Hooked On Houses | It's Great To Be Home

Our Flip: Granite and Marble and Travertine, Oh My!

June 19, 2009 By Liz - It's Great To Be Home 28 Comments

Holy moly, Wednesday and Thursday were a flurry of tile-related craziness. In the past 48 hours we have been to the granite fabricator, the contractor tile place (twice), two different discount tile places (and we went to one of them twice, in two different cities), another tile place, and Home Depot (to two different locations). A freaking flurry of activity, I tell you! Not to mention the FOUR times we went by the flip today. This flipping stuff is serious business!

Luckily, there was some serious eye-candy along the way. Check out some of these gorgeous slabs of granite that we saw at the contractor tile place:

Seriously, it’s crazy to think that such beautiful materials were dug up from the earth – it’s so awesome! I drooled, I fawned, I caressed each and every slab. Then I had a reality check and moved along . . . slowly.

By the end of Wednesday we had picked out the marble countertop for the master bath:

the travertine countertop for the jack and jill bath:

and the countertops for the kitchen.

We also picked out this gorgeous glass and marble tile backsplash for the kitchen (which we picked up on Thursday) – it looks fab with the granite and will be such a great focal point looking from the den into the kitchen:

For the bathroom off the kitchen, we picked out white subway tiles accented with taupe glass 2 x 2 tiles for the shower walls and 8 x 12 marble tiles in a herringbone pattern for the floor – I can’t wait to see how it turns out!!

The laundry area is tiled in a honed travertine (still waiting to be grouted):

The master bath will be done all in matching marble, with the floors done in 12 x 12 tiles, the shower walls in 3 x 6 subway tiles, and the shower floor in a tiny hexagon tile – I am beyond excited about this bathroom and I hope they’re finished soon so that I can show you pictures!! Here’s how it’s looking right now (not too exciting):

We had a minor faux pas with the tile for the master shower – there was a miscommunication with the supplier and they gave us crema marfil porcelain tile rather than crema marfil marble tile. Both of us just referred to crema marfil, and assumed we were talking about the same thing. The mistake wasn’t discovered until we lugged those ridiculously heavy tiles back to the house – and the porcelain tile has a distinct grayish cast that doesn’t match the marble – oops!! That’s the reason behind one of our many repeated trips to the tile place. Lesson learned – always refer to the full name of the material when you’re speaking with a supplier, and always check inside the box before you leave the store.

Whew! So busy but so fun. And I still can’t believe how quickly things are moving along with the flip. I swear, it’s going to be finished and ready to put on the market before I have a chance to blink!

So now you’ve heard what countertops we chose for the flip – what do you have in your house?

Don’t forget to leave a comment on any post through Monday, June 22, for a chance to win a ton of awesome products from Gorilla Glue in the IGTBH Gnarly Giveaway!!! More details about the Gnarly Giveaway can be found here.

This post is shared with Hooked on Houses.

Make A Storage Unit From Salvaged Materials. Step 4: Customize!!

June 5, 2009 By Liz - It's Great To Be Home 13 Comments

Okay, I promise, this is the last time I will talk about this gnarly storage unit . . . for at least a week. I pinkie promise. Maybe.

Here it is, one last time:

I’ve yammered on for long enough about painting the cabinets, creating the countertop and assembling the whole shebang, so let’s get on to the fun stuff!! The colorful patchwork countertop is clearly the star of this show – full of personality and visual interest, it takes this storage unit from ho-hum to fun and funky. And the best part? Making this colorful creation is totally easy – if you can conquer this post, you’ve got this new project in the bag.

This whole custom countertop project began with a tonof inspiration from this post on Addicted 2 Decorating. I instantly swooned when I saw Kristy’s unique and cheerful table top, and I knew I had to make one of my very own. Here’s how you can get in on the action:

1. Chop it up. The key to this whole project is the patchwork effect, so take some time and pick out some fab craft paper that you absolutely love. I’ve always been a sucker for bright, cheerful colors (especially for a craft room), and I picked out a whole slew of papers that I found totally inspiring and that worked well together. Make sure that you have enough paper to cover your countertop from the very beginning – this will ensure that you get a great mix of patterns throughout the whole countertop, instead of running out of paper and having a section at the end that doesn’t match the rest.

Once you have all of your papers assembled, go to town chopping down your papers into the size and shape that you want. I love the look of long strips, so I cut each of my papers into 6 x 2 inch strips (this worked perfectly, since all of my craft paper came in 12 x 12 inch sheets). You can either tackle this task with scissors or a chopper – I chose to use my handy-dandy chopper (see below), which made cutting the strips an absolute breeze.

2. Glue it down. Armed with your slew of paper strips, it’s time to get gluing! All you need to do is paint sections of the countertop with Elmer’s glue and then lay your strips down in a staggered pattern. Once you have a few strips down, smooth each of the strips to get out the bubbles – I used a ruler for this task and it worked like a charm. Some of the glue will ooze out, but just smooth out any extra glue with your paintbrush and it will dry clear. Keep up the placing and smoothing routine until you’ve laid paper over the entire countertop.

3. Seal’er up. Now that you’ve created this masterpiece, you’ll want to protect it! A few coats of satin finish polyurethane are just the ticket. If you want a little extra protection, think about having a piece of glass cut for the top – Home Depot will do it for a few bucks, and our Ace Hardware only charges you for the glass - cutting it is free!

4. Admire your handiwork. It looks awesome, doesn’t it?? Perfect for any room that needs a little extra color and fun – and this same technique would be great to create a little custom artwork for a bare wall.

So there you have it! An awesome, customized storage unit made from salvaged materials with your own two hands. It doesn’t get much more satisfying than that!! (I’ve already got mine stocked with paint brushes, paint, fun papers . . . I’m so excited!!). Now it’s your turn – fill us in about something that you’ve made with your own two hands!!

This post is shared with Hooked on Houses.

Saving Smokey Furniture

May 15, 2009 By Liz - It's Great To Be Home 6 Comments

I recently received an email from a lovely reader who was scouting for ways to save this lovely buffet:

Here’s the scoop on her problem:

Hi Liz! We just got some really nice wood furniture. But it came from a house where someone smoked at least a pack of cigarettes a day for many years. The actual wood has a residual smell of smoke on all of it. Do you know what product we could use to try to mask/get rid of this smell? If there’s nothing we can do, we’ll just live with it, and keep our windows open as much as possible until the smell subsides…but I thought you might have an idea? If you have no idea, no worries – just thought I’d check with you since you’re my go-to blogger for all things home improvement and design related!

Since flattery works every time (I’m blushing!), I wasted no time digging into this dilemma. Smoke-smelling furniture is a problem that we’ll all likely encounter at some point, given that cigarettes were once practically a way of life. Since that practice has now gone by the wayside, I did a little research and found these tips to help you combat that pesky smell:

1. Soak it up. Before you start scrubbing away at your pretty wood furniture, you may want to try a few of these simple methods that may eliminate the smell by absorbing the odor, without running the risk of harming the wood:

- Sprinkle baking soda on the furniture. Be sure to do a test patch in an inconspicuous spot before sprinkling baking soda all over the furniture – if nothing happens, then you’re in the clear and can sprinkle it all over the furniture. After a few hours, vacuum up the baking soda. Repeat as necessary.

- Place fresh coffee grounds into coffee filters and tie them closed. Place these little pouches of coffee on the furniture and spread them out to cover more area. Leave them there for several hours.

- Dab a cloth in vinegar and set it on or near the furniture. Leave it there for a couple hours.

- Cut up an onion and place the pieces on a piece of plastic wrap on the furniture. Allow the onion a few hours to do its work and discard it.

- Place bowls of crushed charcoal around the furniture and leave it overnight.

2. Scrub a dub. The reason that cigarette smoke is such a difficult smell to get rid of is because the nicotine from cigarettes actually soaks into (unfinished) wood, and also leaves a nasty residue on the surface of wood furniture regardless of whether it has been sealed. Even though it will pain you to do so, the word on the street is that you’ll likely have to scrub the wood with a wet solution to remove the layer of nicotine from the wood. When you scrub the wood, you’ll want to use a stiff plastic brush and a cleaning solution. Be sure to use a brush with flexible bristles – you don’t want to scratch all of that gorgeous wood! And to protect your wood from warping or staining as much as possible, be sure to dry the wood thoroughly with a cloth (do not leave any water pooling on the wo0d), and leave the piece to dry for a day or two indoors – don’t leave the wood in the sun, as it could cause the wood to warp like crazy.

3. Clean it up. There are a lot of different opinions on the best cleaning solution to use on the wood – here are a few of the top contenders:

- Murphy’s Oil Soap

- 1/4 cup of Witch Hazel and several squirts of Dawn dish soap.

- Lysol Basin and Tub Cleaner

- 50% white vinegar, 50% water

- Lemon or orange oil cleaners

It is likely that the wood will have to be cleaned several times before the smell is gone (or faded enough so that it’s no too noticeable), and in some cases it may never disappear. Arm yourself with air fresheners like Arm & Hammer Deodorizing Air Freshener to help eliminate any lingering odors. Some people even go so far as to polyurethane the wood if the smell is not completely eliminated. The theory is that the polyurethane seals the odor into the wood so that you can no longer smell it. This seems like an absolute last resort, and I would recommend speaking to a furniture store before taking this step.

Have you guys encountered this problem before? How did you deal with it? Have you tried any of the tips above and, if so, how did they work? Fill us in!!

This post is shared with Hooked on Houses.

Sources for this post include the following: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.