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All entries by Megan Sprague

DIY: Walnut Bathroom Renovation Part II

Posted by Megan Sprague
Just a quick update on my bathroom project: Dan began hand-crafting our vanity last weekend. He spent Friday through Sunday in the garage measuring, cutting and constructing the vanity…all while I was away with my Mom in Virginia visiting with my Grammy. I am pleasantly surprised by the results so far.

Here’s Dan doing a little bit of touch up sanding.

We have quite a few more steps to complete until we’re finished, but we’re getting there. Next we have to: paint, build the doors and drawers and choose our counter tops. That’s all for now, I’ll write more soon once we begin the painting and door/drawer crafting.

Posted on May 16, 2008 at 02:54 PM in (0) Comments
On the Road: DC Open House

Posted by Megan Sprague
I have just returned from our Georgetown design center and firstly, what a beautiful space—secondly our open house event was a great success!

We had a wonderful group of people stop in for the evening. I was able to speak with quite a few clients that our sales group is working with and help them locate some new samples, talk about the wood species they are interested and overall talk about their projects.

Jane stopped in, she is one of Lynne Rafuse’s clients and she lives in Georgetown—a short jaunt from our center. I enjoyed my chat with her about Heart Pine and how she’s really looking forward to it in the complete renovation project of her home. I also had the pleasure to speak with Sue and Jay of Maryland. They bought our Eastern White Pine from Gary Ryer a few years ago and installed the floor themselves. In their upcoming project, they want to use the Eastern White Pine again, but they want wider boards, up to 15” this time!

Throughout the night, it got the chance to meet many other Carlisle friends. The girls from Washington SPACES stopped over too! We’ve chosen to advertise in SPACES, it’s such an awesome publication—check it out.

Clare, Hannah, Janel and I had so much fun visiting with all of our guests! We thank those of you that were able to make it!

Join us for Green Drinks DC—June 10th from 6:30-9:30.

Posted on May 8, 2008 at 10:57 AM in (1) Comments
On the Road: Carlisle Design Center Open House in Chicagoland!

Posted by Megan Sprague

I’m just returning home from another Carlisle open house! Last Thursday, May 1st we opened our doors for friends, neighbors, architects, designers and the media. We were very pleased with our attendance. A few friends of mine stopped by: Melodie Bishop from Chicago Public Radio. I enjoyed showing her our “Recycling History” DVD which is all about our FSC Certified Antique wood.

Jan Parr, Editor of Chicago Home + Garden also stopped over for some goodies and a nice chat. She’s got a blog of her own. Our friendly neighbor, Doug Van Tress from The Golden Triangle also stopped by. A very nice Dean Batogowski, Publisher of Luxe Magazine’s Chicago edition was also kind to visit. The Chicago team: Brian, Eric, Erin, Kate and Katelyn had a lot of fun mingling with their clients and meeting new ones. Erin and I both enjoyed meeting the folks from the local ASID chapter, James and Elizabeth who we spoke at length with.

The event was a great success and we are very pleased to be members of the River North neighborhood.

See us at the Showcase River North, May 13th at the Holiday Inn-Mart Plaza from 4-7 pm.

Posted on May 8, 2008 at 10:14 AM in (0) Comments
DIY: Walnut Bathroom Renovation

Posted by Megan Sprague
As a proud member of Carlisle’s marketing team, I wanted to share my most recent do-it-yourself project—the installation of my very first Carlisle floor! I chose Walnut because of its beautiful brown tones with highlights of golden honey and the nice figuring in the grain patterns.

I began my project in September 2007 when my boyfriend Dan and I first decided to embark on the demolition of our current bathroom. We knew straight off that it was going to be a fairly large undertaking, but we also knew it had to be done. After two days of destroying, hauling pieces of old sheetrock, insulation and tile out by the truckload we were finally down to the rafters.

As we have delicately built the bathroom back up we decided to make our project as custom as we could afford. Firstly, we’ve done the entire project ourselves: plumbing, electrical, everything! (We did have the extra hands of our dads helping out, which is great.) Dan invented his own radiant heat system—it’s a built-in subfloor unit with PEX tubing (which we purchased on EBay inexpensively). We were able to install our Carlisle floor directly on top of our radiant heat system. We also did a tile inlay underneath our toilet and in front of our bathtub, and it was really easy to make both the tile and the walnut work nicely together during the installation—we had zero hiccups.

One of the best parts during our renovation was applying the tung oil to our floor. We thought the wood was stunning before we started the finishing process, but as we added the coats of tung oil we were amazed at how it heightens the swirling grains and warm chocolaty tones.

A few holidays, snowmobile season and a litter of Weimaraner puppies later and we are still working on our bathroom! We are hand making our vanity and that’s our current stage of the process. Stay tuned for the vanity and completion of my bathroom

Posted on April 22, 2008 at 10:54 AM in DIY • (0) Comments
The Kitchen and Bath Industry Show in Chicago—what a great show!

Posted by Megan Sprague

I just returned from the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show in Chicago—what a great show! The venue is in such a beautiful place, bordering Lake Michigan and large enough to fill three exhibit halls worth of kitchen and bathroom products/services. Carlisle’s booth was in the Lakeside Center. Our 200 square foot booth had two of our signature wood floors: 12-16” Eastern White Pine with Plymouth Pumpkin stain and 7-10” Hickory with our Tung Oil finish. Both floors and sample panels were show stoppers and attracted DIY homeowners and architects/designers alike. Our sales staff had a nice time chatting with clients and really enjoyed the high number of people walking KBIS this year. Gary and Erin especially liked answering questions and educating booth visitors about our new Custom Coat™ Pre-Finished floors—our latest product to launch. Brian and Eric, members of our sales staff from our new Chicago design center commented that dispelling common myths about wood floors was one of their favorite topics to speak about.

As I walked the show, I did see some neat products. The latest kitchen and bathroom counters that peaked my interest are of recycled glass and I saw some neat handmade pullware for kitchen or bathroom cabinets, designed to match any style or decor. Lastly, radiant heat—which has become a popular heating source, is a luxury underfoot in bathrooms. Before the show ended I was able to listen to Home Magazine Live, a radio program hosted by Alan Taylor—he interviewed our very own Gary Ryer for a short segment on our wide plank floors.

Posted on April 16, 2008 at 03:38 PM in (1) Comments