Operation Habitation-Setting Up House

This past week has been a whirlwind.  Tuesday was the last day of the flooring work.  They came out and finished up the final details and put in quarter round.  We also had a few more installers out that day so I was running between all three answering questions.  After they left we started bringing in some of the basic necessities and were completely exhausted by the end of the day.  

The next few days were spent cleaning and setting up house--having somewhere to eat, sleep, bathe and sit.  While it is nowhere near finished, we've gotten to the point where a few rooms feel somewhat setup, and the boxes are hidden in closets.  One happy surprise has been that I actually like the paint color in both the master bedroom and the Bub's room.  

This is the only corner of the master bedroom I can show.  We haven't set up our bed yet!  But our bed, linens, and drapes all coordinate with the existing wall color.  I feel like it's the same color in both the master bedroom and the Bub's room, but it reads more green in this room.  Either way, I kind of like the color in the Bub's room too.  All of his existing bedding, drapes, and furniture coordinated pretty well too.  I really wanted to get his room setup so that he could feel that at home.

Before:

Progress:

 The bathrooms here were completely dirty and dusty.  So first up was a major cleaning to get them up to speed.  I also brought in accessories from our previous house, put up a new shower curtain, and I found a couple of sets of cabinet hardware I had stashed away and put those on the cabinet.  But I have come to the conclusion that in addition to paint, at the bare minimum, the countertop and faucet will have to be changed out.  I think I could have lived with the countertop, but it's an all-in-one sink and countertop and the sink base is cracked.  I'm also planning to repaint the walls a creamy white.

Before: 

 Progress:

There's still so much of just the basics to do, but I'm starting to feel like I am getting close to busting out my paintbrush!

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The Oak House Reno-{Staining the Wood Floors}

After my mini freak out yesterday about the new stain color I was finally able to come in and get some pictures today. The color doesn't look too bad in rooms with more modern paint colors. But in the rooms with the older paint colors are still see a bit of red or yellow. Hopefully with fresh paint they will grow on me and be ok. We decided to keep them as is because we're already going to be out of the house for 5 days, and at this point we're ready to get back to regularly scheduled programming, aka life.

These first few pics from upstairs, I don't really see red.

 But downstairs, tell me what you think?  Is it me or do you see red?

Either way, paint is in order once we get moved in!

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The Oak House Reno-{Old and New Floors & A Stain Dilemma}

What an amazing sight this was to see!  Although I didn't care for the original finish, these floors were in pretty great shape. And to see them with the old finish removed...wow!  I can hardly believe they are nearly 30 years old.  Our flooring contractor said they were probably select grade oak floors.  Whatever they are, they're beautiful.   I'm in love with just this step being done. 

Upstairs the flooring crew removed the old carpet and particle board underlayment and laid new oak floors to match the ones downstairs.  These were number one red oak, so they have a few more knots in the wood, but we think it adds a bit of character.  We went with a 3 1/4" wide plank upstairs, even though downstairs is a traditional 2 1/4" board.  In the one bedroom downstairs, we matched the wood width to the existing floors downstairs.

Oh those beautiful piles of wood!

It is so much work to have these put in.  Even if I knew how to do them, I don't know that I would have the time or energy to do this amount of flooring.  Plus the amount of sanding they do is impressive!  They have taken out bags and bags of sawdust.  The staining began on Friday, but I haven't been able to get to the house to see it.  We went with Minwax Provincial stain.  I didn't want to go as dark as our previous wood floors because they showed every bit of dust, but now I am second guessing the decision and hoping they aren't too light either.  I'm hoping we can walk thru in the morning after they have dried and see the stain color in the light of day.

{I started writing this post before the stain went down.  Even though we had about 8 different samples put down to choose from, I am still second guessing my stain choice.  The flooring is red oak which has red undertones.  So now with the stain on the ENTIRE floor, I am feeling like I see red undertones.  But I reeaaly don't like wood with red tones.  And although it may be slight, I don't want to have floors that I hate...grrr!  But I also saw how much work the gentleman in the photo put into sanding these floors down, like literally the whole house, and it seems a shame to say, "I don't like the color, please start over."  We were at our closing when the staining was done, and I didn't get a chance to see it go down.   What would you do knowing you've got to live with this decision for the next 20 plus years?  I ended up having car trouble to deal with and forgot to get a picture of the stain.  I will try to get one tomorrow.  Let me know what you think!}

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The New Oak House-{Before Pictures}

It's been over a week, and thankfully we did close on the new house last week!  We've been moving for the past five days, and today was the first day I got more than 4 hours of sleep in a several days.  I think we totally underestimated our move, but we are officially out of our old home. We closed on our old house today and handed over the keys to the new homeowner, who couldn't have been any nicer.  I thought I would be more emotional about leaving, but I think we were so tired, we didn't have the energy to be emotional!

I use the term 'new' loosely.  The house is a 1980's brick colonial-style home.  The good news is it's in it's original state, so there are no upgrades that aren't my taste.  The bad news is its in its original state, so everything is from 1988-yikes!  But some of the things that drew us to it were the mature oak trees,  the large lot size, and original oak hardwood floors throughout the main floor.   But enough talk about it, let get to the pictures!   Most of them are by me, but some of them are from the listing.

The entry has mauve trim.  I remember helping my mom paint our living room mauve in the 90's!

Another thing I liked about this home was the original solid-wood raised panel cabinetry, and french doors off of both the kitchen and family room.  And while I have no plans to keep the wallpaper, I have always found 80's wallpaper kind of charming.

I love this hallway...I've never had a house with a hallway.

This house is a complete change from our previous home.  We bought our first home new, whereas this one is a bit of a fixer upper.  We have debated over the past few months about how to approach it.  Do we tackle the bathrooms first, since they are the most dated, or do we go with living space since we spend the most time there?  We decided to go with fixing up basic bones of the house, which for us means updating the flooring, paint, and lighting.  For most rooms in the house, we felt those three things would make the spaces feel updated.  After closing, we spent most of Friday and Saturday cleaning up inside and out.  It felt good to take down all of the old, dusty drapes.  

I don't think I am alone in feeling like I can't live with old, dirty carpet.  Even in hotels, I usually keep my socks on. So we both felt that the upstairs carpet had to go immediately.  On Monday the flooring crew began working on the floors, so we haven't really moved in yet.  I'll have to share the plans for each room and the flooring progress!

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