Closet – Our Lustron Home

Listing Photos

It all started with my Starting Point post. There I wrote my initial thoughts and ideas for this house as recorded last November. We bought this house and found many things wrong with it. We starting putting work into the house starting last October/November, and below is what we were able to accomplish so far.

Current Progress

As you can see just between the first set of photos and the second, we’ve made some big changes. We removes trees and bushes, put in raised beds, added an exterior door on the garage, and changed the accent color on the house from red to teal. Inside, we removed a lot of the latex paint off the utility room walls, we built and removed our builtin pantry, and installed a storage shelf instead. We removed the broken dishwasher and sealed the space to be used for my canning stuff. We also upgraded the light in the kitchen, painted cabinets, remove the old range microwave and added a new range-hood, as well as replaced the old leaking kitchen faucet. In the dining room, we refinished the wall after removing about 1/3 of the wallpaper in the house, and we also created a lampshade for our single handing bulb from a lantern we used at our wedding reception. We haven’t done too much to the living room yet; we added a projector screen and are mainly using it for storing some of our extra stuff until we finish the master bedroom. We replaced the light fixture in the hall, and upgraded all the light switches in the house to the rocker style. We repainted the bathroom, removed the medicine cabinet, changed the light fixture, and painted the vanity and changed the hardware. We also added a new shower curtain to match. In the original green room, due to it’s carpet color, we originally replaced the floor in the closet with vinyl planking. After seeing how easy it was, we took on the task of redoing the entire rooms floor, which was not an easy task. we remove the wood from the closet to be replaced with matching floor eventually, I also painted the bedroom the two shades of orange, we moved in, and that is the state of our orange room. Finally, our current project is the master bedroom, or our new green room. We just finished laying the flooring on Saturday. There is still a lot of work we want to do in that room before the new unveiling, but I hope this helps build some excitement for the next unveiling, which will be coming in the next two weeks or so.

A Year’s Worth of Projects

A year is so long, yet so short. We were able to accomplish so much because of the blessing we’ve received this year and from taking things in stride. We are happy for our new experiences and are content with this house even as we continue to find more problems. We aren’t sure if we’ll keep this house forever, but we are happy for all the good things this house is providing for us. This Lustron gives my husband and I something to do together, to bond over, and to dream for. We hope for nothing but the best for this house in the future, and we hope our fingerprint on this house improves the beauty of this old Lustron, rather than hinders it’s potential.

For more on our home improvement posts from this year, feel free to check out any of this posts below. If not, I’ll see you again soon!

New Dining Room Light

Removing Wallpaper

Closet Work

Bathroom Transformation

Dishwasher to Storage

Kitchen Cabinet Updating

Raised Beds

New Kitchen Vent Hood

A New Big Project: Laminate Plank Flooring

Green Room Flooring

Finishing Our Guest Room

New Kitchen Shelf

Josh and I have also been working on the closet in our spare room since January. We call that room The Green Room, since the carpet is very green. The closet was also green carpet, and we really aren’t big fans of it. The house also gets lots of moisture into the house, so we plan to seal all of our cement pad with paint eventually.

First, we removed the carpet. We used a box cutter to cut the carpet just past the threshold into the closet. We then ripped up the carpet and the padding they glued to the original tiling, and we threw it away. Josh also used a chisel to remove the carpet strips that were nailed into the foundation.

We then found clearance wood linoleum planks at Ollie’s. We were able to get 8 pieces for a little over $13. We also bought quick cement and a metal putty knife at other stores. We also needed our metal chisel to scrap the remaining padding off the tiles, a gallon of oops paint that we bought last summer for $9, and a tape measure.

Josh scrapped off the padding and then scrubbed the floor with soapy water. We let that dry for a day. We then applied the quick cement and learned to block that off after Newman left a paw print in it. Once it dried for another day or 2, we took 2 days to apply 2 coats of paint to seal off the tiles from the new flooring. We took a couple more days to let that dry.

Finally, installing the tiles. First, we watched this video. We then decided to just wing it. We used 4 tiles in the processes. The biggest hint is to measure, take it slowly, and to cut the boards to move them easily. This video is a big help, and teaches lots of the basics. We used a table saw to cut the flooring. Start from the back corner, and stagger your cuts so you don’t have one giant seam.