From Navy Carpet to Hardwood Floors

If you remember from the last post, the flooring in our new home left a lot to the imagination. If you don’t remember, here’s a picture of the carpet in the living room:

Apparently, I didn’t take very good pictures of the carpet before we ripped it out… I’m learning very quickly that I need to get better about taking “before” and “after” pictures from the same vantage point. Live and learn!

We were pretty sure there were hardwood floors under all of the gross carpet. In one of the bedrooms, the carpet had been taken out and the hardwood floor could be seen. We took a gamble and assumed the hardwood floors continued throughout the house, and that they would be in good enough shape to fix up. Even if we discovered they weren’t, the carpet had to go! So Justin and my dad put on their dust masks and started ripping and peeling back the carpet. The rest of us (my mom, sisters, and me) stood outside and waited, seeing as none of us wanted to have a horrendous allergy attack. Good thing the allergy-prone people stayed away: underneath the carpet was a horse-hair carpet pad! If that doesn’t tell you how old this carpet was, I don’t know what would…

We assessed the condition of the floors, and, with the exception of some stains, decided that they were indeed good enough to fix! This is what the floors looked like right after the carpet had been removed:

I know the lighting is different and the vantage point is different, but give me a break: you can tell these floors have potential! Here’s an up close picture of arguably the worst stain on the floor:

After we decided to attempt to beautify the floors, Justin and I went back to work for the week and my dad and papa went to work on the floors. They replaced stained boards, patched holes and cracks in the existing floor, then sanded the fixed areas back down. They worked so hard, and it made such a big difference! This is what the floors looked like after their hard work:

During our week back at work, Justin had figured out how to sand and stain the floors to perfection, and ran around getting all the equipment. After the floors were all prepped and the plan worked out, Justin, my dad, and our good friend Lucas went to town sanding the floors. As a side note, our good friend Lucas was visiting us from New Zealand. And we put him to work sanding our floors all weekend. Poor guy… talk about a good friend!

Justin, Lucas, and Mike: the floor magicians!

After two grueling days of sanding and vacuuming, our floors really started to look wonderful. Here’s the living room all sanded down, just before the first coat of finish:

So pretty! Then the first coat of finish went on, and it looked even better. I love that you can see which parts of the floor have been stained in these pictures, as the boys move their way across the floor.

Such a big difference from start to finish. After the long flooring weekend, Justin and I once again went back to work and my dad continued to work on the floors. He made sure the house was warm enough so the finish would dry, and applied multiple coats throughout the week. And this is the final product:

Here’s a compilation of all the photos to show the progress, all in one place. The difference is amazing, and all the hard work was so worth it! We love our floors so much that we can’t imagine putting any rugs in our house. Who would want to cover this up?!

I should also mention, that everyone who has worked on the floors or spent any appreciable amount of time in our house has a “favorite board”. Yes, that’s how cool our floor is: there is so much variety in the boards that we have favorites!

On another side note, you’re probably thinking to yourself: “Gee, Justin, Mike, and Lucas worked really hard on the floors this weekend. What the heck were the girls doing?” Don’t you worry. We had tackled another project: the weed patch, also known as the front yard. More on that later…