Friday, September 4, 2015

New Hardwood Floors

So..... I took a 3 month blog break. I didn't plan on it, it just kind of happened. 
I hope all of you had a nice summer. I did. It was nice spending time with my family and I got a few projects done.

In my last post, I shared with you that we were getting hardwood floors. We've had them over 3 months now and I love them. 

Here is before.

We wanted to save a little money so we pulled up the carpet and prepared the floor ourselves. 

Ignorance is really bliss! I had no idea how hard it was going to be to remove all the particle board that was beneath the carpet. Using a crowbar, (we tried everything) it literally came up in small pieces.

The heating and cooling vents had to be lowered.

Lots of sweeping and vacuuming.

The carpet was over 20 years old. I liked it better already. This is the view coming in the back french door.

We moved most of the furniture on the back porch but worked around these heavier pieces.

We decided on a prefinished hardwood. The brand name of the floor is Somerset and the color is provincial. We ordered it online. We saved about $700 compared to what the local floor places wanted for the same floor. 

We hired these guys to install it.  It would have taken us years... seriously.

I wanted to show you these cool vents. They fit flat to the floor so you can put furniture on top of them if needed. I had to stain the outer piece because it was nailed down with the rest of the floor but the vent part is removable. I still need to stain them.

Because one thing always leads to another... I painted the front door.

And the stairs. I also painted the end tables. I actually painted the end tables 4 times (each) .... white, gray, green, then back to white... but we won't talk about that.

I painted the french doors inside and out. Remember I had wanted to paint them black? With the brown floors, I think white is best. (unless I change my mind...)

I've only mopped these floors twice in the past 3 months. Having a no shoe policy helps with that! I occasionally vacuum and dust mop. They look clean even when they're dirty. 
Gotta love that!

That's it for the new floors. I can't wait to hear what you think.
I look forward to visiting and catching up with all of you.
  I hope you were inspired! 
Thank you so much for stopping by Thrift My House.

31 comments:

  1. Your floors are gorgeous and what a difference they make to the whole feel of the room!! I love the clean feel of hardwoods too. All of your painting of the wood work on the doors and stairs adds to the fresh crisp look...just Beautiful!!
    Mary Alice

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  2. You've been very busy, Sherry! Your new floor looks great and I love the white doors and stairs as well. Great choices!
    Julia

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  3. Welcome back to blog-land, your pretty face was missed around here :) Your floors are beautiful and they make the room look so much bigger. I love what you did with the staircase, too.
    Have a lovely day and again welcome back.
    Connie :)

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  4. Love your new floors and your home looks great.

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  5. Hi Sherry, Love your new floors. It looks fabulous and all the painted furniture is gorgeous. It just pops with the wood color and gives it dimension. The doors white are awesome too. Love it all.
    So glad you enjoyed a great summer. Sure missed you.
    Have a great holiday weekend. cm

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  6. Welcome back, Sherry! I hope you've had a great summer! I LOVE your floors! Beautiful! Your home is beautiful and it looks even more so with the new floors and lighter paint colors here and there. You have a good eye for details. I applaud your guys for doing so much work yourselves---what a mess!! And we have learned, too, that it pays to shop around for flooring. I'm looking for wood and tile for the lakehouse and I went to three stores in one day and they were so far apart for basically the same products. AND--you can negotiate on the price. I never knew that.

    So great to hear what you are up to!

    Jane x

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  7. Wow Sherry! Your floor turned out fantastic. Love it so much better than carpet. Love that you painted the stair rails and table white too. And the french doors look great too. It all looks so fresh. Welcome back to blogland. We've missed you.

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  8. Missed you Sherry! Your floors are absolutely fabulous!

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  9. Hi Sherry,
    Oh my these are just gorgeous floors. Wow everything looks so nice. I bet you just smile now when you look at your pretty floors. So much easier to keep clean than carpet too. So happy to see a post from you. Missed you.
    Kris

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  10. Fabulous floors!

    Our cottage had white berber carpeting throughout - even the bathroom. We were so happy when we tore up the carpeting to find the original oak floors. I think wood floors are so much easier to care for.

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  11. Oh my those floors look wonderful, we are thinking about doing the same thing, we have lived in the house for 10 years and the house is close to 20 years old too I believe so that means the carpet is probably that old too and with 2 aging cats and one aging dog well you can imagine how many times the carpet has been cleaned and I think it is taking a toll. I love the white you chose for the doors stairs and tables. I like how you couldn't make up your mind what color to do them, but that is the beauty of paint right :) Glad to hear you had such a great summer!

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  12. I LOVE your new floors and all of the white painting you did! A good choice Sherry!. It all turned out amazing. Glad you took the summer off. Those days seem to turn into months so quickly, don't they! Looking forward to seeing your colorful post with your end tables. Glad I'm not the only one with paint regrets. My brother in-law came over once and told me I was decreasing the square footage of the house with all the painting I have done. Have a great September Sherry!

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  13. Your new floors are beautiful! I know you must love them. We really need to replace our carpet upstairs. It's almost 20 yrs old too. I can't believe we haven't done it by now. Ick! I like how you painted your doors white and the stair trim. I did the same thing with mine since they were that orangey brown stain that I didn't like. I don't ever plan to live with carpet on the main level again and I'm sure you won't either after having done this!

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  14. I love them! What a great color! And you are right about the white with the darker floors...I would keep it all white!

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  15. WOW! Just beautiful! I can see why you were away for three months. :-)
    Everything you painted made it all the more beautiful.
    Now enjoy!

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  16. Welcome back! I was wondering when you were going to have a new post!! :-) LOVE those floors...and what great choices with the paint! It all looks gorgeous and I'm so proud for you!! BTW, I have that same white rug! ;-)

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  17. Welcome Back ( your dreams were your ticket out - couldn't resist - sorry LOL ) What a HUGE difference the floors make - they look gorgeous Sherry !
    I agree the doors look best white - but all of what you've done - the front door - the stair rails - ALL of it - your space looks just beautiful !
    xxx

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  18. So THAT's what you have been doing! I came by to visit you a week or so ago and saw that there were no new posts from you. We will be going through this in the near future too...except our carpet is 30 years old! Your floors look SO lovely...very similar to what we have picked out. I am getting excited but we have outside projects that I am more concerned with before the bad weather comes. We are in the middle of getting our house (outside) painted and a covered front porch added! I hope to be able to post an update soon! Good to see you back and congrats on the new floors!

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  19. Gorgeous, Sherry, absolutely gorgeous! I'm sure you are loving the end result, even though we know it's Never the end :) Blessings, Cindy

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  20. Welcome back Sherry. Can't believe how fast summer has come and gone. Your floors turned out absolutely fantastic! I love, love, love them. And the other changes you did (painting projects) look great. You most definitely had a full and productive summer.

    Hugs,
    ❤️Ana

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  21. Welcome back Sherry! The new floors are fabulous! And I love the pretty white tables and stairs! Looks so fresh and inviting! ~Rhonda

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  22. Sherry,
    Thank you for visiting me, I appreciate your sweet words left behind. It's nice to see you back to blogging. I too took a month off when we were knee deep in renovations and updates.
    I love your choice of hardwood, beautiful floor. Us too with a no shoes policy... It's now 5 years. It started because my cat Simon was getting terrible eye infections and the 5 th visit to the vet I asked what can we do to prevent any more eye infections. I don't know why she didn't tell us earlier but Simon was sensitive to a virus that gets tracked in on shoes. YIKES, imagine the germs coming into our homes on the bottom of those shoes. I am so happy to report that Simon has not had an eye virus infection ever since we went with a no shoes policy in our house.
    Your woodwork - doors and trim, tables look so crisp painted in White and add just the perfect contrast to delight the eye in your pretty house,
    xo,
    Vera

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  23. Hi Sherry and welcome back! Your floors look amazing! Don't you love how it makes the house seem larger? That's what I thought when we took the carpet out of our first house and put in wood. You are right - it's so much easier to take care of.

    You crack me up painting and repainting. White just can't be wrong!! I know it's popular these days to paint doors black but when the sun shines in it seems to create a black hole effect so I vote for white. :)

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  24. Your new floors look great. I love the color too. We want to replace the carpet on our stairs so bad. Hopefully that'll happen soon.

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  25. Love it all, even though one thing leads to another, and another, and......

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  26. Your new floors are gorgeous, Sherry! Between the floors and the painted doors - what a huge transformation. Everything looks great!

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  27. These floors look great! It is a great transformation everything is looking amazing. Wooden floorings have always been my favourite, it has been just only one year that we have changes our normal flooring to wooden flooring. It has completed changed the look of our home.

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  28. I love the doors in white. It looks fresh and beautiful!! You do a great job decorating.

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  29. Love the white plates on the wall as a decor items!

    http://beautyfollower.blogspot.gr/

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  30. Sherry, I LOVE your floor! I have wanted to rip all the carpet up in my house for a long time now...but time and money just hasn't been on our side. I'm gonna admit something....can't believe I am, ok here goes...the carpet in my bedroom has been there since the house has been built...in 1977!!! Powder blue!!! Well, used to be powder blue. Whew! that was hard! Maybe one day....just one of the many projects that need to be tackled around here. Anyway! I love your blog! I hope to get mine going in the future.

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  31. Everything looks fantastic! Can I come to your house for Thanksgiving? -Nornee

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