Normandy Park Restoration

I've been planning on this for a while, and finally got a wild hair to start tackling it.  Here is an image of what the interior doors look like when I moved in: Some are full of scratches, and there is a poorly patched hole in the one on the bathroom.  I'd always planned to update them.  Here is a shot of the revised office door: I've painted the door jam, added brushed metal hardware, and painted the door.  Initially I was playing with the idea of doing a grey color, just very slightly darker than the trim white, but when I did that, it just ended up looking like someone didn't match the white color right.  So, I decided to take a shot and do it using Sherwin Williams "Reflecting Pool" blue.  In this picture I need to put one more coat on the side facing the camera, then give it a few days to dry properly before closing the door.  Also, the long-term plan is to put proper trim around the doors, but until I do something about the carpet, there i...

I've been wanting to clean up the office upstairs for a while.  I also wanted to play with the Ikea butcher block countertop to create a floating desk.  Here is what the office looked like before: And now: It has one support leg, but the wall sides are floating. I also added some cable management under the desk, and a 5' power strip is mounted under there as well.  It's nice because you don't see any cables, but it still provides access to the back wall outlets.  The old desk had a back cover that made getting behind it a pain. I may look at routing the wires to the wall-mount TV/Monitor inside the wall, but it's not a high priority right now.  I will look into doing some shelving on the wall soon, as I've lost some usable space with this setup.  This will also be a good chance to see how the countertop holds up to usage.  The desk itself is 8' long, which provides plenty of space.

Old door New door I reused some of the original trim as temporary trim.  I will need to sand, clean and paint the door.  I'd considered staining it, but the house could use a vibrant door.  It will be this color: Which comes out just a little brighter in sunlight.  I will test by painting the back door first, just to make sure it's correct before tackling this door.  Here is a shot from the inside, looks dark but it actually lets even more light into the house: The glass on either side of the door will be replaced with matching reed glass as well.  I'd originally planned to use a simple, solid door, but it turns out just a plain door was about $300 more than this one, and this one looks better.

Here is the tentative layout for the Laundry Room: There will also be butcher block open shelves between the cabinets, over the sink.

Was ordering some interior doors at a local shop and inquired into the cost of replacing my front door.  I was surprised to learn that just a simple, solid core door with no features was going to run $800+.  Then I ran into this door: Which it turns out is less expensive than a solid door.  I'll pick it up and the remaining interior doors next weekend.  This version of it is in walnut.  The one I'll get will be unstained fir.  I might experiment with some stains, and if those don't pan out I'll just paint the door.  I may end up just painting it to give the exterior of the house a little pop of color.

I finished shimming and leveling the floor, then realized that in order to properly install the subfloor, I'd have to pull up the floor in the kitchen.  This is so that I can install a subfloor panel in front of the refrigerator, which is required to stagger the pieces.  So, I decided to go ahead and cut the South section of the cabinets out and move them.  I'd been meaning to do this for a while, but there wasn't much point until it was needed. Here is the before picture: During: And after.  Here I've put an extra piece of drywall over the span so that I can visualize the size and utility better: The pictures don't quite convey the scale fully, it's a pretty big kitchen.  Also, after looking at the space available, it looks like I'll have room on the South side (at the rear door) to do a 2nd bar area with stools.  In effect making a breakfast bar. Now I'll need to tear up the rest of the visible subfloor and install the new 3/4...