a new rug.

New rug for the front room - love the pattern and the colors!

Before and after - upstairs bedroom #1.

{Before} ...
{After} ...

Wow.

Before and after - Upstairs bedroom #3.

{Before} ...

{After} ...

See the black chandelier in this room? That was the light that used to hang in the dining room - I spray painted it black and added a little bling bling to it! It's perfect up in this room.

Before and after - the kitchen cabinets.

{Before} ...
See that ugly floor? See those bottom cabinets in brown ...?
YIPES.

{After} ...
Beautiful. I enjoy looking back at the old pictures and comparing them with the way the house looks now. It's amazing and I can hardly believe we did all this ... cheers to the stuff we can do with our time, energy and creative vision! :)

There is still a ton to do ... it's just a matter of how and when!

Before and after - the front room.

{Before} ...
{After} ...

Before and after - a view into the kitchen.

{Before} ...
{After} ...

Turning the old/new house into home!

A few shots of the front room ... :)

A touch of black in the dining room ...

I painted the wood curtain rod black yesterday ... I like it! :) The dining room is starting to come to life. And I'm finally getting through the boxes - ahhhhh cheers to progress!

At the top of the stairs ...

Carpet - yipeee!

New carpet in the basement ...

Men at work :) ... It's looking good!

This carpet is so nice, soft and changed the feel of the entire basement. We love it.

Carpet name: Bread basket

Special thanks to Paul and his 3 boys for doing such a wonderful job laying the carpet.

If you are looking for someone who will do a GREAT job with the carpet for your next job - send me an email and I'll get you his contact info!

Bye bye old carpet.

Removing the carpet from the upstairs hallway... I ended up cutting it with the utility knife into sections that were small enough to haul off and drop into the outside garbage can! :)

Ugh... this stuff was beyond gross. We have new carpet being installed on Thursday 4/15 ...

The finishing touch on the floors ...

We still need to add all the trim in the house and finish a few entry ways ... We're making our way through the 'to do' list!

I sat down ... and took a photo of my feet in socks! After we put on the first coat of finish, it was 'socks on' for walking on the floors or working on them.

A clear finish for the floors - this stuff dries really fast and makes the floors look gorgeous.

Sanding the floor (again) this time with a very fine grade of sandpaper to get the floor smooth. You do this between each layer of finish. We are going to add the third and final coat of finish to the floors ... today maybe?!

Upstairs bedroom ....

Another upstairs bedroom ... Love the shine on the floor. :)

Come on in!

The stain on the floors looks wonderful ... The stairs will get new carpet next Thursday :) ... we picked out a fuzzy, dark, soft carpet - mmmmmmmmm I can feel it on my feet already!

The bathroom ...

Thanks Dad for all your help this week ... we're making progress on the bathroom :)!

Carpet ...

A few carpet swatches ... We need to carpet the stairs going upstairs and the upstairs hallway. We would also like to carpet the stairs going downstairs and the hallway and bedroom downstairs. We have a carpet guy coming over to measure and give us an estimate tomorrow. :)

Room #2 - Hardwood floors

beautiful.

Working notes: We stained each line prior to adding the stain to each wood plank. Why? We liked the look and feel of the floor (distressed style) so we didn't add wood putty to fill in the gaps between the planks. And in order to get the stain down in between each wood piece, we found that staining each individual line worked well.

We are learning as we go ... This one looks really good. We used a different application method this time and so the stain finish is a lot darker. We'll do the other room again later. (You have to wait 4 to 6 hours to add another coat of stain.)

Next step: After applying the stain, you wait at least 6 hours before you can add the finish to the floors. The finish is a clear polyurethane that you have to coat on 3 different times.

WOW huh?!

We are so thankful we have the two upstairs rooms to learn on before we hit the downstairs. We still have to stain and finish the living and dining room.

We had hoped to move in today - that was a BIG goal. And it didn't happen. We'll keep working! :)

Another room upstaris ... (with hardwood floors)

This floor is ready for the 'finishing touches' .... I love these old floors. We didn't use use wood putty to fill in the lines because we like them there. :)

The floor upstairs ...

Look at that old wood floor ...

Look at that working Superman :) ...

Check out the new color :) ...

PS: This refinish the floor project has been crazy, stressful and at times very funny.
I'm in no hurry to do this again (ever).

Upstairs room #1 - Staining the hardwood floor

The floor is sanded. It's been vacuumed, scrubbed and mopped :) ...
Time for some color!

Love the color ...

The Mariner room upstairs ...
Stain color: English Chestnut

Cleaning up the sand ...

10:00 on Friday night ... there was still sand on the floors. I'll work on it more today ... Once it's all cleaned up - we will stain the floors. I can hardly wait to see how they will look. :)