Coastal Closet build week 2 let's go! Confession: I had already began this room when signing up for the challenge a few weeks ago. I couldn't wait and I needed a head start with working full time and having family coming into town. So, where does that leave us for "week 2?"
First, if you haven't seen Week 1, go check it out and come back here. Alrighty back to week 2!
Demo and flooring.
I can't even describe how much of a pain it was to get this wire shelving system out. The shelves were too long to move without hitting every wall possible. In addition to all of the screws being stripped from builder installation, really guys?
This ended up with me just ripping the entire system out, leaving huge holes in the wall. Which I did patch... but they'll all be covered anyways. I've always wanted to incorporate a light blue shiplap somewhere, and I think this small space is a good place to try it out.
Anyways, back to the task at hand. Let's talk carpet. No shame to those who like carpet, but it's not for me. I have 2 mainecoon cats who love to rip up carpet. This carpet was only a year old and it was coming up in the corners and there were strings everywhere, thanks Scooby. And that's even after keeping the closet closed 98.7% of the time. It's one of those, the cats know this door is always shut, so when it opens, they rush in, and use the caret as a scratch pad.
I thought it was going to be easy to remove... the carpet itself was easy to pull up. I only got a few nicks and scratches trying to cut it and roll it up. The difficult part came with the tack strips. My subfloor is concrete and the tack strips were nailed directly into it. Sheer force, that's how I got them off, with the assistance of a hammer and crowbar. Once they were all up, I swept, and vacuumed, and tried to clean as best as I could.
Let's talk new flooring. The floor outside of this room is a wood look porcelain tile, specifically Mohawk's Oceanside Cottage. I love my tile, but I didn't want to worry about tiling myself. I don't have the tools do tile properly and I wanted to keep things simple and budget friendly. Cue about 15 different floor samples, from peel and stick, to vinyl, and luxury vinyl plank. I was looking for something that didn't clash with the other tile, that would make the threshold flow.
So, something easy to install, budget friendly, and that didn't clash with the bathroom tile. Where did I end up?
The answer is Home Depot's Lifeproof line. Specifically the Lake Agnes Oak. This style was completely sold out online, but shoutout to my local Home Depot for putting in a special order. It took about 2 weeks to get in, but it was worth the wait.
Let me state that I have never installed luxury vinyl plank (LVP) or any flooring for that matter. The first row was a pain, and I'll admit this took a couple tries to get things to lay right. It's still not perfect, but I think it came out pretty darn good for the first time. I laid the flooring in a "random" pattern, and tried to keep the joints stronger by offsetting them. It seemed to work... for now at least.
Even though I have a miter saw, I didn't feel like running back and forth from the closet to the garage, so I just scored with a box cutter and snapped the planks. This method worked, it was a little tough for the pieces that I had to take down in width and length, and the angled pieces. Too bad the designer of my house couldn't make the closet a rectangle... this angle serves ZERO purpose on the other side of this wall. Cue eye roll.
Now, you may be asking, why are the baseboards still up? The answer is, I had to go back to the drawing board from my original idea at this point in time. The Ikea units are too deep for my closet. So I'm still working on all the dimensions and I only want to take out the baseboards where the built in units will be.
So, here it is! The color is light and airy and will fit my beachy vision perfectly. Guess it's now time to finish up the design and get started building.
Stay tuned for week 3, my parents are in town, but let's hope we get some things built. Oh my what have I gotten myself into?
Follow along for real time updates on Tiktok and check out other participants progress at the One Room Challenge Blog
See you all next time!
Kenz
PS. Flooring is Luna approved, and kneepads are life when laying flooring.
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