Greetings from Miami, FL.

[twolitre]

Hello everybody.

I just closed on a house that's 3 parts garage, 1 part house.

it's got a 3 car garage that takes up roughly 1300 square feet, and the living area of the house is about 1800 square feet.

on the garage side, it's set up where there's a total of 3 doors: one garage is 2 cars deep, the other is a standard single-car stall.

the big garage has a door that leads out to the driveway, but it's also got another door that leads to the back yard; so it's a pass-through.

it's a good thing, because i need the room to store all of the car parts i've got laying around, and more importantly, it'll allow me to pick up another toy to wrench on.

it's also nice to have a place to park inside.

but first, we're redoing the roof on the whole house. after that, we're going to tear out all the ancient tile, and redo the HVAC system.

then it's work on the kitchen and master bath time.

i'll post pics of before, during, and after as it happens as soon as i can get em.


i look forward to learning and sharing on these boards.

 

[930dreamer]

Welcome to the GJ, post some pics.

 

[Wingnut65]

Welcome to GJ, 2L! Sounds like you have a nice place and know what you are looking for. Be careful here, your plans will be changing.

I have 35 years of roots in Miami from the Bird Road and Kendall areas. Still have family there and get back whenever I can.

Be sure to post a few pix here as you start, but get a build thread started to go into details of your projects. Good Luck with your build!

 

[twolitre]

so we've been hard at it and the first two "complete" projects are done... the flooring of the living area, and the roof.

so here's an update.

we were able to remove all of the tile, leaving only the thinset behind.

we called a bunch of flooring specialists out to check out what we had to work with.

half of them tried to talk me into smoothing then pouring an epoxy type of compound in the style of terrazzo for roughly $8-9.50 per square foot.

the other half told me they could remove the thinset, grind down the terrazzo, and then we'd have to pray for the best results, but they made no promises that it would shine or even look decent. these guys wanted $7-8 per square foot.

the house is roughly 1600 square feet. the terrazzo floor is EVERYWHERE; all of the living area, the kitchen, bathrooms, closet, bedrooms, etc. the only place it isn't is in the garage (which is a shame, because i would have LOVED that).

then i came across this ONE guy. apparently this company specializes in restoring this type of flooring. their references include all of Miami's Design District and Historic South Beach. basically, his company is responsible for restoring all of the vintage terrazzo flooring in all of the historic Art Deco buildings in South Beach, and all of the historic buildings in Miami's Design District.

he came out, looked around, took some measurements, and said "as long as the pits and blemishes aren't deeper than 3mm, we can make this look like new and shine to any level you want."

he then told me they have 2 outcomes: the "maintenance free" and the "some maintenance required" finishes.

the some maintenance means they grind, polish, then apply a coating that requires buffing/refinishing/recoating every 3-4 years, depending on traffic.

the maintenance free finish means grind, polish, then keep polishing up to a very high grit, hitting it with a sealant, and polishing some more. it's good for 13-15 years in a commercial application.

the difference between the two for my small house is $400.

total cost of the job? $2300 and 4 days. if i wanted them to remove the tile, it would be $3500 including disposal, plus a total of 6 days of work.

if you're paying attention, that means this guy came in at $1.44 per square foot if i pulled off the tile myself.

so i grabbed a sledgehammer and a shovel, and got to work on that tile. with a little help from my brother, i managed to clear it all out in about 4 days (after work, and one saturday).

pics? sure!


here's what the living room looked like once a upon a time. they built some kind of wooden platform and covered it in carpet on top of the white tile. complete rubbish.

this is the only shot i've got of what we are now calling the "terrible tile."

after a few days of swinging a hammer and throwing a shovel here's what we had. this is where the platform and couch used to be (as seen above).

and here's a shot from where the couch used to be, towards the kitchen.

as you can see in the last 2 pics, there's thinset pretty much everywhere (because there was tile everywhere).

so after doing further demolition, patching up some drywall, redoing some plumbing, here's a couple shots of our end result.

here's what it actually looks like up close.

and here's 2 shots from the rear sliding glass door towards the open front door of the house. in this first one you can see the house across the street.

same shot, same angle, just left the doorway out of frame.

i particularly like how clear the reflection is in the second shot. (keep in mind, this was done in the late afternoon, and with my phone).

needless to say, i'm very pleased with the results. especially at the alarmingly low price i got.

over the next few days i'll head out there with my camera and take some better shots with some better light.


now we move onto the kitchen, bathrooms, and master bedroom.


... and of course, then there's the garage.

 

[regguy1]

I like that floor.....

 

[Wingnut65]

I miss the terrazo we had in Miami. Yours turned out awesome. Great price, too!

 

[twolitre]

it's all over the house!

it's a shame it's not in the garage, too.... i guess we'll have to start shopping race deck once the rest of the place is done.