Bob's Bloggers
A community of bloggers who live and die to DIY
flooring
No Mo’ Holes in the Flo’
By House*Tweaking on Aug 16, 2012
Remember our dilemma with the floor registers?
In case you missed it, the gist of story goes somewhat like this:
We gutted the perimeter walls down to the cinder blocks to add insulation. In doing so, the new walls stick out a few inches further than they used to. This left us with floor registers that opened up right along the baseboards. A standard register cover wouldn’t fit without some tweaking. So while the kids and I were out of town for a few days, HH got down to the tedious task of notching out grooves along the bottom of the baseboards to slip the register covers into. Then he caulked around the registers.
At a glance, you can hardly tell anything is amiss.
Only when you get up close is the caulk line visible. This reminds me of my handy grandpa’s favorite motto. Do your best and caulk the rest.
We went with steel registers in an oil-rubbed bronze finish with a geometric pattern for all the rooms that have engineered hardwood on the floor. The thought was we didn’t want the registers to stand out so choosing a color similar to the wood floors was key.
In the tiled mudroom, we opted for the brushed nickel version of the same register to more closely match the travertine floor.
If we were able to find the correct size for our registers {which we couldn’t}, we could have gone with a baseboard register that sits up along the baseboard. But we didn’t want to interrupt the lines of the baseboards. We like them too much and thought the upright registers would have made things look choppy. HH’s solution wasn’t conventional but, then, nothing we do seems to be. It’s a good thing we got the ductwork covered, too, because only a few days later lil’ Miss Mabrey decided it was time to start rolling.
You might be a redneck hopeless renovator if your idea of baby-proofing includes installing floor registers.
Another biggie on our to-do list is hanging interior doors. I’m happy to announce that we now have a bathroom door! {…and a few bedroom doors} Thank goodness. I was a little worried when I exited the shower one morning and was promptly met by Everett asking, ‘Hey. Where’s your penis?’
I was so tired from being up at night with a certain adorable baby girl that my immediate thought may or may not have been, ‘Holy crap! What did happen to my penis?!’
We have some doors but no handles. I still can’t lock the bathroom door but a closed door is a sign of occupancy. {This all reminds me of a recent Dooce post that you must read if you are a parent to a little one.} We’re going with matte black hinges and hardware. For now, we’re using designer masking tape handles. We’ve officially taken ‘downsizing’ to a whole new level.
You might be a redneck hopeless renovator if going to the bathroom involves masking tape.
Any redneck tactics finding their way into your home improvements?
images: Dana Miller for House*Tweaking
blog comments powered by Disqus