DIY

Categories: DIY, Home Improvement, One Room Challenge

One Room Challenge – Week 2 | Laminate Flooring Installation, Part One

This week I am sharing the part of laminate flooring installation that so far, I loath most of all – Prep work.

Hello again! So, the One Room Challenge adventures continue!

After emptying it out the room, it was time to pull up the carpet to prepare the room/subfloors for laminate floor installation.

This is my First. Time. Ever. installing laminate flooring. I’ve seen tutorials galore, I’ve read, read, and read instructions like a gazillion times. So I felt confident enough to try it. So, here’s me trying it.

Have you ever installed laminate flooring before?

Steps involved – rip up the carpet. To get out of the room in a not-break-your-back-fashion, I broke it up into 3 strips to carry downstairs to hold for bulk trash day. The padding was underneath, this is the grossest part. And this I did not break into 3 pieces, this stuff is flimsy anyways so it tore plenty, but I taped it up and used the muscle (my teenage son) to carry it downstairs.

Once the carpet and padding was up, I inspected the subfloor. I expected wood. But it was concrete and it wasn’t in the worst shape – I was thankful for that. Do you want to know what I was not NOT thankful for??? That would be the builders embedding nails in the concrete which I had to grind off so I could lay the underlayment down for the flooring.

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After getting over the terror of using an angle grinder for the first time, I then laid the underlayment. Note to all: lay with tape facing up. I didn’t do that the first time through so I had to pull it up, play musical underlayment and lay it down again. Then it was off to the laminate flooring installation races.

But as a weekend warrior and full time employee and mom, that really has taken me forever. I think I hope to be done with the floors this week. I have to hustle. These have certainly taken me more than anticipated.

Read more about the ONE ROOM CHALLENGE by clicking here. There are a lot of folks working on room transformations, be sure to check them out.

Categories: DIY, Home Improvement, One Room Challenge

One Room Challenge – Week 1 | The Multi-Duty Spare Room

This year I decided to do something wild, something unexpected, something AWESOME!!! I decided to challenge myself in joining the One Room Challenge as a Guest Participant to share my room transformation.

If you don’t know what the One Room Challenge is all about, read about it here. Basically, it is a place/challenge where room renovators take on a space to give a new look.

The challenge will enable me to meet new individuals transforming their space and will give me a chance to work with a purpose and an endgame in mind.

It’s going to be a crazy ride, but it should be a fun one nonetheless.

So if you are here for the first time… WELCOME!!! and thanks for stopping by. I’m Jessie. I work full-time, mom 3 boys and married my partner in crime. In my spare time (which is not much, mind you), I like to DIY and woodwork. I love transforming spaces, so this seemed like a great challenge to try.

So, here is my space. It is a spare room in our house. This used to be our Littles (my two youngest boys) room until I moved them out.

With me having an empty room with no purpose, I figured it would be nice to change things up so it doesn’t remain the toy dumping ground it quickly became.

Now that we’ve been down memory lane, here are a few images that have sparked my interest and have inspired me to change things up.

The room is not large by any means. It has 2 doors on one wall, a window on another and a closet across from that. I only have one solid door to work with.

The room has been emptied and now it is time to remove the carpet to start laying new laminate flooring. It will be a first for me, but here’s hoping for a smooth process.

I hope to be here each week to share the good, the bad, and the unexpected craziness life throws in because the real life home renovations are

certainly NOT what we see on TV!

Read more about the ONE ROOM CHALLENGE by clicking here. There are a lot of folks working on room transformations, be sure to check them out.

Categories: DIY, Media and Interviews

Built by Jessie on the Maker Mom Podcast

So I was recently interviewed by fellow Maker and friend Katie Freeman from Freeman Furnishings.

In addition to being a wife, maker, and mom, Katie also has a podcast Maker Mom Podcast. She asked me to be a part of the podcast and I happily obliged.

Go give the podcast a listen. Disclaimer, there is a lot of LOLing. Sorry. Not Sorry. That’s just who I am.

Episode 34 – Jessie with Built by Jessie

After listening, be sure to check out all these other makers that were interviewed by Katie. This list keeps growing!!

Maker Mom Podcast Show Notes

It is so fun to get to learn something new from a fellow maker at heart.

Categories: DIY

Why DIY?

Why do I DIY? Well, because it is fun!

There is actually more to that. Truth be told, my DIY journey started around 2010 after we moved into our house. We bought a lot more house than (1) we needed and (2) quite honestly, could not comfortably afford. But we wanted the “big house” so that’s what we got. #sillykids

Anyways, big house and little money left over meant we were broke for the time being. Having no money didn’t take away from my wanting a pretty home, but not wanting to get into debt meant it had to be done in a affordable manner. And so I met a little friend called DIY.

I started with small projects here and there until a couple of years after when my husband, after seeing my passion for all things DIY, gifted me a starter tool kit set for Christmas and a compound miter saw on my birthday. I haven’t been able to stop. I love building things. If I see it, I love it, I build it! Just like that… Well, with a lot of trips to the home improvement stores, whole lot of choice words… and scratches… and spinter (damn, I hate splinters)… But when all is said and done it’s just a proud happy dance like kinda moment.

I believe that there is nothing you can’t do or figure out. You too can transform each room in your home to make it, well, yours!

DIYing is both a blessing in a curse. A blessing because, you can make thiings!!! . A curse because you want to make everything and sometimes there just isn’t enough time (and money) for it all!

Thanks for stopping by!

Categories: DIY, Home Improvement

HELLO AND WELCOME

… and so it begins.

Starting this blog to document the projects I make. It can be something for the home – mine or someone else’s.

It can be to share some tips I picked up along the way. I like making personalized wood signs, so there can be a lot of that here. There can even be some DIY fun at home – because who doesn’t love a good ‘ol DIY??

Stay tuned as I share my adventures in building and DIY-ing!

Find me on Instagram as @builtbyjessie sharing the ups and downs of DIY.