Adventures in Home Ownership – My First Renovation

More often than not, I don’t use all of my vacation days from work. The fact that the virus shutdown had me staying at home for 2 months meant that I didn’t even feel like taking a full week off later in the year. But I had to take a week off at some point or another, or I’d lose those days completely. So what did I do for my week off? I did my first renovation.

This was a fairly minor renovation. For the most part, I just focused on replacing all of the base boards on the main floor, and did some paint touch ups. Of course there were a few other things I did. Well … my dad and I did – he helped me quite a bit. In fact if I’m perfectly honest, he probably did more work than I did, at least while he was here. That’s partly because I was watching and learning, but still.

(This is one of my pictures of the finished product. More to come)

As much as I really do like my townhouse, there are definitely things that need some work. The floor, while a nice set of wood-like vinyl panels, was clearly installed by amateurs. They thankfully left me with over 200 square feet of extra floor panels. I ended up selling most of them, but kept two boxes. So while replacing all of the base boards, we got rid of a couple disaster panels and replaced them with better ones. In doing so, we got rid of several gaps between the floor and the walls, gave the floor an overall cleaner look, and even found an amusingly simple way to close some of the gaps between the panels themselves.

The base boards on my main floor were the most glaring problem. There were actually two different types of base boards on the floor, and considering that floor is one big room, that’s not a great look. Especially when in a couple places, you get two different kinds of boards right up against each other. It just looked ugly.

(Also, look at that tiny floor panel between two others. Sadly we weren’t able to pull that out and replace it.)

The older boards, while I’m sure they looked decent originally, were clearly old, worn out. Worse yet – they had a clear mark where there used to be a carpet, as you can see in the above picture. The newer kind was haphazardly installed, where they didn’t bother to try to hide the nails or the gaps between different boards. On the rounded wall corners, they simply used a 90 degree corner that left an obvious gap. We figured out a way to use two 45 degree angles instead, and it looks so much better.

(Old style corner)

(New style corner. Still needs a bit of sanding and paint touch-up, but it looks so much better.)

Finding the right paint for paint touch-ups was both an adventure and a learning process. I learned a fair amount about paint colours and shine levels. Before I started though, I believed that the main floor, the stairs, and the upstairs hallway all had the same colour. Oh boy was I wrong. The main floor is mostly one colour, but the side wall that leads into the stairs is a different one – a lighter shade of grey-ish blue. Thankfully I noticed just before I pressed the brush against the wall. After grabbing the second colour of paint, I started my touch-ups along the stairs, only to notice that most of the upstairs hall featured yet another colour. So when I eventually repaint the main floor completely, it’s all going to be one colour.

(Old thermostat)

(New thermostat before repainting)

(New thermostat after repainting)

On top of that, we found out that the main wood border around the front door wasn’t painted at all. Three of the doors inside don’t have any kind of door stop. One of those bedrooms even now has a dent on the wall, with yet another paint colour I don’t have. After taking off all of the old base boards, I found a bunch of dog food beneath. Further evidence that the previous owner was a complete slob.

(Do I even need to say anything about these two old floor boards that I replaced?)

There’s still some work to be done, like a couple more paint touch-ups, replacing a vent cover that I discovered to be broken, installing the door stops and other things I’m sure I’ll discover over time. Overall, my main floor looks noticeably better than before. Now, to enjoy my last day off of work and play some video games in my newly redone space. And some time next year, I’m completely redoing my main bathroom.