Basement Family Room: Media Unit
After scouring the internet for a few weeks, I decided that nothing online met my criteria for our basement family room media cabinet. I wanted white oak to match the…
plywood
New Basement Stairs: Part 4 – Bookshelf
When we rebuilt the basement stairs, we wanted them to be against a new wall that hid the fact that we did not have a straight or flush wall going…
New Basement Stairs: Part 2 – Building the Stairs
Once the stair opening was ready, it was time to install the stringers and build the stairs. Substairs Our contractor was originally supposed to only install the stair stringers, but…
Load-Bearing Wall: Part 6 – Patching Hardwood
After we removed the dining room wall, we were left with a small trench in the hardwood flooring where our wall used to be. We were planning on waiting to…
Baby Bookshelf
When shopping for nursery furniture, I fell in love with Oeuf’s mini library. The only problem is that I really couldn’t justify the $895 price tag. Especially for something that…
Stair Upgrade: Part 2
Once the floors were finished, we were ready to finish our stair upgrade. Handrail During our design, we determined that both the handrail and baserail would be exactly 2½” wide.…
Stair Upgrade: Part 1
We originally planned to hire someone to come and rebuild our stairs – both in the basement and the handrail on the second floor. But as our basement work progressed,…
Hallway Closet Renovation
We have a tiny little closet on the second floor and we wanted to turn it into a linen closet. It’s a very narrow but deep space, measuring only 20½”…
Building Access to the Attic: Part 2
Installing the Attic Hatch A couple of months ago we installed our new attic ladder. We then had to install an attic hatch. This was probably the most complicated part…
Replacing Hardwood Upstairs: Part 3 – Subfloor Installation
Once the original subfloor was clean of all its dog hair and dirt debris, we were ready to start installing the subfloor. Shimming Just like last time, we checked to…
Building Access to the Attic: Part 1
We are fortunate enough to have a pretty kick-ass attic space. It’s totally not usable right now; it’s dirty and there’s no insulation (not that the rest of our house…
Fauxdenza
Now that Alex and I are done most of our major construction projects, we are working on updating some of our furniture – particularly those old Ikea pieces that we’re…
Replacing Hardwood: Part 6 – Subfloor
Replacing Hardwood (Part 6): Subfloor Now that our floor is good and shimmed (referred to in our house as the sub-subfloor), it’s time to work on the subfloor. The subfloor…
Replacing Hardwood: Part 5 – Shimming
After yet another trip to Home Depot with an AutoShare cargo van, we think we have everything we need to start (and hopefully finish) the subfloor. Our house isn’t level,…