Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Entry Flooring...

I have another tiny project to share.     Like many old city houses, we have an addition off the back of our house.  It has fancy wood paneling (insert sarcasm here) which I immediately painted, so now it just looks 'charming'.   Anyway, when this addition was built, the old exterior back door was left on the basement entrance.   We immediately took that off, because I could not come up with one reason why we would need a door there.   The threshold of that (exterior) door is still there.      

When you enter through our back door, there are steps up to the house in front of you.   To your right, are steps to the basement.  Until recently, when you looked down, you would see peach concrete under your feet.   Yep.  Never a proper floor was had.   The steps into the basement also concrete and the little hallway too - all with this peachy color paint.    As a side note, Scott and I have purchased two houses in our married life and both had an excess of peach and orange paint that someone was trying to pass off as neutral.   You can probably imagine how I feel about that.

When heading to our basement, which is finished, it really feels like you're going to another location, or a separate building, if that makes sense.  I think its the concrete hallway.
  
We had a dilemma, how can we make this look a little nicer, and look like the interior of a home, without spending much?     There are larger renovations in our future, namely the dangerously small steps to the basement.  We didn't want to spend a lot of money on something that will likely be ripped out down the line.    I considered tile, but we aren't handy enough to do that ourselves, which means too much money.       

We were at Lowe's and found this great vinyl tile that looks like wood!  Vinyl has come a long way folks, I swear!   It's even textured like wood.     For an investment of maybe $40, we were able to transform the entryway from a peach concrete pad, to an indoor space!   We spent a couple of hours on a Saturday night (we are wild people).     The tiles blend in with the wood already on the stairs leading up to our dining room.    It looks 100 times better for hardly any cost, and we feel pretty handy.    We also used this to tile down to the basement entrance.    Once I get the hallway to the basement painted, it will look like a real interior space!

Here are some before and after photos:

BEFORE - Peach concrete floor: 

























AFTER:  Looks like wood to me!  (Don't mind the carpets, for the safety of pets & humans on the tiny steps!)
  

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