I’ll document the changes we make in the condo here so you can see all we do to the place. Mostly the bones of the condo are pretty good. We love the vaulted ceilings and the wide staircase leading up to it. But some things over time need a bit of TLC and some things were amaturely completed and it showed. (IMHO) Since Gene and I have a fair amount of DIY skill (former rental property owners here), we’re tackling many of these projects ourselves.
To begin, we did hire a painter. The entire condo was color drenched with a light tan. I didn’t think it showcased what the condo could be and I didn’t care for the color. But since we needed to change out the flooring before moving in, we hired painters to come in and paint. Usually, I love to paint, but this was too much in a short amount of time.
Paint colors – Sherwin Williams Avenue Tan for the two bedrooms
Sherwin Williams Meadowlark for the living room, kitchen, hall and stairwell. This brown makes the other colors vibrant and I prefer adding color in the decorations in the room. Those are easier to change out when you need a new pop of color. The ceiling color was matched to the trim and doors. It’s a creamy white, but it was existing and I don’t have the name of it. I took a piece of trim to Sherwin Williams and they matched it up for me.
Total Cost:
Painter $1,400 (He painted the entire place – 3 coats including primer.)
Paint – $600
Total – $2,000
Flooring
We removed the old flooring which was a mixture of laminate (first generation, not made to get wet, showing signs of wear in the kitchen and bathrooms) and carpet. We removed it all and went with a luxury plank vinyl that can get wet (100% life proof). It’s easy to work with. We did this ourselves so we don’t have labor costs. Our two youngest sons helped us with it. We finished it in 2.5 days. Some people don’t remove the base molding when they floor with this flooring, we did. I don’t like using quarter round to cover gaps. I think it looks more professional than not removing the base molding. Plus the molding is easy to remove.
| The condo is an open floor plan with a view from the top of the steps through the kitchen, dining area and living room. Previously, it was split up between the old flooring and carpeting, making the rooms appear smaller. | By re-flooring in all the same color/pattern, we’ve made the rooms appear larger. We love the way it turned out. In future pictures you’ll see more of the flooring. |
Total Cost:
Flooring – $4,900
Flooring purchased at Menards in Green Bay. Product: Tarkett VeriCore Milled Hickory. We do a lot of our shopping at Menards because they offer 11% rebates on the entire store, so we’ll receive a rebate of over $400 (plus, because other items were purchased at the same time. For this flooring, we had $1,200 saved in rebates to put toward the flooring. So our out of pocket cost was $3,700) Make sure to check with your local home improvement stores for discounts and rebates.
Flooring Rebate -$450
Total – $3,250
Zen Den
We had a screened in patio at our other house and we fell in love with it. We ate most meals out there and sat out there in the evenings. The condo has a much smaller version of this patio, that we have lovingly named the Zen Den (thanks to my daughter-in-law, Shaina.) Below are the before and after photos of our new Zen Den.
| There wasn’t much on this patio except bird poop and remnants of bird’s nests. | Our patio set fit perfectly out here. We had this rug, which also fit perfectly. The picture and the candle holders we also had, as well as the flowers. All I needed to add were the candles, because the old ones didn’t make the move well. These are battery operated candles and they turn on each evening for 5 hours. Cost – $5.50 each candle, $11.00 |
Fireplace
We like our television on top of the fireplace. We watch television in recliners and if we also want a fire, we like being able to see both. The fireplace as it was needed some improvement. The stacked stone is an inexpensive product and as I began working with it to fill in below to the floor, it crumbled easily. It seems to be made of some sort of gypsum or chalk. But it was here, so we thought we’d just paint it.
| The first picture shows the fireplace (and flooring when we first looked at the condo) (Scroll over using the little arrows in the photo). I thought it looked weird. The stone on the top row, didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the stone with the gap in between. They didn’t bring the stone all the way to the floor either. There was a 2″ gap between the bottom row and the floor. | In this picture, I’ve taken the stone removed from the top and fitted in at the bottom so the stone drops to the floor. I then painted it black. Gene added a rough hewn mantle and a shelf for the sound bar. He drilled a hole in the top of the mantle to run the cords for the sound bar so you can’t see them. Total cost: Mantle boards – $24 Paint (which will be used for other projects also – $32 Board for shelf – $6 Brackets to hang shelf – $3 Total – $65 Time: 4 hours |
Wall Niche
We have this wall niche between the kitchen and living room. I’ve always liked these, they are a great way to showcase something or add interest to the area. This one was plain as can be. We had purchased a mantle on the Marketplace a couple of months ago, thinking it would work great for the fireplace. After getting in the condo, the mantle was too short, but it fit nicely in the wall niche. Bonus. Gene had to do a bit of cutting though to make it fit properly, but he did a great job with it.
| The niche was plain and uninteresting before. | With the mantle added, it adds interest. It’s not completely finished though. As soon as we change our countertops (stay tuned), I’ll be adding a tile backsplash in the kitchen and my plan is to use the same tile in the niche to bring the two areas together. I caulked around the entire mantle to add the finished look to it. Total Cost: Mantle – $60 I already had the caulk from the flooring project. |
Breakfast Bar
The breakfast bar was too tall. When sitting on a regular bar stool, it felt like your elbows were pointed up to the ceiling and you were four years old. It had the same stone on it as the fireplace. The stone, as I said above, it a gypsum product and not that great. But it was here. My thought was to paint it to match the fireplace since the condo is open concept. But, when I began painting it, the blocks began to fall out. They were not fastened appropriately and we were able to easily pull them off. In less than 45 minutes, the stone was removed. Then we needed to decide what to do. Enter rough hewn wood!
| We removed the stone, as I mentioned, it came off easily. | Once we took the countertop off the breakfast bar we found they’d built it up, so we removed that to bring it down to an easier height. We used the same wood we used for the mantle on the fireplace. Then we mimicked the foot rail that’s on our kitchen table. 12 boards – $174 Counter supports (4) – $36 Black pipe for the footrail – $78 Total cost – $288 |
Window Sills
Our condo has what the building industry calls, “Drywall Return” sills. That means there’s no woodwork or trim around the windows. This can be construed as a “clean” look. I think it’s boring. That might just be me, but my first thought was the builder just tried to save money (usually the case). We’re using the rustic finish on any wood we add here in the condo, so I needed to stain the wood to make it look weathered. I used two colors of stain. One lighter and one darker. I stained the boards with the lightest stain and let them dry. I went back in with the darker stain, and added it around the knots and followed the grain pattern in places, then using a rag, rubbed it in to soften the lines and distribute it where I wanted it. These pictures don’t do it justice because they turned out fantastic. I then sealed all the wood, even the fireplace mantle and the back of the breakfast bar, with a matte clear coat, so it would be easier to clean. We’re so happy with how it turned out. And the costs were so low. Our living room window is the largest window at nearly 8 feet. But the office and bedroom windows are only 5 1/2 feet and the bathroom window is small at around 2 feet.
All together, the wood only costed $45 – the stain costed $55 for a grand total of $100 for all of the windows. Most of the time spent was waiting for the stain to dry. Screwing the boards together didn’t take long and attaching them to the windows was nominal. We had this project completed in less than a day.
Stairwell
We’re in an upper, which if you’d told me years ago that we’d enjoy that, I would have had a great laugh. But, it turns out, we LOVE it. It’s safer, we have an excellent view and it’s quiet here. We have fantastic neighbors and we’re in a great neighborhood. So, we’re in an upper! Which means we have this staircase immediately upon entering. But it was plain and I started looking on Pinterest for interesting stairwell designs. I blended a few of them together, along with the pictures we had here to hang up. The only things I purchased for this were the “Family” and the little flowerettes. Everything else we had.
This week we focused on the Garage. We spent a bit of money on this update though. We had the garage floor finished with a polyurethane product by NEW Garage Floors. We think it looks great. We had the cabinets and I painted them flat black. We painted the hardware with Hammered Copper Krylon paint. And I painted the baseboards the same black as the cabinets.
Flooring – $2,600
Paint – I had this from the fireplace
Baseboards – $72
Krylon Hammered Copper Paint – $10.00
Total – $2,682
