The Floor Project

When we bought our house over 3 years ago, the very first thing I wanted to change about the house was the floors. The people who built the house had tile in the kitchen and really poor quality carpet in the entry way and living room (by the way, who puts carpet in the entry way?!). We very much disliked that carpet as it would roll, we would have it stretched, it would roll again, etc. It was matted down and had stains. Yep, we hated it. We finally got the courage to tackle this huge project around Memorial Day. Some called us crazy for doing this project with twins, and although it would have been easier to have done it before they were born, at least we got it done before they were moving around! 

Honestly, doing floors is totally doable - really, anyone could do it. The worst part, by far, was the demolition of the existing tile. I have never sanded so much in my life. It took about a week from start to finish, and I am just so in love with the final product. We found the laminate wood during some crazy 50% off sale at Lumber Liquidators, and doing the project ourselves saved a ton of money. It has made the house look so much bigger and more open.

Ok, now for some pictures.

Here is a poor quality BEFORE picture from the front door point of view. This was before a few winters had their effect on this carpet. 

A close-up of the floors. We went with a lighter wood after a lot of people told us to avoid super dark floors, especially with little kids. Apparently they are next to impossible to keep clean! Also, since we were used to a "lighter" floor with light tile and carpet, we were hesitant to all the sudden bring in really dark colors. It's definitely a "cooler" tone, but that works with the rest of my house. I'm totally in love.

View of the front door

And because I always love seeing a few "during" pictures, here they are. Like I said, the demo of the tile was the worst part of the project. We used a crazy drill to get the tile up, and then had to sand all of the grout away. Ugh! 

Laying the floors in our front room (sorry for the poor quality phone picture). Once we figured out how the system works, it went pretty fast. We definitely had to do some areas 2-3 times. Live and learn.

Finally, I just have to quickly mention our lovely, plush, oh-so-comfortable rug that I am in love with. We had a thin flat-weave rug there before that I knew would need to be replaced with something more plush for the babies to play on. I had seen a rug from one of my favorite bloggers that she had in her home and loved. Two years later I still couldn't get that rug out of my mind! Thanks to a Memorial Day sale at Rugs USA, that rug is now mine! We love it.

And I couldn't finish a post about our floor project without publicly thanking my dad for his incredible DIY wisdom and free time and Russ's dad for giving up so much of his Memorial Day weekend and helping us out. Oh, and my mom and Mother-in-law for helping watch the babies! Couldn't have done it without them! 

We have a few more house updates that I've been excited to share. So stay tuned!