AugustUpdate

Adding Finishing Touches

With the staining and almost all the exterior trim finished it was time to move inside again. Here you see the
"Southwest" style trim we added to the stairs. This trim was planned from the beginning and all the risers were
cut at a 45 degree mitre when they were installed so the end trim that you see here would fit properly.

Another trim feature that was added are these little hardwood buttons. When covering the screw holes on
the railings you have several choices. A simple section of dowel can be used and frankly is used in most
cases but we felt the addition of a raised button style worked better for us.

Another finishing touch on the stairs was to fill the bolt holes that hold the main baluster supports in
place. Here we did use a section of hardwood dowel.

With the stair trim complete we can now install our finished flooring. When selecting flooring several
things need to be taken into consideration. Things like up keep, ease of installation, warranties, and cost
all need to be evaluated before an educated decision can be made. In our case, because we built this
house ourselves (during our monsoon season) the sub floor was soaked by rain several times during
construction. Even though it was protected with a water seal product that won't keep it from swelling and
drying out when drenched with water several times before the roof was on. This swelling effected the
flatness of the floor slightly and had to be taken into consideration when deciding on a flooring material.

The fix for minor fluctuations in the floor would be to cover it with a thin layer of plywood or a concrete
leveling product. We decided that either choice would be a bit too much work and expense so we limited
our flooring choices to materials that could be installed on a floor that wasn't completely flat. This pretty
much eliminated laminate flooring.

Our choices came down to 3/4" hardwood, carpet, or a vinyl product of some kind that would mold itself to
the floor's contour. We chose a new vinyl system from a company called Konecto.

Konecto makes quality commercial grade wood style vinyl flooring which is only sold at flooring specialty
stores. They also make a much cheaper variety under contract to Home Depot so please don't confuse the
two systems. The Home Depot stuff is NOT commercially rated and is about 25% thinner. Your choices at
Home Depot are also limited to just a couple colors. The quality flooring Konecto makes can be purchased
in about 15 different colors and two distinctly different wood styles. This is the choice we made. Not only
because it will form fit itself to our floor but because it has a 10 year commercial and 25 year residential
warranty. This is better than all but the most expensive wood flooring and as good or better than most
laminate flooring. The price was on par with quality hardwood flooring as well.

The instruction are very easy to understand and since neither of us had ever done something like this
before we were very grateful for the clear and complete instructions. Here per the instructions we have
laid out sections upside down across the floor to get an idea how much the end piece will need to be
trimmed. You don't want a small end piece if you can help it just for looks if nothing else. In our case we
had a 24" piece at the end which is perfect. These sections are 3' in length so by trimming a 12" section
off the end piece that allowed us to start the next row with a 12" piece so the seams will be staggered
between rows.

The instructions called for a strip of double stick carpet tape to be installed under the first row. Here you
see the tape installed as well as the first piece of flooring. The blue chalk line is there to ensure the first
row goes down strait. The first row of course is the most important since the rest of the floor depends on
this row to be placed properly.

Here is the completed floor in the Kitchen.......

That's it for now. We will have one final update for this year in a few
weeks. All that's really left to do is install handles on the cabinets in
the kitchen, office, and laundry rooms. We also need to add the same
type curtain system we have in the master bedroom in the guest
bedroom and stain the exterior doors. The exterior doors may have to
wait till next year as the weather is already cooling off and we don't
believe it will be warm enough to accomplish this task until next
spring. I also have some trim pieces to install on the front porch posts
but we may hold off and wait for warmer weather to do those as well.

In our next update we will be formally declaring victory! So stay
tuned.

Check back Soon

It took about two hours to get this far. As you can see the pattern and color we chose is a medium oak.
One of the nice things about this product is that it feels and looks just like the real thing. You can also
install this flooring in areas that are going to be exposed to water like kitchens and bathrooms. Such is
not the case with many laminates and real wood products.

Dining Room.......

and Great Room.

With the downstairs flooring done we moved on to the laundry room. The "Boss" was adamant
that her cabinets be installed ASAP so guess what..... they were installed the very next day.

In the opposite corner an area was planned so the "Boss" can fold clothes when the come out of
the dryer. We used simple unfinished cabinets for the laundry room which will be polyurethaned
natural the same as the rest of the wood in the house.

Here is a better look at what will be the folding center. The top was done using scrap pieces of
the tile flooring.

With the "Boss's" cabinets installed we moved on to finishing the baseboard everywhere
the finished flooring was installed.

The baseboard was made from left over tongue and groove and was simply cut on the table saw.

When the kitchen cabinets were installed the toe kick was left off. This was done to make room for the
finished flooring. With the flooring installed we could now install the toe kick to "finish" the cabinetry.

With the trim and finished flooring done downstairs it was finally time for carpet. We chose to have the
bedrooms, loft, and office carpeted. Here you see the padding installed in the loft. We also had the
stairs done to keep them from being scratched by the dog's toenails.

The color we chose was a medium brown which picks up some of the darker colors in the walls and the
stone. Don't skimp on carpet. A good quality carpet will last for much longer than the cheap stuff.

There is also no substitute for experienced installers.

Carpet gives each room a whole new personality. This is the upstairs "guest" bedroom. The
bed will be replaced with a new unit as soon as it comes in. The love seat is a sleeper so that
when our kids visit they will have a place for the grandkids to sleep.

Here is the master bedroom finished, carpet and all.

Here you see the finished stairs. We chose to carpet only the center section leaving about 6"
of wood on each side showing. There are a couple different ways to carpet stairs. One is called
a waterfall and a wrap style. We chose the wrap style so that the carpet is tight against the
treads and the risers and wraps around each tread.