Master Bedroom and Bathroom Flooring Nightmare

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We had painted our subfloor in the master bedroom and treated it as a art studio/office for a year or two, but then we could finally afford flooring (as long as we did the work ourselves).  We had already done one bathroom which had been easy and were working on the downstairs open floor plan which had its own challenges but was also relatively easy, We had no idea what laid in store for us on this one though.

The bathroom had linoleum laid on top of luan.  On our other bathroom this was great. We just laid COREtec Floor tiles on top and everything worked out beautifully.  Since I hate thresholds in houses, I was determined not to have a step up from the bedroom to the bathroom. That luan had to go.

The destruction was only somewhat fun, I have to admit. but the cleanup was a nightmare.

First remove the shoe moulding. Then rip up the floor starting with the end at the doorway. The luan was stapled down every 6 inches or so. It took quite a while working with the hammer and pry bar to get it. Some staples just wouldn’t come out, so I dug the luan out from under them and hammered them flat. Make sure not to get distracted and forget one of the staples because your shoe or toe will shue as hell find it when you’re walking around and it’ll trip you. Once the destruction phase was over, we had to clean up. 50 gallon trash bags worked OK, but the sharp edges of the wood sliced right through a couple of them so I suggest double-bagging it.

Now that this was finished we could lay the floor. Which direction you lay the floor planks depends on your taste. some people say to lay the planks based on the position of the sun through the windows, some say you want to be perpendicular to the room entryway, etc.  I just laid out a bunch of planks and figured which ones I liked better. Because it would be easier to not have any issues with the bathroom threshold are, I started laying the floor long-ways so that it ran straight into the bathroom as several pieces. In other words, perpendicular to the bathroom door.

Again a band saw and junior hacksaw are infinitely helpful on the intricate not-so-straight walls, cabinet, and under the toilet areas. The toilet was another challenge. In or other bathroom, we used a foam ring seal for the toilet. This worked fine because we laid our CORETec on top of the 1/8″ luan and linoleum floor. This time, I had ripped all of that up, so I had a big gap when  I tried to screw the toilet to the floor. The gasket was just too fluffy. It sealed well, however sitting on the toilet felt like you were trying to balance on an exercise ball.  To fix this, I tried two approaches. I got some commercial “toilet shims” from the hardware store, but these honestly sucked at this task. I ended up using them as wall spaces in my downstairs while installing the COREtec floor there.

The solution that worked best to fix the toilet was to take the toilet up and cut some COREtec in the shape of the toilet base, then sit the toilet on top of this. This gave stable support the the entire bottom of the toilet, and I was still able to get a good seal on the foam gasket. The foam gasket allows repositioning, unlike wax rings so it was good to go when I tightened the bolts. Cut the bolts to length with a dremel and put the caps on and the toilet is affixed.

While this fixed the wobble on the toilet issue, it looked bad. I decided to caulk the connection between the toilet and the floor, covering and hiding the spacer I had cut with white caulk. Now, there’s different perspectives on whether this is a good idea or not. Some people say it looks great, other people complain that if there is a leak, it’ll just go into the subfloor instead of leak from the toilet and you won’t know it until it’s really expensive to fix (like entire tens of thousands of dollars since it’s an upstairs bathroom). I waited a couple of months of use to make sure there weren’t any leaks before I caulked it. To get the cleanest lines, I masked around the edges with painters tape.

Once the floor was fully down, I went back and installed the shoe moulding. You can see in the pic above of the toilet, I messed up the moulding on the sink unit and had to flip it around, leaving a weird gap. I filled this in with brown caulk which matched perfectly.

Seamless Carpet to Hardwood Floor Transitions

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I love details and precision in design. When laying the CORETEC flooring in our house, one thing I really wanted to avoid was a threshold between the kitchen tile and the vinyl planks. Thresholds look bad, are typically used to hide flaws, and are easy to trip over in the dark. I was determined not to have a threshold anywhere, even when the tile met the carpet.

This is bad:

This looks much better:

Our project started first with our bathroom, laying CORETEC vinyl planks on top of the linoleum went well. You can read all about it here.  I got a comment about how I made the transition from carpet to the bathroom.  I hate seeing those metal clamps at these transitions and wanted to just have the carpet end and tile begin at the doorway of the bathroom.  The way to do this is with a little thing called a carpet Z-bar.  You can get them pretty cheap at any bigbox store They cost less than $2 for a 4-foot section. You can cut them with a regular little red hacksaw and then nail them right into the subfloor. It’s basically a little metal piece about an inch wide that is pressed into the shape of a Z. What you do is take the carpet and wrap the loose end over the top of the Z and tuck it under the top lip of the Z, then hammer it to the subfloor. Then go back with the hammer and crimp all along the z bar so the carpet will be squished into place for a tight hold. This prevents it from slipping out over time.

The first step it to remove the previous threshold and carpet clamping thing. This is the thing I want to avoid using when I finish laying the floor and it MUST go. Using a flathead screwdriver and tiny hammer, you first pry back the metal to reveal the end of the carpet, then pull the carpet and any padding back until you can get to the nails below.

carpetStrip1     carpetStrip2

Once this piece is removed, you can install the Z-bar. I used much smaller nails that the illustration and image shows here.  The goal is to have the nail disappear completely. I put a nail at each end of the Z bar, then I hammered the Z-bar flat.  In places where the carpet wouldn’t lay flat enough, I added a nail there (a couple of places in the middle of the threshold area). When done, it looks like a manicured golf course. Roughage that has a clean and clear transition to the green.

Gifts for Beekeepers

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My dad is a beekeeper and I’m always on the lookout for bee themed gifts for him (and quite honestly, sometimes for myself). Here is a round-up of beekeeping and bee lovin’ related gifts.

*Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. As a teacher myself, any supplement to my income helps. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

 

Although my dad doesn’t need any help selling his honey (he says it sells itself!), a little extra advertising never hurts with this cute beekeeper “Ask Me About My Honey” tee.

Straight from bee yard etiquette, this shirt says don’t swat!

Okay, this one is totally for me. The floral bee popsocket is bee-autiful.

And while I’m at it, okay, okay, another one for me. This bee babe shirt is lovely (except I’d get it in gray instead of red).

This protector of the bees t-shirt is great for my dad who is very passionate about protecting our native bees!

I love this play on words. This be kind to beekind shirt is all the right kinds of kitschy!

Last, if you are looking for something a little more matchy matchy, this set on Etsy is perfection. I’ve bought several things from Blackbird Supply and love them all!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers,
Jess

Personalized Gifts for Kids Named Ada

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I love to get personalized gifts for the loved ones in my life. I know this pretty awesome little kid named Ada and when I was looking for gift ideas, I figured I’d share what I found. So, here is my round-up of some fun gift ideas for children with the name Ada.

*Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. As a teacher, any income supplement is very appreciated. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

A really cute shirt for children name Ada (it comes in other colors too!), this shirt has the word “Adorable” with the letters spelling “Ada” in white.

With the name Ada of course I have to mention Ada Lovelace, one of the first computer programmers. There are numerous children’s books about Ada Lovelace. There are three notable children’s books that are biographies about Ada Lovelace:

Ada Lovelace, Poet of Science: The First Computer Programmer by Diane Stanley (for ages 4 – 8)

Ada Lovelace (Little People, Big Dreams) by Isabel Sanchez Vegara (for ages 4 – 8)

Ada Byron Lovelace and the Thinking Machine by Laurie Wallmark (for ages 6 – 10)

 

An anthology of women in science, Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World by Rachel Ignotofsky is recommended for children age 10 – 17. It includes Ada Lovelace as well as 49 other important women in science history.

If you are looking for more STEM books, then you’ll appreciate the author Andrea Beaty who wrote Iggy Peck, Architect and Rosie Revere, Engineer. The third book in this collection is Ada Twist, Scientist.


If you have any gift recommendations personalized a child name Ada please share!

Hardwood to Tile Transitions

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When we bought our open floor plan house, it already had tile in the kitchen and terrible pet-stained carpet in the living room. When we replaced the carpet with CORETEC plus “hardwood” I was determined not to have a threshold where the tile and hardwood met. Now CORETEC isn’t actually hardwood, it’s a engineered vinyl material made to look like hardwood. The core is made of some kind of foam I was told is derived from bamboo, and you can get an optional cork padding (about 1/16″ thick) as well. This was a good thickness for our needs as it is about as think as the tile in the kitchen.  The tile is the run of the mill 1/8″ thick “engineered” ceramic material. The tile had been laid on top of sheet vinyl flooring, and of course the mastic thickness made it a little higher still.

I can’t stand a bump in the middle of the room like you see in many homes where wood meets carpet or tile. I think that transition moulding is a sign of poor craftsmanship. In order to prevent this from happening when we laid the CORETEC, I had to first remove the carpet and all the tack strips. Something I learned is that when you pull out the tack strips, which were nailed to our concrete pad foundation, it leaves a crater.   In most cases these are around the edges by the wall and can be ignored, however the transition to the kitchen was more obvious.

To fix both problems (craters and height difference between CORETEC vinyl “hardwood” planks and the tile I used floor leveling compound.  For the entire area from the tile itself to about four or five feet back from the tile, I gradually feathered the thickness of the leveling compound so that the height difference between the middle of the hardwood floor and the edge by the tile was imperceptible.  When this dried, we laid the vapor barrier, then the vinyl floor tiles. Traditional wisdom says to begin laying flooring at an exterior wall. I made sure to measure the entire width of the room so I wouldn’t end up with a tiny sliver of CORETEC butting up against the tile.  In retrospect, I probably should have started laying the hardwood at the tile side instead of the wall in case there’s shifting or uneven walls.  In my case everything worked out great!

To fill the tiny gap between the tile and the vinyl planks, I wanted something that would look good and not prevent the floating CORETEC from having a little “breathing room”.  I went with a tinted and sanded silicone caulk.  Since we had recently painted our grout, color matching wasn’t hard at all.  This stuff is great because it stays flexible enough not to impede the floor, and makes a very nice transition to the tile. It was also very easy to use and clean up.

We’ve had this floor for three years now and it still makes me happy every time I look at this transition. The type of silicone grout we used does make it slightly tough to clean if it gets dirty (because silicone if grippy and the sand in it gives it texture) but it isn’t really a problem.