c/design-and-renovation

Finally got my paint samples down to just three choices

I used to pick colors by staring at tiny swatches in the store (and ended up repainting my kitchen twice in 2020). Now I buy the little sample pots and paint big squares on different walls to see the light change. It took me a week of looking at them at different times of day, but I'm down to a warm gray, a soft green, and a creamy white. How do you usually make your final choice when you've narrowed it down like this?

Just counted the paint samples I've collected for my living room

I have 27 different swatches taped to the wall right now. It started with picking between two grays, but then I got a sample of a green, then a blue, and it just kept going. My partner walked in and said it looks like a weird art project. I'm trying to find a color that works with our old oak floors and gets enough light in the afternoon. Has anyone else gotten this deep into the sample hole and found a good way to narrow it down?

Warning: I saw a tile installer in Phoenix skip the expansion joint on a 40-foot run

He said it was fine because the slab was 'cured', but I've seen cracks from that exact thing. Now I'm torn between trusting the pro on site or insisting on following the spec sheet. How do you handle it when a contractor wants to cut a corner you know is wrong?

The new bathroom tile in my house started cracking after just two months

We used a thin-set mortar that was supposed to be good for large format tiles, but I think the subfloor wasn't flat enough. Now there's a hairline crack running right through three tiles by the shower. What's the best way to fix this without redoing the whole floor?

I used to just eyeball paint samples, but a bad batch of 'seafoam' in my bathroom made me switch

PSA: I painted my kitchen cabinets without sanding them first and it worked perfectly

Everyone says you have to sand everything down to bare wood for paint to stick, but I was on a tight 3-day timeline for a client in Austin. I used a liquid deglosser, wiped everything clean, and then applied a bonding primer. After two coats of a good enamel paint, the finish is rock solid 6 months later with no chipping. It saved me at least 8 hours of labor. Has anyone else skipped the sanding step on a big project and had it hold up?

Showerthought: I painted my whole house with a cheap roller and then tried a Purdy one

I did my living room with a basic $8 roller from the hardware store and it left fuzz everywhere, plus the paint went on patchy. Then I grabbed a Purdy White Dove for the bedroom and the finish was smooth as glass, no cleanup needed. Has anyone else found that spending a little more on the tool makes the whole job ten times easier?

PSA: I thought my wife was nuts for wanting a 'mudroom' in our 900 square foot house

She drew up plans for a tiny entryway with a bench and hooks, and I was sure it would just make the hall feel cramped. We built it last fall, and now the floor isn't covered in boots and wet coats every time it rains. That little bench is where we put groceries down, which is a game changer. Anyone else add a small feature they thought was pointless that turned out to be the best part?

Vent: My bright idea for a kitchen accent wall went totally wrong

I painted one wall in my kitchen a deep navy blue, thinking it would look modern. After it dried, the whole room felt smaller and way darker than I expected. I learned that a dark color needs a lot more light than I had, even with my three overhead lights. Has anyone else tried a dark feature wall and had to fix it?

I used to think open shelves in a kitchen were just for show

For years, I mocked them as a dust magnet and a way to show off your mismatched plates. Then, last fall, I redid my own kitchen in my 1920s bungalow. I put up a single 6-foot long open shelf above the sink, mostly because I ran out of money for upper cabinets. After living with it for about 4 months, I get it now. Having my everyday bowls and coffee mugs right there, one motion away, has actually sped up my morning routine. The key was committing to only putting nice, matching stuff on it, not just junk. It forces you to keep things tidy and makes a small kitchen feel way more open. Has anyone else had a design feature they hated that turned out to be super useful?

Heard a designer say 'open concept is dead' at a coffee shop in Seattle last week...

They were going on about how everyone wants separate rooms again after years of working from home. Honestly, I think they're right. My own kitchen renovation last year added a proper wall with a pocket door, and it's the best $2,500 I spent. No more cooking smells in the living room, and my partner can take a call while I'm blasting the blender. It feels like we're finally admitting that giant, noisy boxes aren't actually that functional. Has anyone else started putting walls back up, or is this just a weird local trend?

Question about my bathroom tile job that went wrong last weekend

I was convinced I could lay the subway tile myself, but the thinset started setting way faster than the bag said and I had to pull half of it up. Anyone have a good trick for mixing smaller batches to avoid this?

Saw a house in Portland with a front door painted bright orange (like, traffic cone orange).

Some neighbors love the bold choice, others think it clashes with the craftsman style. Where do you stand on statement doors versus fitting the home's look?

Serious question, how do you deal with a wall that's not straight when you're putting up trim?

I was doing a simple baseboard job in a 1920s house last month and the wall had a serious bow in the middle, maybe an inch out over 8 feet. My usual trick of scribing the back of the trim wasn't working because the gap was too big. I ended up cutting the baseboard into three pieces instead of one long piece. I made the cuts right at the high point of the bow and at the start of the curve. Then I installed each piece separately, pushing it tight to the wall at the cut ends and letting the middle of each piece follow the wall's curve. I filled the tiny cut lines with wood filler and you can't even see them now. It saved me from having to re-drywall or build out the whole wall. Has anyone else had to cut and piece trim to make it work on a really wavy wall?

The new bathroom vanity I installed last Tuesday started leaking from the supply line

I found a slow drip under the sink after three days, and it was coming from the shutoff valve I thought I had tightened enough. I had to take the whole thing apart, wrap the threads with fresh Teflon tape, and put it back together. Has anyone else had trouble with those quarter-turn valves from the big box stores?

I spent $400 on a paint sprayer for my kitchen cabinets and it was a total waste

I was set on getting a super smooth finish, so I bought a mid-range sprayer kit. After two days of taping everything off and practicing on scrap wood, I started on the cabinet frames. The sprayer clogged twice, left drips on the doors, and the cleanup took over an hour. I ended up finishing the job with a brush and roller in half the time and it looked just as good. Has anyone else had a sprayer turn a simple paint job into a huge mess?

I know everyone says to prime before painting, but I skipped it on my old garage door and it's been fine for 2 years

The door was this nasty, chipped beige and I just power washed it, let it dry for a full day, and rolled on two coats of a good exterior paint. No peeling or fading yet, even through a Chicago winter. Am I just lucky, or is priming sometimes overkill on a clean, sanded surface?

I finally tried that limewash paint on my brick fireplace after seeing it online, and it dried with these weird, patchy streaks.

I followed the instructions to a T, mixing the powder with water and applying two coats with a big brush, but maybe my old Chicago brick just soaked it up unevenly, so has anyone else had this happen and know how to fix it without starting over?

Showerthought: I just read that a standard interior door is 80 inches tall, not 84

Honestly, I was sketching a layout and my measurements felt off, so I looked it up. Found it in a random building code PDF from my county's website. Has anyone else run into a basic spec that was totally different from what you assumed?

Just counted 47 different paint samples on my living room wall

I was trying to pick a new color for the room and kept getting more of those little cards. I laid them all out last night and actually counted them, 47 little squares of almost the same beige. My wife walked in and said 'are you building a paint museum?' It's been three weeks and I still can't decide. How do you finally pick one and just go with it?

My dad pointed out that our old house had a real oak banister, not the MDF one in my current place

I mean, I was showing him my plans to paint it white, and he just said, 'You know, that old thing in your childhood home was solid wood, you could feel the grain under your hand,' which made me stop and rethink covering up the character of what I've got, even if it's not the 'real' stuff.

I went with a flat finish on my kitchen cabinets and it's been a fight to keep clean

When we redid the kitchen, I had to pick between a satin or flat finish for the cabinet paint. The flat looked so good and modern, so I went with that. After about six months, every little fingerprint and splash from the sink shows up like a dark spot. I'm wiping them down twice a week now. Anyone with flat cabinets have a good cleaner that doesn't leave streaks?

My kitchen backsplash tile was slightly uneven, so I tried using a 1/8 inch notch trowel instead of the standard 1/4 inch and it fixed the lippage completely.

Has anyone else found that adjusting the trowel size is the secret to a perfectly flat tile job, or was I just lucky this time?

Warning: My sister-in-law said open shelving is a mistake and I didn't listen

We were in my new kitchen in Cincinnati last year, right after I put up those trendy open shelves. She looked at them, then at my everyday plates, and said, 'You're going to be dusting those twice a week.' I laughed it off, thinking she was just being fussy. Fast forward six months, and she was completely right. Everything gets a fine layer of grease and dust, and my nice mugs look messy. Has anyone found a good-looking way to cover open shelves, or is the only fix taking them down?

Visited a friend's renovated 1920s bungalow in Atlanta and finally understood why they kept the original plaster walls.

I always thought plaster was just a messy pain to repair, but seeing how it absorbed sound and gave the rooms a solid, quiet feel completely changed my mind on preserving original materials.