A couple months ago I posted about our very dated foyer at a condo we have out in West Hollywood. I shared some before photos. Boy it was UGLY, wasn’t it? I promised some after photos to follow. Well, the time has come and I’ve finally been back out to the condo to get some after pictures of the finished foyer. So here it is, the Condo Renovations Foyer after photo.
When we first bought the place, I immediately had the mirrors removed, then patched and painted the wall, as well as painted the entire condo. I also replaced the light fixture with a “Sputnik” light (affiliate link). We are going for a more hip, modern feel in the condo. Here’s how the foyer looked when we bought it, the wall after the mirrors were removed (what a mess!) and the new, funky light.
I originally planned on installing the new tile floor myself. I love projects around the house. I’m a DIY’er at heart. How hard could it possibly be to lay a tile floor? I helped tile a kitchen floor years ago, and I tiled the entire kitchen backsplash by myself, this was just on a larger scale, right?
After the floor was demo’d the subfloor was a total mess. It wasn’t level and removing the old tile left a lot of chipped out holes in the cement floor. I think they set the tile in the cement subfloor! It was a lot of hard work for the guys to remove. Once they were done, I hurried off to the local Home Depot and bought some self leveling cement and went to work trying to fix the problem.
Mistake. BIG, BIG, MISTAKE!
I discovered it’s not that easy to level a cement floor by yourself. Ideally, I should have had some help to mix the leveling cement and pour while I was smoothing it out. I was only able to mix a bucket at a time, which is NOT the way to do it. It all sounded great in my head, just didn’t quite work out how I planned it. Some batches of the leveling cement were good, some a little lumpy. Basically I made a mess of the floor!
Then, to add to my stress and frustration with this project, I was told the tile I ordered would not be in on time. I was only in Los Angeles for a few days and now I wouldn’t be able to put the floor in myself. So I cancelled my tile order, went down to Emser Tile and let my son pick out some different tile he liked better, lined up a contractor to install the floor and flew home. STRESS ->GONE!
I have to say that was probably the best thing that ever happened to this project. The flooring my son picked out has much more veining than I had originally picked but I think it’s okay (the color is a little off in these pictures, it’s really just white and grays). And even better yet, it was much cheaper than what I ordered. Score! Especially since I now had to pay a contractor to fix my mistakes and do all the work.
Lesson learned I through this process? Plan for delays, complications and hire a professional!
In case you were curious, here’s what’s in the foyer:
Paint Colors: Benjamin Moore #168 Chelsea Gray (a beautiful gray, better in person than my photo) and Home Depot Decorator White
Tile: Emser Tile Pergamo Glazed Porcelain, Bianco 12×24
Andalucia Modern White Leather Bench from Overstock.com
We’ve also completely remodeled the kitchen, took out a wall and arched doorways. Quite a transformation. I’ll have those before and after photos up soon! You won’t want to miss them.