Renovation Realities-Hardwood Floors

Oh my goodness I could not be more excited about this post.  They started our floors on a Saturday morning, were done on Monday, and we had to be out of the house the rest of the week.  Luckily my sister in law and brother in law have plenty of space, and we were able to stay with them.  Bonus, they live in our neighborhood.

To the good stuff.  When we decided to do the kitchen we knew we were going to do the floors in the living room as well, it just made sense.  After thinking it over we decided to go ahead and do all of the downstairs except the boys rooms.  We also did the steps leading up to the bonus room.  BEST DECISION EVER. Now, in hindsight we should have just went ahead and did the boys room as well.  We will end up doing that and the bonus room eventually.  We also knew we wanted to go will unfinished rather than pre-finished hardwood.  Also, BEST DECISION EVER.

The downside to all new hardwood floors was the fact that not only did we have the kitchen to deal with, we had to move all the furniture out in the rooms that were being redone.  We got it done, by that I mean Luke got it done, and lived to tell about it.

  After the first day we were so excited to take a look at what they looked like.

I was already so in love. This was on Saturday afternoon, they had almost finished up the whole house.  We came back Sunday morning to this....

As if I could not love them more, they were sanded.  In that moment I said to Luke "Lets not do anything but put a poly on them."  He was not on board with that plan.  They were so beautiful I couldn't imagine changing them.  What followed may have been the longest stain decision making process in the history of our floor guys career.  I am telling you all I hee hawed over this forever.  I had said from the get go that I wanted lighter colored floors.  We do not have a huge house, and the whole reason for the renovation was because the kitchen was way too small. The last thing I wanted was to make it seem smaller.  Like, dark hardwood floors.  Luke on the other hand would have gone with the darkest shade.  Juan put several options on the floor for us to choose from. 

I originally thought I was going to love weathered oak which is the middle on the top.  Once they were on the floors I hated it.  That was immediately out, along with driftwood(top row, far right.)  We narrowed it down to provincial (bottom left) and special walnut (top right,) and we were at a stalemate.  We decided to mix the two, which is the color on the bottom right.    I had all my neighbors come over, and the kids walked all over it.  In the end we ended up choosing special walnut.  I seriously could not be happier with them.  They are the exact shade I had envisioned.  They ended up looking a tad darker once than I thought they would, so it was a good compromise for us.  Without further ado....

The top picture is right after stain.

The middle is right after poly.

The last picture is once they are all dried. 

I am so happy to be back in our house, and just minimal madness.  It already feels like a completely different house.  Picking stain was by far the hardest decision I have had to make.  Now if someone would just come pick out my cabinet hardware for me that would be great.  I am so over decision making.  Our cabinets FINALLY go in this weekend, and I cannot wait to update you all on that!