{renovate: kitchen remodel} refinishing the wood floors

To date, the biggest headache of this kitchen remodel has been the refinishing the wood floors. When Chris moved into the house six years ago, he tore up half the carpet in the upstairs and refinished the original hardwoods. And last year we tore up the remaining carpet and refinished the hardwoods. So, all throughout our upstairs we have beautifully refinished original hardwoods. When it came to remodeling the kitchen, in an ideal world, we'd pull up the nasty 80's linoleum in the kitchen and .... refinish the hardwoods! Easy peasy!

And then we pulled up a sample spot. Wop, wop. There were two layers of linoleum glued to the hardwoods with the blackest gunkiest glue ever made. What was left with when we pulled everything up was black hardwoods with lots of remaining green paper (?) securely glued in place (see below). Our little jitterbug sander, which served us so well last year, wasn't even making a dent.

Nice. So these past couple weeks we've been brainstorming ways to deal with this, um, situation. We tore down the wall between the kitchen and the living room to open up the space (see above) and I am worried that treating the floors differently in each room will only create a boundary between the two spaces. Less noticeable than a wall, but still there none the less.

This weekend, when I was flying home from Haven, Chris rented a super duper huge floor sander. The goal was to break through the paper and the glue to salvage the hardwoods.

And hey look! I got off the plane and was put directly to work. Although it was kinda fun to use the huge sander :).

This is what we were left with. It smoothed everything out really well, but still left us with a splotchy floor. Gross. 

We were discussing this with our neighbor and he recommended a belt sander. He had the same problem in his house and it worked great. Have you guys used a belt sander?! I scoffed at first, because it's no bigger than my jitterbug. How could that little guy possible achieve what the super huge sander couldn't?

Well my friends, size apparently isn't everything ;). Look at how awesome this turned out! Oh, by the way, three days after the fact my arms are finally starting to not hurt. Belt sanders are powerful little tools. Four (4!) hours of sanding later, we had this:

So what exactly is the plan? Because our floor actually looks crazier now than before! I'm going to make you wait until friday, for two reasons. First, this post is getting really long. And second, I need your opinions!

I hope you all are having an awesome week! Anyone else have a frustrating renovation they're going through right now? Please share, I'd love to commiserate :).

{inspired} 17 Things I Learned at Haven

If you follow me on twitter or instagram (@jennmccormick), you may have noticed that I spent most of last week in Atlanta at the Haven Conference. Friends, it was such an amazing conference and I feel incredibly lucky that I was able to go. For those of you who haven't heard of it, Haven is a conference for home bloggers. This was the first year, but the response was so fantastic and I'd be very surprised if it wasn't back next year in an even bigger and better capacity. 

The Haven "living room"

I'm still digesting all the information. Honestly, I'll probably still be digesting in a month. There was so much good stuff and so many a-ha moments. The bloggers who led sessions were amazingly open and honest about what has worked for them and what hasn't. In an attempt to organize my thoughts I've made a list of things I learned at Haven. Hopefully you can glean some a-ha moments from the list as well.

1. Atlanta is HOT. Yeah, I haven't spent a lot of time in the south ;).

2. John and Sherry (above) from Young House Love are incredibly funny.

3. I don't need to have a super huge blog to think about advertising and work with brands. This was a lightbulb moment. I have a tendency to get really caught up in the numbers.

4. Tripod. Need to get one asap.

5. The four s's of styling, according to Layla: skooch it, scorch it, swap it and stamp it.

6. SEO is a complicated and crazy thing: use keywords, especially in headlines, section headers and in the first 150 words of text.

7. A blog header's size should be no bigger than 1000 pixels by 250 pixels.

8. Firebug is a Firefox extension that let's you view code on other people's websites. Brilliant.

Josh and Kevin from Shoot Fly Shoot teaching us about taking killer photos. See the slide?? ;)

9. When your shutter speed is above 60, the camera can be handheld. Under 60, and it should be on a tripod.

10. Steps for taking manual photos: set ISO and forget about it. Set aperature and forget about it. Adjust shutter speed to make image brighter or darkers.

11. Ashley (above) from Design Build Love was my roommate and is awesome! Seriously friends, go check out her blog :).

12. When layering a few different patterned fabrics in a room, repeat the fabrics: ottoman + a pillow or drapes + a pillow, etc. This helps it look cohesive.

13. Find 5-7 words that describe how you want a room to feel, to look and the purpose it serves. Be specific and honest.

14. Everyone has a "don't buy" word. Find yours and stick to it. For example, cute, pretty, good deal, etc. I had never thought about this, but it's SO TRUE!

15. Sarah, Beth, Chris, Rhoda, Kate, Marian, (pictured in order) Traci and Kristi are wonderful party planners and hosts.

16. There is an amazingly large amount of creativity and talent in the blog-o-sphere.

17. The Haven sponsors were incredibly generous, and I came home with everything from Annie Sloan chalk paint to a feather duster :). 

You'll hear more about Haven over the next few months as I implement the million + one ideas I have from attending. But in the meantime, if you have any questions about any of the 17 points, or would like me to expand on one, just let me know.

{renovate: kitchen remodel} drywalling

In the ongoing saga of the kitchen remodel, we moved a HUGE step forward this week. We have walls again! 

Even though we're really excited to be doing the majority of the kitchen remodel ourselves, we did hire a contractor to do the drywall. I firmly believe that even if you CAN do it, doesn't mean you should be doing. We weighed the cost vs. the amount of time it would take Chris and for us, it was worth it to pay the money. The contractors we hired sheet-rocked, taped and {lightly} textured both rooms in ONE DAY. Holy smokes! It was so fast! Chris and friends were worried it would take them a few weekends. Neither of us felt like holding the project up to save a little money.

Plus, the contractors did an AMAZING job! Seriously, I was so impressed. And even better, they were great to work with, responsive and clean. If anyone in Portland is looking for a recommendation, let me know and I'll send you their contact info.

See that hole in the wall? That's where our new oven is going! That spot was formerly an ex-ironing board that was collecting dust. Cute, but VERY nonfunctional.

In all the photos you can also see all our new can lights (!). With the white walls and the new lights, the kitchen is so much brighter all ready. I'm in love.

Next up, we'll be tackling the floors. I'm a little concerned, honestly, because that green paper all over the floor is super glued with the strongest super glue I've ever encountered. Hopefully we'll figure it out this weekend. I'll let you know what we come up with, but painting is quickly becoming my favorite option.

If you're just joining us and would like to catch up with our kitchen remodel, you can read all about it here: kitchen mood board here and here, kitchen issues, kitchen demo, opening up a wall and kitchen lighting plan.