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This thread is super germane to my interests right now and the title is on point. I'll be posting here a little later on with my current project: great room fireplace full makeover, featuring a 14.5' long, 4" thick, 16" deep live edge walnut slab that I finally found a log for, it's getting cut out of the tree in the next few weeks and then will spend pretty much all summer in the kiln.  Here's a lil preview: 
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May 9, 2017 19:30
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I do woodworking as a hobby, but I have a friend here who does it professionally, so he's been helping me out on this one, he has some amazing contacts around the area, so he was able to conveniently keep his eyes peeled for what I needed as he visited sawmills and such. Sent me a message a few weeks ago saying he found some walnut logs that might work, so we drove up to the sawmill and took a peek in person, found a winner. The sawmill will cut the slab out plus an extra couple inches of thickness, and then this guy will actually work the slab down to the finished product for us, as my shop is definitely nowhere near equipped to handle a piece like that. And yeah, we're going natural stone. We have an existing fireplace that is going to stay, we're going to put up a surround in absolute black granite and then the stone guys will do some steel framing to give us a bump out around the surround by about 4-6". The stone will return on to a couple walnut faux posts on the wall behind the whole thing at each end, under the mantel. The hearth we haven't completely settled on yet, but that's the only real variable left. With the granite surround on the fireplace, the void of the fireplace will be about a third of the entire width, so we're going to get some nice big medium-dark grey stone slabs for the hearth, hopefully we can source them large enough to do it in just three pieces. Under the hearth, some short cabinets (like 16" tall, including the toe kick) for blankets and board games and such. Also probably in walnut although hickory is the other major component in our wood palette and we might go with that instead. The overall impression we're going for is "warm cozy with just a bit country lodgey," while at the same time trying to avoid screaming "WELCOME TO OUR YELLOWSTONE OLD FAITHFUL LODGE," like, keep it chill and country. Walnut makes for a pretty good neutral dark wood, the hickory can be a bit showy, so we're trying to use that sparingly.
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May 9, 2017 19:41
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Migishu posted:Oh man Trading Spaces. I remember that show. Hildi
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May 9, 2017 19:55
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WrenP-Complete posted:The photos that you are posting work if I click and open them in a new tab, but not in thread. I'm not sure if I'm the only one with this issue. Same here. e: It appears to be a certificate error.
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May 9, 2017 20:33
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Honestly now I'm a little nervous to post our actual design for our new fireplace! 
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May 10, 2017 01:30
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Okay, well, here's what we started with when we moved in less than a year ago The previous owners had a tendency to DIY poo poo and only to the most basic level so they could say they had a feature. There's a general theme of low effort and poor execution. At best the effort went skin deep, but often enough it didn't even get that far. Still, the house has, imo, a ton of potential, and I'm willing to fund improvements, at least for the time being. We might call it a wash and build from scratch in a couple years after my wife's student loans are paid off. But for now, let's make this place nicer. So here's the original fireplace installation. Excuse the couch fort and whatnot, these pictures were not intended for public consumption and we have a couple roommates, one is 3 and the other is 5. They don't even pay rent.  Of note: the back of those bookshelves is leftover wainscoting from the worst wainscoting job ever in the basement. When I need a stress relief, I rip a couple pieces of that off downstairs, slowly working toward THAT project's completion. The shelves are poo poo. And ugly. Like, they couldn't even line up the fuckin' knobs on the cabinet doors? Okay whatever. Lick & stick stone, but who needs thinset? Construction adhesive is FINE. And a mantel above it all that doesn't even meet the stone. Or the wall, to be honest: it's sitting on its lag bolts about a 1/2" out from the wall. I should get a closeup of the ends of the hearth down there, they just sorta...quit. So we stared at that for a while trying to decide what to do. For a while we envisioned stone work going right up the 18' wall to the ceiling but the windows above really don't allow for that and contrary to some DIY expert bathroom remodelers, we weren't willing to close those windows, they're south-facing and provide some really awesome light throughout the day. So eventually, we worked toward this really, really bad, and not-at-all-to-scale sketch of an idea:  Here you can see the large mantelpiece across the top, the bump out with stone across the face, the walnut posts at each end that the bump out stone work will return on to, the hearth, the cabinets, and the granite surround. And a fire that's gotten way out of control, now that I look at it. Like I said, it's not to scale, the actual thing is a touch over 14' wide. The mantel will be the widest extent on the whole thing, and will stop shy of the wall on either end by just an inch or two. The posts will stop an inch or two in from that, leaving a few inches between the fireplace and the wall such that a vacuum can still reach in there. This house also features a dog and a cat along with the aforementioned roommates, so being able to clean effectively is clutch. Here's the stone we're currently planning on using.  It's a natural stone, it'll be veneer thickness but the bump out should give it a ton of extra depth. We went with that one because the colors are right, and the shape of the stone very nicely matches the shape of the entire installation, and the size is nice, each stone roughly as tall as the mantel will be thick. In that picture you can also see an example live-edge slab, I think that one is 3" on the nose, ours will be 4". And, like, way the hell longer, because it's capping the whole installation off, from end to end. We won't have the arch over the fireplace, ours is straight, and we haven't decided on whether we'll have the line of soldiers or not, but otherwise it's a fair picture of what we're doing. Also, that super heavy dark grey wall paint will be exorcised. Best I can guess, the previous owners, in their infinite wisdom, used that color to cover up some REALLY BAD DECISIONS regarding colors on their way to selling the house. In the 8 months I've been here, doing various minor improvements and such, I've come across almost every variant of "baby poo poo" paint you can think of. We're talking breast milk baby poo poo, neon carrots baby poo poo, tomato sauce baby poo poo, and just plain old bog-standard baby poo poo. I think they slapped this on because it would very easily cover up their shame. And when I say slapped, I mean it, it's not a good paint job, I think it was done in a hurry. So part of our work here will be to prime preeeeeetty much this entire floor with Kilz or something similar, because very few paints would actually be able to cover that, and then paint everything with a nicer, friendlier color. We're staying with grey, but we're taking it both softer, lighter, and warmer. This picture surely doesn't really show it, but the second swatch up from the bottom:  The pic makes it look darker than it is, in person it's kind of a nice warm silver with a hint--and I do mean just a hint--of pink/purple. Definitely not brown or beige, it's not taupe, not quite, but in the right light, it can be very striking, and in other light, it's just a soft warm grey. Very neutral and unassuming, which I think will prove to be important when coupled with the visual magnitude of this feature we're putting in as the center point of pretty much the entire floor. So here's a super comically bad photoshop I did of the planned fireplace. Still not to scale, doesn't extend as far toward the walls as it will, doesn't show the bump out or the right type of cabinets or the new wall color or whatever we end up choosing for the hearth. It was more just for us to look at and get a basic sense of what we're chasing. And after doing that, once we wiped the tears from our eyes from laughing at this quality shopsmanship, we're still fully on board with this thing, so I guess that's good.  Oh also I think we're going to redo the stairs in walnut and black iron, and the floors will likely be replaced with hickory, which we like a lot, is lighter/brighter, and doesn't show scratches and animal fur as readily. So there ya go, be gentle, we've spent a lot of time and energy (but technically no dosh yet  ) on this so far and I don't think I can bEatmstrJ posted:handle the wrath of the internet  (But I'm definitely will to discuss and consider suggestions) Bad Munki fucked around with this message at 04:21 on May 10, 2017 |
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May 10, 2017 04:11
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The manual for the fireplace says anything at or below the hearth is A-okay for combustibles. Part of the reason for the surround is that, even aside from the space that allows for noncombustibles, there can't be ANYTHING within a certain space there, so in order to have the bump out, we had to move it higher up, which meant a surround. Which proved to be a happy accident, because it makes that void more proportional to the rest of the thing. Here we go, took me a minute to find it, but: Overhang requirements:  Hearth requirements:  So re: hearth cabinets, basically this thing can be installed right over whatever the heck you want, as long as it's directly on an appropriate plate, but the hearth itself is whatever. In our case, it'll be a couple few inches of stone atop the cabinets, so we should be golden. And the bump out will be framed in steel.
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May 10, 2017 04:51
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beep-beep car is go posted:When I see that kitchen, all I hear is "I love how much my dishes are covered in sticky greasy dust all the time!" I really want to know the backstory on your red text, it's fascinating.
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May 12, 2017 18:46
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No bathtub is a total deal breaker for parents with kids, maybe less so kids out of elementary, but definitely with toddlers and preschoolers and early elementary kids.
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May 14, 2017 14:16
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Yeah, sorry, just wanted to make sure you didn't eliminate a significant portion of your market without even realizing it. 
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May 14, 2017 14:54
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Arachnamus posted:...there are assholes in the world...the pricks. As a kid-haver, I can tell you that at the very least, you're using the standard nomenclature.
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May 14, 2017 15:31
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HelloIAmYourHeart posted:Look at that staircase! Riserless glass treads? I have a mild phobia of see-through floors and riserless stairs, so combining those makes me very uncomfortable. They're like a more terrifying version of these stairs at the Des Moines Art Center, which I had a very hard time with. Hey Des Moines Art Center Stairs Freakout Buddy. Also that weird little balcony up at the top that looks down through the entire stairwell. It's made worse when you're climbing them while holding the hand of a two year old, as if the child will suddenly get sucked into the undertow and squirt out through the stairs without any warning. Baronjutter posted:Riser less stairs are pretty much not allowed by the building code here and lots of fussy architects get pissed off that those pencil pushers are getting in the way of their amazing artistic vision and oh my god they are demanding railings too????? Pffft, why even have stringers 
Bad Munki fucked around with this message at 19:32 on May 14, 2017 |
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May 14, 2017 19:27
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That picture of the kid in the living room there is super dissonant to me and makes me think she'll tell stories about how she grew up in a parking garage.
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May 15, 2017 20:50
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Elendil004 posted:But like, 2500 bucks worth of last words? For that much savings I could almost rebuild the entire door myself and still come out ahead. There's a middle-ground. The Lowe's-quality door can be okay. But it can also be sub-par in subtle ways. Maybe functionally, depending on whether it's an off-the-shelf item, or what have you, but also in aesthetic ways, where the design is close but just not quite there and maybe a person will or won't notice, who's to say? Case in point: you can save a few bucks and buy off-the-shelf cabinets at Lowe's. They'll probably be okay! The hardware might wear out sooner. The construction isn't top notch. But it's passable. But if you want something QUALITY, you should be looking elsewhere. That doesn't mean you need to go full-on-solid-teak-with-crushed-turqoise-inlay fully-custom bespoke one-of-a-kind cabinetry, though. Just go to a place that specializes in that sort of work and look at some of the better options that aren't in the outrageous category. There really is a spectrum of quality and cost.
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May 16, 2017 21:27
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Maybe they're going to frost them after installation?
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May 17, 2017 16:54
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Living-space work areas (kitchen) at 4000k tops. Cozy areas at 2300k-2700k. Actual home-industrial spaces (workshop?) at 4500k-5000k or even 5500k and 50-100 lumen per square foot, assuming an even distribution and an 8' ceiling (when in doubt, use the higher end of that range, 50lm/sqft is minimum.) Always-on porchlights and nightlights at 2200k or bust. Bad Munki fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Feb 28, 2019 |
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May 17, 2017 21:53
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On that note, how do those philips hue bulbs handle being on a normal switch? I have a fixture I wouldn't mind having some in, but I also don't want to be roped into using my phone or something to control it. I also don't want a fake adhesive switch on the wall or whatever they are. Do they make just a NORMAL SWITCH for those that gets wired in to replace a standard wall switch? Last I looked, the options were not great.
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May 17, 2017 22:03
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Baronjutter posted:I think "Home Automation" and internet-of-things is the dumbest poo poo and I want it all far far away from me. I don't want it for home automation, I want it for full light color control, it's for a very specifically-purposed room and I am a huge nerd for the whole thing but I have no shame. e: Contrary to the thread that inspired this one, the special purpose of the room in question is not to bag females.
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May 17, 2017 22:21
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I have a room in my basement that is most of an octagon, it served no purpose for the previous residents, and served no purpose for us...until I realized my poker table was a perfect fit for it if I put bench seating on the five octagon walls, and then I realized I could put a nice long desk in the other part, and holy poo poo it's a gaming room, so now I'm making it exactly that. D&D and poo poo, nomsayin? So if I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it right. Surround sound around the perimeter to make ambient effects, lighting to set the stage...the whole shebang. I'm making a game pit. Anyhow, I want to be able to control the color and brightness of those lights from my phone or whatever, but I also don't want to have to bypass the switch or do something silly with a fake-switch thing, or blanking out the existing one. Also, I put a dimmer on the light, it'd be nice to keep that functionality. So like, I want to be able to on/off/dim from the wall for convenience and every-day use, OR control it from an app.
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May 18, 2017 01:52
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mod saas posted:so, what is your actual vision for this then? as cliche as this sounds, tell us your user story. Here's the actual space I'm working with. Previous owners just had junk piled back there, we did as well for a while, and then one weekend I went nuts and ripped up carpet and put down flooring: Bad pano showing the whole space:  To the back right, you can see the octagon. When I moved in, there was a poo poo light fixture that wasn't even centered. I removed it, re-wired to support both a light and a fan on separate switches, moved the hole about 12" to be precisely centered on the octagon, and closed up and patched the old hole. Oh also, new paint, because the old vaguely-olive-khaki was just so god damned depressing and awful:  (That was from when we were trying out colors, I don't remember which one is actually the color we went with, but any of them are superior to what was there.) To the left, I'll be putting in a desk I am slooooooowly assembling. Butcher-block style in walnut, about 1.25" thick. It will be supported by steel rails along the wall, pocketed into the desk itself, so it will look like it is just floating there against the wall with no support, when in reality it'll be as solid as anything possibly can be. Future site of walnut butcher block slab desk:  Here you can see where I'm installing the desk. 9' long, 30" deep. At the left end, I added a pony wall to cap the left end of the desk. I also put in two switches, one for the light and one for the fan. Previously, the light that was there was on the same branch circuit as some other lights elsewhere in the area, in a pretty dumb way. Now the switches are just around the corner into the room, above where the pony wall meets the main wall, left side of the picture. Desk in progress:  This is five sides of an octagon, I swear:  I'll be putting bench seating along the five walls there. Bench seating may not be the MOST ideal way to seat people around a table, but in this case, it super works, and will be no worse than, say, a booth at a restaurant. Worst case scenario, two people have to move for the one in the very middle back to get out. Anyhow, bench seating along those five walls, octagon table goes in the middle, leaves the EXACT right amount of space for booth seating from the wall to the table, with room for a back cushion. I'm still searching for the perfect light fixture, that one is temporary. Once I find a fixture I like more for that space, that fan will move up to replace the last of the upstairs bedrooms I'm working on. What I want to do with this room, aside from the bench seating and desk, and why I was asking about the Hue bulbs, is to have some fun light controls in the room for gaming, because nerd stuff. So while we're sitting there playing, I want to go cool dim blue for a cave, for example. But at the same time, I don't want to lose the slap-on/off action of the light switch I have on the wall, since I'll be using the desk for more routine work. ALTHOUGH...now that I think about it, there is a soffit over where I want to put the desk, and I could put some cans up in there and put THOSE on the existing light switch, and then do whatever the hell with the Hue bulbs on that main fixture. That would kind of give me the best of both worlds, maybe. Anyhow, any thoughts on what I've got going here would be great! Good or bad. This project is a lot more casual than my fireplace project from earlier. :P Bad Munki fucked around with this message at 04:54 on May 18, 2017 |
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May 18, 2017 04:36
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Yeah, a nice sitting room that we made into a pretty swank office for my wife, and above that, a really fantastic bedroom. Both have amaaaaazing windowage. I'll get pics tomorrow. So it's great above-ground, but it makes for kind of a junk space in the basement...until now. Bad Munki fucked around with this message at 06:00 on May 18, 2017 |
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May 18, 2017 05:57
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I think if you zoom in on the window, you can actually see the seam.
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May 19, 2017 15:12
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I recommend cutting a few floor joists and installing an infinity tub with a giant red wall.
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May 24, 2017 00:03
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10 Beers posted:Turns out monkey items are a lot more expensive than you'd think. The price of some of those things are nuts! I want you to know that I see what you've done, and I like it. I give it four out of five giant red walls.
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May 24, 2017 00:14
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Too structurally sound for my liking.
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May 24, 2017 15:12
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PRADA SLUT posted:You can poop in the sink if you have a garbage disposal Technically, the garbage disposal is optional.
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May 26, 2017 17:09
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Baronjutter posted:Just lol if your diet allows you to controllable non-liquid poops. If you can't poop through a window screen, you're just not eating right.
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May 26, 2017 21:24
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Haifisch posted:That doesn't mean future buyers won't rip it out because "EWW, OLD", but it'll still look okay. That's why the first thing I do when I get a nice new stainless appliance is to take a rattle can of fire engine red to it
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Jun 5, 2017 18:44
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:Soapstone! My personal favorite. There are options that have more veining, but you can get pretty close to a flat black or gray too. This one is so loving fantastic in a number of ways. My only complaint is the front of that sink, I don't know what you call that, like farmhouse or something? Where there's a big lip hanging down the front instead of some cabinet facade. I don't like that. But that's just a personal preference. Everything else going on here though, A+.
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Jun 8, 2017 17:55
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Nothing exciting about laminate but a sheet of unfinished B-grade plywood would be superior to tiled countertops.
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Jun 8, 2017 18:01
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Of course I need an induction range to cook boxed mac and cheese, how else could it be done
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Jun 8, 2017 18:20
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I have a great room with an 18' ceiling, I'm thinking the bottom half is going to be shiplap, the top half will be fine-print wallpaper applied directly to brick veneer, and I'll do a LIVE LAUGH LOVE like 65% across the border between the two but it'll be in comic sans with some exceptionally bad kerning in a couple places and maybe a couple letters juuuuuuust a touch off kilter.
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Jun 8, 2017 19:59
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As always: show, don't tell. Should be actual pizza, tacos, and bacon pinned to the wall.
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Jun 17, 2017 15:10
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Turns out those LIVE LAUGH LOVE things aren't always out of place.
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Jun 23, 2017 17:03
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tetrapyloctomy posted:According to available records, not sold since 2011, just multiple price drops. That's pretty typical for an unsellable house, it pops on and off the market so as to avoid the dreaded "perpetually on the market" limbo state. In this case, obviously, it'll make no difference.
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Jul 3, 2017 17:18
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Doctor Butts posted:I'm having trouble finding a spot in there that isn't potentially lethal if you slip and fall. Sounds like a silver lining to me.
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Jul 5, 2017 17:13
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It's sort of reminiscent of the acoustic baffles you'd see in an opera house, at least to me.
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Jul 7, 2017 04:33
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This may be an odd question but it is a factor in home design: does anyone have a good source for actually, like, good doorbells? Our current doorbell is the dumbest piece of horse poo poo loving garbage ever. The previous people thought it was a good idea I guess. It plays music, lovingly rendered as the highest quality free geocities midi file that 1997 could produce. You don't get to pick a song though, no no, that would at least let you mitigate the nonsense! No, you get to pick from one of four song sets, three of them being seasonal, the other being a playlist including songs like Brahms' Lullaby or Yankee Doodle. At least it lets me set the volume fairly low, but it's so bad I always take my time getting to the door so that it's done playing its music before I open the door so nobody gets to hear it. All I can find as replacements are just more cruddy synth recordings of various chimes. I just want a reasonable doorbell that isn't garbage. I've actually thought about building a stringed ringer that strums strings with a little leather flap or something, but maybe that's too eccentric, and almost certainly too quiet. Honestly, I think I'd be perfectly happy with a silent doorbell that just blinks the lights at me, but I have to accommodate the rest of the family, so that's probably out. Bad Munki fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Jul 9, 2017 |
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Jul 9, 2017 00:28
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It hooks up to your wifi, does the whole thing fall apart if your uplink goes down? Like, does the video on your phone stuff stop working if your internet connection drops? I live semi-rural and am on satellite internet, fml, and the throughput and latency aren't so hot, and it's a fairly touchy connection anyhow. If it were able to operate entirely locally, that'd be one thing, but if it needs to dial home to the manufacturer's servers to do its stuff, I'm out. Which is a common issue for a lot of those IoT doorbells.
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Jul 9, 2017 01:13
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Anne Whateley posted:There are lots of real doorbells with everything from bells to huge fuckoff chimes on the wall, it's not a thing you need to reinvent. There are lots of options, either vintage repro or designed more currently. Oh I know it, I just can't find anything locally and I'm reluctant to buy a doorbell/chime/whatever online without having heard it. Ridiculousness of our current chime aside, I'm kinda picky/sensitive about noises. I wish the various online sources would include, like, a recording of the product, because that's kind of a critical factor of the thing, as in, its primary function.
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Jul 9, 2017 04:05
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