Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Renovations are WELL underway!

Well, I have had a crash course in contractor 101. We started gutting this space on West Dimond in Anchorage, Alaska to eventually become a beautiful Aveda salon. I can say I see the light at the end of the tunnel! I have had some road bumps along the way with lazy sheetrockers, municipality permits and mixing paint... but overall I have held it all together and managed to keep my sanity and have learned a lot in the process.
The floors have taken SO MUCH work. We started by grinding the latex floor paint off with a floor buffer that had a sandpaper disc with grit the size of gravel. Then we used Orange-Sol to dissolve all the old adhesive and paint off the concrete. I was smelling orange for days... I still couldn't bring myself to eat one. EWE!
So by the time we were done with all that we were down to bare concrete and then we acid stained the concrete. Which consists of spraying acid stain all over the floor, letting it air dry, neutralizing it with mass amounts of baking soda (or TSP), rinsing it, rinsing it, rinsing it... and then sealing it with a sealer that smells like gallons of nail polish and melting rubber all swirled together. MMMMM!
I am very happy to say that the 300 plus man hours put into the floor paid off and I LOVE it!



The camera flash was reflecting off all the dust in the air.
My friend Brady has been so awesome to help me almost every night after he gets off work... Free haircuts for LIFE!!!

This picture is the old door that will be hanging from the ceiling as a partition between the front desk and the stylists stations. This door has inspired the rest of the salon in a rustic antique kind of way. I love it.


This is the beadboard in the bathroom. I am bringing in some of my southern style I learned to love living in Richmond, Virginia.




This pretty piece is going to be my front desk. I feel bad about defacing an antique to make it work with a computer, scanner, printer and cash drawer, but oh well! (I'm tearing the back off and permanently closing the drawers... sorry Grandma, I know you hate that!)



This is my pair of shelves I bought for some product display. I think they are so CUTE!