Random Thoughts [Home Improvement/Decorating Edition]

NecroJoe

NecroJoe

Stool Chef
Joined
Apr 12, 2005
Messages
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Location
San Francisco area, CA, USA
Car(s)
2015 Mazda 3 S GT, 2015 VW e-Golf
It seems like there are at least a few people here who own homes, and a bunch that probably decorate their apartments/condos/homes and stuff. There's a lot involved, and I thought it might be worthwhile to have a place to offer and ask for advice, complain, or show off their homes.

I'll start:
What the hell should we do to improve the look of the front of this house? We will be replacing the roof. We know that for sure. Right now, it's so flat we had to give up the warranty on the skylight, so ideally we'd like to increase the pitch. And as long as we're going that far, we thought there must me some way to use a new roofline to improve character of the house. Let's face it...we look like the neighbor's garage.

So far, here have been my thoughts on decor, but have no idea what to do with the roof.

Original:
Capture-21.jpg


My thoughts:
Untitled-4-7.jpg
 
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I have nothing to suggest about the roof, but I like your rendering. The stone siding and tan paint gives it a much classier look over the solid baby blue and white. Of course, I may be biased.

My project has been getting my backyard landscaped. A couple months ago we put down 10 tons of sante fe red decorative rock, to finally cover up all the bare dirt, since this was a new build. Shoveling 10 tons of rock into a wheel barrow and rolling it around the house to the backyard with only my dad visiting to help was fun. But we had plenty of beer at least, it was a good time. Here is the result of our 1.5 days of labor:



The rock was still covered in a fine layer of pinkish dust, but we've had a couple good rain falls to wash most of it away. When clean, it looks like this:



And just today I went and placed an order for 2 tons of rosa flagstone, which will be next weekends project, building a patio area.

 
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^ I like the look of those flagstones for a patio; but you definitely need to put some turf down. The stone is better than soil, maybe, but it makes your house look almost fake; just 'dropped off temporarily'.

One thing I cannot wait for is owning my own house so I can do whatever I want to it :p Shame the average age of buying your first house in the UK is 35-40.
 
He lives in the desert. It is hard to maintain a lawn with so little rain.
 
My unit is art deco and I want to reinstate some of the original elements (or look), anyone got some good examples of art deco kitchens (smallish) was thinking about getting a Belling stove.
 
Speedtouch said:
^ I like the look of those flagstones for a patio; but you definitely need to put some turf down. The stone is better than soil, maybe, but it makes your house look almost fake; just 'dropped off temporarily'.
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GRtak said:
He lives in the desert. It is hard to maintain a lawn with so little rain.
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What he said.

I don't plan on planting anything in my backyard that will need irrigation. I only want desert plants and cactus that belong in this sort of environment. Hopefully once I start planting stuff and getting boulders and other decorations, my house won't look so "fake". Which considering it's a tract home, isn't far from the truth.
 
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The trick with putting the stone on the front of the house: if you notice, there's a pathway on the right side of the house. That is our only path to bring our trash cans to the curb. It's only about 5-6" wider than our trash cans. Adding anything that might wrap around that front corner is just BOUND to get knocked off within a week...and we don't want to run it down that side of the house, the entire length because that would be silly on that side of the house, but also would narrow the path on the side. When I re-built part of the fence last summer, I already "stole" about an inch and a half by nudging the fence over a little bit. :p



TomCat: That flagstone will be awesome, me thinks!



I mentioned in another thread that I gave my girlfriend an ultimatum: "We have a huge hole in the kitchen ceiling, from a leaky skylight (which had since been repaired), that you don't want to close off so that we can more easily add/change lighting, for over a year. If you select a pendant light for the kitchen by such-and-such a date, I'll buy it."

So while there's perfectly acceptable (to me) options at Lowes and Home Depot for <$80, and ones for $100-200 that I would consider "nice" on Amazon & Wayfair...guess what she falls in love with...

Capture-22.jpg


$688.30 later...

*sigh*

Well, she IS a commercial architectural interior designer, so I knew I wasn't getting off cheap.
 
My room has been re-decorated! :D

from:

oldroom2.jpg

oldroom1.jpg


To:

newroom2.jpg

newroom1.jpg


Interesting, right behind my new integrated PC desk there is a fully intact Victorian cast iron fireplace. Sadly Health and Safety say you can't re-instated fireplaces in bedrooms so that is where it is staying.

Meanwhile downstairs...

All the doors looked like this, and sounded hollow when you knocked on them. Something had to be done...
door1.jpg


"Something", involved a screwdriver and some prying and revealed the original 6 panel doors under the oh-so-fashionable 1980s ply-board. (The same 1980s that gave us the staggeringly gorgeous wallpaper.)
door2.jpg


Some have ancient varnish on them, others were painted. The plan is to strip them all back down to wood and see what is salvageable.
door3.jpg

door4.jpg
 
Capt, that's awesome to find such nice doors under the cap.
 
NecroJoe said:
My thoughts:
Untitled-4-7.jpg
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I'd go with some cedar cladding.

Also needs moar Viper.

Seriously though breaking up the lines like that makes it look a lot more like a home rather than an outbuilding and cedar is great because it weathers to a really nice silver-grey colour.

images
 
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Update, because I am gay one of those people who is slightly obsessed with interior decoration...

We had some walls that looked like this, straight out of a 1980s hotel where you'd be murdered.
P6053211_800x600.jpg


Thankfully, it is now gone. Personally I find the colour choice bland, uninspired and boring but my parents are obsessed with "neutral colours" and my idea of bottom being deep red and the top being cream was shot down.
P6053212_800x600.jpg


Then one day, I came home from work to find this had occurred...
P6053213_800x600-1.jpg


The bright blue hallway carpet had been pulled up to reveal some repulsive red/grey 1960s tile flooring which was (sort of) ripped up to find floorboards. I pointed out that tiles of that age probably contained asbestos and hoped nobody had been breathing too heavily. Seemingly the boards near the front door have been replaced, probably as 100+ years of water getting in rotted them away.

This is the last reminder of the original varnished floor. Personally I'd rip out the new boards, replace them with boards the same width as the originals, sand everything back and re-varnish everything... Oh, and replace those bland skirting boards with something more ornate and varnish that too.
P6053216_800x600.jpg
 
captain_70s said:
Personally I find the colour choice bland, uninspired and boring but my parents are obsessed with "neutral colours" and my idea of bottom being deep red and the top being cream was shot down.
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Your color scheme would still look like a hotel, but now it just looks like a hospital. :dunno:
 
captain_70s said:
The bright blue hallway carpet had been pulled up to reveal some repulsive red/grey 1960s tile flooring which was (sort of) ripped up to find floorboards. I pointed out that tiles of that age probably contained asbestos and hoped nobody had been breathing too heavily. Seemingly the boards near the front door have been replaced, probably as 100+ years of water getting in rotted them away.
Click to expand...


I used to work in the asbestos removal industry. The tile may contain asbestos, but with tile it is usually less then 2% of the tile. And unless the tiles were breaking up into little bits, it is hard to get friable material into the air.
 
NecroJoe said:
I mentioned in another thread that I gave my girlfriend an ultimatum: "We have a huge hole in the kitchen ceiling, from a leaky skylight (which had since been repaired), that you don't want to close off so that we can more easily add/change lighting, for over a year. If you select a pendant light for the kitchen by such-and-such a date, I'll buy it."

So while there's perfectly acceptable (to me) options at Lowes and Home Depot for <$80, and ones for $100-200 that I would consider "nice" on Amazon & Wayfair...guess what she falls in love with...

Capture-22.jpg


$688.30 later...

*sigh*

Well, she IS a commercial architectural interior designer, so I knew I wasn't getting off cheap.
Click to expand...

It is pretty funky though. I wouldn't say no to that light if someone else was paying...

I have this chandelier in a box under my desk, ready for when I'm an old woman and eventually inherit a house of my own.
8161c8n_20.jpeg
 
I got my furniture in early March?, IIRC.

I'm still not unpacked.

I wish I had the money to refinish my wood floors. That apartments like mine that have had the floors refreshed look a billion times better. Oh well--I checked out some of the buildings next to mine, and the cheapest apartment like mine with a similar layout/size seems to be $400/mo. more. I got this place for a song and a dance, so rough floors = completely overlookable, heh.
 
All doing ours has cost is the rental of a floor sander, because the boards were a mess, and the cost of the stain. Here is how the hall looks now:

P6113338_800x600.jpg

P6113340_800x600.jpg


In the end the pale pine replacement boards were left down as matching oak floor boards would cost a fortune. I dread to think how much the original boards would cost now-a-days, most of them are the length of the room. :blink:
 
Figured this was sort of relevant. Home improvement, outdoors edition.

Sanding back, repainting and replacing all the wood on a 30 year old bench fills in an afternoon nicely. Shame I seemed to be blind when I painted the gold... Don't worry about the wood, treating it tomorrow, started to rain today so I've put it in doors.

562850_3950091426299_1753818052_n.jpg
 
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