Pool House Flooring Update

Hey! I accidentally took a few weeks off here on the blog. The Mr. and I have been working our fingers to the bone on the pool house and we finished all the flooring! Apparently, I’m older than I used to be. Back in the day, I could DIY in the AM and blog the results at night. Now as we are getting closer to 40, I basically passed out as soon as my kids go to bed, hence the radio silence over here. The Mr. and I also sound like a bowl of Rice Krispies with all the snap crackling and popping our joints are doing – yikes! Thankfully our rusty DIY skills were still alive and well, despite not tackling a big project in a while.

Excuse the dust and dirt in all these quick iPhone photos. Everyone has been in and out with dirty boots and sawdust, so I need to wash everything yet. Also, we used satin paint on everything but in the iPhone photos, the glare makes it look glossy.

Pool House Flooring

It took us a long weekend and a few weeknights to get all the luxury vinyl plank flooring installed. It was a pretty easy job – just tedious. I had a lot of questions on Instagram about where we learned to do this. There are a bunch of great YouTube videos out there. Basically, if you can use a saw (which anyone can, I promise), you can do this. It is a floating floor, so it all just pops together with a little finagling and a rubber mallet and block. Side note: just be careful where you are swinging the rubber mallet while your partner holds the floor locked in. The Mr. came very close to giving me an accidental nose job a time or two. He spared my nose, but managed to hit his own fingers and has the blood blisters to prove it!

Don’t mind the painter’s tape on the floor – I’m trying to decide on couch size. I bought an 8×10 rug in here and I think I’m shooting for an 80-inch couch, which is what is taped out there.

I’m really happy with the flooring. I wanted something a little darker than the floors in our home to hide dirt, but still something light and coastal feeling. I had a lot of questions on how luxury vinyl plank compares to our engineered wood flooring. I think it looks great, even though I can tell it isn’t real wood. It looks beautiful and judging from the number of times we dropped tools on it while installing, it’s definitely indestructible. Plus it’s completely waterproof, which will be great with wet feet/towels from the pool.

We installed the flooring the short way vs. the long way like the boards used to go. It’s crazy how much wider this made the room look as it had a bit of a bowling alley vibe before.

Next up was tackling all the tiling. I started small with the backsplash while The Mr. finished off the LVP flooring. Again tiling is a totally doable DIY and YouTube videos are your friend. When we have tiled in the past, we have always rented a wet saw, but wow the rental price has jumped. It was actually only $15 more to just buy our own saw. Although after finishing 4 solid days of tiling we both vowed never to tile again. I’m sure once we can feel our knees again we will change our minds about that.

I’m still waiting on one more barstool to arrive for the snack bar.

The trickiest part about tiling is figuring out the math to pick a starting point. Luckily the Mr. was in charge there as we wanted everything to line up right with the countertop (we still need to caulk between the tile and countertop yet). Oh, and our countertops are in! Man, I really have been holding out on you. It feels like all of a sudden a thousand things happened in the course of 10 days. This little pseudo kitchen area is really coming together. The cabinet doors are being installed later this week as well!

Pool House Tile

Again these floors are filthy, I cannot wait to give everything a good scrubbing.

Once we had familiarized ourselves with tiling the backsplash, we tackled the mudroom and bathroom floors. I’ve never done a patterned tile like this and I’m glad we are both still alive to tell the tale. I can’t tell you how many times we would measure and mark the tiles to cut, only to realize we had flipped the tile around in the process and cut the wrong side off. Thankfully we always realized it before we got too far in the process and were able to take the tile up before our ineptitude was permanently memorialized for all to see. This floor was our Everest! We were so happy when we were done and the pattern was intact – phew! The shoe molding still needs to be installed if you notice the little gaps by the baseboards.

I have to say I’m in love with how it turned out! It’s just the right amount of fun and whimsy for a pool house space but with a classic feel that will age well. Don’t mind the photo frames below I was testing out which size will hide the pesky electrical box there.

Wow and I almost signed off there, but we haven’t even talked about the lights! The electrician installed all of the lighting fixtures this week and they are so fun. We used all smart switches so you can control the lights from anywhere and now the Mr. sits in bed flipping lights on and off from his phone like a maniac. What can I say? We are easily amused these days.

Charlie approves of any room that has a good napping spot, so this room is a dream for him. I was trying to determine if I wanted Euro shams or standard shams on the bed and he was my helper. We agreed Euro was the way to go.

Ok, NOW I think that’s everything! Wow, we are so close to being done over here. The plumber is coming next week, the trim guys need to add the shoe molding a few little touch-up things here and there and I can move stuff in after a good scrubbing! Well more stuff, you may notice I stuck the tv console in here, (so we could see what height to hang the tv) and the little storage cabinet in the mudroom too. Ok and the kitchen stools…I know it makes zero sense to be decorating a construction zone, but I can’t help myself. I’m pretty proud that I have refrained from hanging on art on the walls!

You can check out more of this project below –

Bunk Room Mood Board

Pool House Bathroom Plans

SOURCES: Disclaimer – This post contains affiliate links. I may receive a small commission for purchases made through these links at no extra cost to you. Just click on the BOLD links.

TV Console

Mudroom Cabinet

Patterned Tile

Backsplash Tile

Luxury Vinyl Plank Flooring

Wall color – Extra White by Sherwin Williams

Cabinet color – Blue Note by Benjamin Moore

Countertop – Quartz by Vicostone the color is Olympus White

Grey flush mount lights

Brass Sconces

Mattress

Counter Stools