Hi there,
my parents are arriving soon for our housewarming party tomorrow, but before I wanted to share with you a project I have been working on for the last week or so.
Our balcony floor was hideous. Sorry, no sugar-coating here. It was just dull ole grey concrete and I hated it. Also, when the sun shone on it in summer, it got really hot making us perform a sort of hopping-dance to get out or in. Not good at all. The balcony is not big and so I have been dreaming of some pretty hardwood flooring for a while, but even if we bought the cheapest flooring out there, it still would have cost us 50 to 60 euros. No way, Jose! And of course, there is the dilemma of buying hardwood... killing the rainforest for a pretty balcony... naaaah. But hardwood floors look so pretty, I kept thinking. So I went out for a compromise. If I was to buy hardwood flooring, it will be second hand. Then still some damage is done to the rainforest and I don't even want to get inot carbon footprinting, but at leat, I am salvaging using what is already there and not demanding more new wood. Also, it would probably be cheaper. Win/win situation!
I took a while but in the end I found the EXACT right amount of hardwood floortiles second hand online, and for 10 euros!! A fifth of what new tiles would have cost me! Yey!
They were in need of a bit of TLC, I admit. All covered in soil and dust and spiderwebs, but the tiles themselves were in good condition. So I gave them a good scrub to remove all the gunk, ssanded them lightly and applied some new sealing. Voila! We have a wooden deck which looks absolutely fab while being el cheapo.
Now come on, summer! We are ready for you.
Before the big scrubbing. Grey (not the good, patina grey) and dusty.
After scrubbing. Oh, THAT is the original color!
After sealing with hardwood floor sealing stuffy. Pretty, rich dark brown. Teak-y.
The new and imprved balcony. Our next project is to get some decent chairs, obviously. But I have not yet found any. In the back you can see my tomatoes going strong, some tiny little carrots coming up in the round blue pot and in the limegreen container our rocket is finally producing some leaves. There were more, actually, but they landed on my sandwich for lunch that day ;)
Have a good weekend. See ya next week.
my parents are arriving soon for our housewarming party tomorrow, but before I wanted to share with you a project I have been working on for the last week or so.
Our balcony floor was hideous. Sorry, no sugar-coating here. It was just dull ole grey concrete and I hated it. Also, when the sun shone on it in summer, it got really hot making us perform a sort of hopping-dance to get out or in. Not good at all. The balcony is not big and so I have been dreaming of some pretty hardwood flooring for a while, but even if we bought the cheapest flooring out there, it still would have cost us 50 to 60 euros. No way, Jose! And of course, there is the dilemma of buying hardwood... killing the rainforest for a pretty balcony... naaaah. But hardwood floors look so pretty, I kept thinking. So I went out for a compromise. If I was to buy hardwood flooring, it will be second hand. Then still some damage is done to the rainforest and I don't even want to get inot carbon footprinting, but at leat, I am salvaging using what is already there and not demanding more new wood. Also, it would probably be cheaper. Win/win situation!
I took a while but in the end I found the EXACT right amount of hardwood floortiles second hand online, and for 10 euros!! A fifth of what new tiles would have cost me! Yey!
They were in need of a bit of TLC, I admit. All covered in soil and dust and spiderwebs, but the tiles themselves were in good condition. So I gave them a good scrub to remove all the gunk, ssanded them lightly and applied some new sealing. Voila! We have a wooden deck which looks absolutely fab while being el cheapo.
Now come on, summer! We are ready for you.
Have a good weekend. See ya next week.
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