Last you saw our sunroom, it appeared like this:
Well, now it’s looking a bit something like this:
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Forgive the bad iphone pic, however it’s the only one I snapped (just to text to my parents, actually) before Richmond turned into rain city yesterday. however you get the point, we’ve made some great development lofting the ceiling (with the assist of a expert framer who came out this week to make sure our roof wouldn’t collapse). however we’ll get into the story of the ceiling next week when the electrician has come as well as turned the (now loose) wires into junction boxes for two fans.
Today we’re speaking about a floor plan. As in, a plan for the sunroom floor.
We’ve definitely been putting a ton of believed into it as well as debating the pros as well as cons of a few different methods. The simplest solution would be to discolor or paint the concrete floor, kinda like we did to our very first house’s sunroom.
We originally discolored that a semi-transparent “Tuscan Yellow” color as well as later painted over it in a glossy chocolate color (when we decided we didn’t want yellow floors anymore). The process is quite straight-forward as well as it’s just about the simplest as well as most affordable method you can update a concrete floor.
But the stain/paint shoe just didn’t seem to rather in shape right here at this house. For one, the concrete isn’t extremely quite thanks to glue spots leftover from the carpet we eliminated (any semi-transparent choices are out of the concern since it would show right through).
And even if we just painted the concrete with a solid color, the brick border – which is charming at a distance – is a bit scraggily looking up close with glue spots as well as even a few gaping nail holes as well as gouges from the old sliders that utilized to sit on them.
We’ve likewise had problems with exactly how slick the concrete is when it’s wet. Clara’s feet are commonly soaked from playing with her water table or plastic pool as well as then she slips as well as Sherry gasps as well as she screams. You get the picture. So something with a bit more grip that’s meant to be outside, like a rough patio tile, had us leaning in that direction.
The genuine nail in the paint-the-floor coffin was when we discovered that painting the floor would effectively get rid of the choice to tile it later. paint avoids thinset from bonding to concrete, turning this tile-ready surface into a no tile zone permanently (you can’t even utilize a solvent to strip the paint later since the solvent would likewise prevent thinset from bonding, so we’d actually have to hand-chip every trace of paint off the concrete if we wished to undo our quick-fix of painting it). So as much as we were lured to paint as a for-now solution (yay, affordable & easy!) we just couldn’t do it understanding that it would seriously complicate future plans to luxe up the area with some nice outside tile. So in the throes of indecision, we went tile shopping…
We were quick to autumn in like with huge lovely tiles like that a person above. however as we did the math on puppies like that (which was $6.29 per square foot) we realized that tiling our 200 sf+ area was most likely going to be out of our cost range. ‘Til we spotted the Labor Day Sale indication that stated 20-25% off your overall purchase plus 35% off tools as well as supplies (that promotion seems to be running with Labor Day by the way). Score!
25% wasn’t going to put that $6.29 sf beauty in our budget plan (not even close) however it did motivate us to search down some other options. We discovered three great options that satisfied our criteria. It had to:
be outside friendly (the guy at The Tile shop suggested that we focus on porcelain tiles, which are understood to do finest outside)
have a rough structure (to prevent slipping)
be a great deal less than the one pictured above (as much as Sherry liked that guy like it was her baby)
We bought a sample tile of each (*although we’d really purchase the middle one in a 1ft x 2ft rectangle, they just didn’t have that in stock to take home) as well as laid them in the sunroom near the deck. We wished to see which played finest off of the wood color, while likewise providing sufficient contrast so people would notice the super-slight-but-still-there step up into the sunroom (around an inch). Update: Although they each have other stone references in their names (slate, limestone, etc) these are all porcelain tiles since the tile pros stated those were finest for outside jobs in our area – so it’s just called Mtn. Slate Iron since it’s modeled to look like slate.
Our instant preferred was mountain Slate Iron since we liked exactly how the deep color as well as brown undertones dealt with the deck. The others felt as well great as well as washed out when the sun hit them. as well as it didn’t hurt that mountain Slate Iron was the cheapest as well as hadthe most structure (making it the least slippery when wet). So not only were we offered on that as the very best tile option, we were officially offered on just diving in as well as tiling now. It’ll be more costly as well as more work than discoloring or painting, however eventually we believe it’ll raise the area more while solving a lot of problems that those choices couldn’t.
So as of last night, we’ve officially put our order. Woot!
The tile won’t be in stock for pick up ’til next week. as well as even so, we want to surface the ceiling overhead (i.e. beadboard installation, new fans, painting) before doing anything as well valuable underneath. however we’re relieved to have made a decision as well as to have caught a sale in the process. The discount rates took our tile down from $3.48 per square foot to $2.61. Clara was so excited she just had to phone call Elmo right then as well as there on her toy phone.
Okay, that’s not truly what they were speaking about. Although she might quickly play in those screen showers all day, so I assumption she’s showing a smidge of peripheral rate of interest in our flooring decision. I’ll take it.
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