look I love but definitely a throwback to the 80’s kitchen I’m currently trying to de-80s!). I’m debating whether to speed the aging process along just a tad using my leftover brass ager or to let them do their thing on their own. Not sure where I’ll land. I bought cup pulls for the drawers as I couldn’t find pulls I absolutely loved (and I’m a sucker for those pulls). Hopefully will get them installed in the next day or two!

Kitchen knobs in unlacquered brass from House of Antique Hardware

I started painting the kitchen ceiling yesterday and am hoping to have it finished up by tomorrow. When we moved in five years ago, we had many of the rooms (and ceilings!) painted by professional painters. But we did the kitchen ourselves and skipped the ceiling. Because UGH. Painting ceilings. But since we’ve removed a light fixture and are moving and replacing another (with a new one from Circa Lighting that I can’t WAIT to share!), the ceilings need a touch up.

While we have a dumpster on hand, I’m also hoping to get our existing backsplash removed. However, we took a stab at it today (with a steak knife, from the looks of things)- and I think we may need to strategize a bit. There has to be a better way!?

Ummm WHAAT!?

Send help. Or, more practically- advice! xo.