I’m living in a hotel because of my concrete floors

In what has become tradition around my house on Sunday nights, I am sitting down on the couch working on the computer and putting together a post or two for ‘Life of an Architect.’ There is one notable difference in tonight’s routine … I am not actually at my house. I’m in an extended stay hotel in downtown Dallas. I am in this hotel because we are entering into the final stage of my Life of an Architect World Headquarters renovation – the grinding and polishing of the existing concrete floors. Supposedly this process will start Monday and be finished by the end of this week, I’m hoping that’s the case, otherwise I am in for some “extended stay” pain. I could make a Mother-in-Law joke here but since I actually really like mine, I would just be pretending.

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While I’m sure that most people are getting quite exhausted by all these renovation updates, they won’t have to wait much longer for the project to be completed – I don’t think I can survive much longer either. While my contractor has been amazing in getting things done quickly and to a construction standard that (and let’s be honest) exceeds what I am paying, living in your house during any sort of construction is a massive drain on your life force. The house is always messy or out of sorts, there are supplies and organized piles of debris laying about, AND you have to make the your bed every morning or the workers will think you’re a slob. Then there’s all the work you (the handy homeowner) has to put in after already putting in a full day at the office followed by taking care of your kid(s).

Whew!

In preparation for the work being done on the concrete floors, we had to move out of our house for a week … and I don’t mean just move-out-somewhere-else sort of move out. I mean get ALL your stuff out of the house sort of move out. In context, the only thing worse than moving out of your house for a week is like moving to a new house that is only 2 blocks away – close enough to think it’s easy, far enough that you still have all the same problems.

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That means loading up boxes, making reservations at the kennel, arranging to have your freezer food live somewhere else for a while, rent a mobile storage pod, and hire movers. That’s right, I said “hire movers” because the days of me and my wife yelling at each other to “lift your end of the couch higher … no wait, wait, … put it down, I’m about to drop it” are gone. Hey, you don’t stay married for 17 years just because your “hot.”

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So I rented a mobile storage pod for a month because that’s the shortest amount of time they’ll rent one to you. Where I live, if this thing isn’t gone in 7 days I will be lined up against the wall and shot. Oh yeah … despite the amazing weather we have had here for the last several weeks – and will continued to have for the next few weeks – it rained today on moving day. Not all day, just for two of the three hours we were moving. Karma, you are hilarious … (my wife must have done something).

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So here it is, my house with all the furniture moved out. Since the likelihood that the house will be this empty again is pretty low, I thought I should document the “before” spaces. While I have pictures of all the rooms, I’ll spare you those photos. Starting tomorrow, I have FloorRescue coming in to grind all the floors to remove the color. Saying “all the floors” doesn’t sound right, I have just one floor – but it is the  e n t i r e  house.

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This is a look at where the existing floor (mottled brown) meets the newly poured concrete floor (gray). Since we don’t know how the old and new will look after the grinding process we are waiting to determine if we need to come back and stain the floor before waxing it to a high shine. I think we will end up going dark again, but more of a black than a brown.

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The revised space has turned out wonderful – everything I had envisioned. The space has opened up the main room, the new window has allowed a substantial amount of light to come into the space, and we will finally have a comfortable room to host meals with family and friends. Before (since this house didn’t have an official Dining Room) those meals took place in the kitchen which was nice but still the kitchen. It’s hard to finish a nice meal and just sort of kick back and relax when that big ‘ol mess of pots and dishes is sitting there eyeballing you … and if you get up to clear the dishes, everyone else jumps up to help (because we have decent people in our lives) but they are your guests and you don’t want them to get up and help. We ordered our 104″ long table last week and I should receive my pendant fixtures sometime this week.

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Here is a view that helps convey how the renovated space relates to the main room. Looking at this picture you can really see the difference of the concrete stain. The dark part on the left has been under a white shag (don’t judge me) carpet and as a result, I vacuumed this area instead of mopping it like the middle section. Since the original concrete isn’t stained (the sealer and wax topcoat were tinted) every time you clean the floors you lift a little bit of the color up. The middle section shows what 50 years of mopping will do. (To help give you a sense of scale, the distance from the far left to the far right is around 38′)

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This is the same space but now the view is back towards the front doors. There is very little gypsum board in my house – most of the walls are either plaster or cedar boards-on-board. That’s part of the reason this renovation was a little tricky. Everything is exposed and the structural elements are also the decorative elements so any change almost has to be holistic in its consideration because it relates to everything else in the house in some way or another.

Starting tomorrow, the grinding will begin and I am more than a little nervous about it. I hope it’s because I am anxious rather than thinking I made the wrong decision. Either way, the train is leaving the station and the conductor is grinding the concrete!

(what?!?   that didn’t make any sense)

The last post on the renovation will be on the concrete floor process – hopefully you have enough interest for one more post – thank you for tolerating me during this time. Since I come home from work and spend my evenings ripping out cabinets, etc. this is the only topic I have been able to focus on.

Cheers,

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