Hi there, just wanted to pop in for a quick progress report. Also, if you’re clicking over from Door Sixteen, welcome! We’re thrilled to be on Anna’s “Featured Blogs” list for November. After a rough morning of rain and traffic, I had just settled into my desk when I noticed the shout out. With my morning latte in hand, I thought ok, maybe it’s going to be a good day after all. And then a few minutes later I saw an office wide e-mail pop up – “the milk was bad, threw it out”.
Mmm. Love Mondays.
1. New barstools! After our previous barstool drama, we decided to go with IKEA’s Sebastian stools until we could find something else. Now that they’re assembled and in the space, we actually really like them. However, we are considering having the chrome frames powder coated. Too fussy? Maybe, but it’s worth looking into.
2. We’ve been working on finalizing the design for the open shelving and cabinet panels in the kitchen so we can order the fir plywood. Kyle’s also been working on the design for the living room media console and we’ll share more of what we’re thinking for that space later this week.
3. We’ve also been doing little odds and ends, like spray painting our registers to better match the cork. We highly recommend Rust-Oleum’s camouflage spray paint. That’s right, camo at chezerbey. I raised my eyebrow too, but it was the closest match we could find and the matte brown is actually pretty modern.
Before:
After!
4. And even though our to-do list is still ridiculously long, we’ve been playing catch-up on some long overdue tasks, like weeding the yard and deep cleaning the bathroom and bedroom (construction dust had found its way into every nook and cranny). We’ve also brought some furniture up from the basement and finally moved the TV out of the bedroom! For now, the guest/flex room is serving as a TV room, with our big frumpy couch and a TV stand from circa 1997 (not shown for the sake of our pride). I know, it’s a bit anticlimactic to show old furniture and zero decor in our new space, but all in due time, all in due time.
So that’s what we’re up to. We’re now focusing on finishing the kitchen, but with shorter days, crappier weather and back episodes of Dexter to watch, it’s hard to find the motivation in the evenings to work on the house.
I was JUST about to paint my heat vents, although my new floors are much lighter so the camo color probably won’t work. It looks fantastic on yours, though- they blend right in.
I’m cork-ignorant, so I hope you don’t mind if I ask you a question: How are they to clean? They look kind of matte, like dirt might kinda stick to them. Do you mop it? They seem nice and cozy. Are they springy like one would imagine cork to be?
hhg, they have a few different colors of camou paint. Ever seen one of those ratty ass 4 wheel drive trucks on the road that someone did a homemade camo paint job on? That’s the paint! I think I remember seeing about 4 or 5 different shades of tan, brown, green so you might be able to find something. Also you might check an auto shop, some of them sell color match paint in a wider array of colors.
Re: the floors, We just vaccum with our dyson, haven’t mopped them yet, but our installer just told us to use a swiffer. Lauren probably knows better about this though;) Although they aren’t necessarily springy they do provide more give than wood floors so they’re an ideal under floor for the kitchen.
Yeah, you don’t wet mop the floors like you would tile. It’s treated more like hardwoods – vacumming and then weekly swiffering (or an alternative to the Swiffer, which is what I’ll be looking for…basically a microfiber cloth and a gentle cleanser). The floors do feel good to walk on, the cork is denser than bulletin board style cork so it’s not springy per se, but definitely comfortable.
The floors look great! We’re in the middle of laying our cork flooring at the moment. We planned on spraying our floor vents black, thinking they’d probably just disappear, but we might have to give camo a shot! Thanks for the tip!
The barstools are looking nice, too! Not overtly ikea.
Hey, I found a crochet pattern to make “swiffer” like mop pads. Let me know if you need some. : )
Robyn – yes! I will send you some dimensions once I buy one (I’m looking at a non-Swiffer Swiffer so they may not be the same size). Can you buy microfiber yarn? =)
i love cork floors and your floors turned out amazing.
i also like that ikea bar stool. i was thinking of getting three for our covered patio/bar area that will be built “some day”. affordable, stylish, but if destroyed not a complete disaster.
Thanks for answering! And clearing up the camo- I guess I was thinking that the name of the color was “Camo”- not that it was actually used to achieve a “camo” look as seen on ratty ass trucks. Shoulda clicked the link. It’s been a long week.
I’m loving the cork more and more.
If you like the “matte” (is that correct English???) look, you might achieve this by take a rough kitchen/ cooking pan sponge. I do this to jewelry 😉