Tag Archives: around our house

Before & Afters plus hardwood floors 2yrs later.

I am in no way an interior designer.

That being said my husband did tear up all the carpet in our house about two years ago and put in all wood floors!

I thought I would share some of the before and afters followed by what I think after using them for a couple years.

I basically called our spare bedroom the closet.

We had a walk in closet!

Doesn’t that sound so much better then junk room!

This is after my husband put in our beautiful floors!

These are Handscraped Engineered Hardwood floors from Virginia Mill Works Co., Richmond Plank Birch.

We bought all of our floors from Lumber Liquidators.

They had a really good selection for a good price.

I would definitely use them again.

This what the room looks like now (I actually took this picture this morning!).

I really like these floors!

The texture is really nice and hides dirt pretty well!

If I could go back in time knowing what I know now I would use this throughout the rest of the house!

More pics of our schoolroom, here.

We used a Brazilian Cherry Engineered floor in the boys room as well as the livingroom, diningroom, and hallway.

It is a beautiful floor but probably not my best choice for a home with two active little boys.

It scratches easily and does not hide dirt.

The map wall is showing wear also.

The first thing my oldest did when he slept in his top bunk was pick at the wall!!!

I still really like it but I wish I had made it a little clearer beforehand that we do not tear the maps off…

I could not find the before pics, if you want to see some check out the before and after post I did, here.

Here is the same Cherry floor in the livingroom.

I of course did not take a good before picture at the time…

What is wrong with me?

As you can see the floor is gorgeous!

I can see why cherry is so popular.

I really should have waited to take these when it was not overcast.

Everything looks green…

You can really see the scratches in this pic.

See my gorgeous entertainment center!

My baby made it for me!

Check out more pics, here!

Again these were taken this morning.

My husband is going to think we have company coming over since I cleaned these rooms to take pics.

This is what people see when they first come in our door.

I am definitely not a decorator…

I am more a copy and paste kind of girl.

I see something someone else did and have to copy it exactly to get it to turn out.

Here is my bedroom before.

I really should have taken before shots before we starting doing flooring!

I probably should have taken a picture of the floor also…

Here are the beautiful floors my baby installed in our bedroom!

This floor is my favorite.

So beautiful.

It is Bellawood Prefinished Hardwood Floor in Australian Cypress.

It is is the only solid hardwood we (I use the term we loosely) installed in the house.

Here we are over two years later and I still really like them.

I would use the word love but my husband does not like me using that for objects…

I did not even sweep these floors for this pic!

That is it for the before and afters for now.

I am tired of cleaning my house and my dining room needs some work done before I show it off.

To recap:

Handscraped floors with lots of texture hide flaws really well and are beautiful.

Dark cherry is beautiful but shows scrapes and dirt.

Light colors like the one we used in our bedroom hides dirt and scrapes.

I did not state this before but I would definitely bank on putting a big plush rug in a young childs room with hardwood. They are really good at tripping and hurting themselves!

I hope this helped someone trying to decide on what hardwood to go with!

Thanks for stopping by 🙂

Why I do not think my kitchen is small.

A couple years ago if you had asked me about my kitchen I would have said it was very small.

Tiny even.

I was trying to find some way to expand it.

Any way really.

Maybe I could move the washer and dryer out to the garage and then expand it that way, knock a wall out here, bump a wall out there.

Anything to get more space that I so desperately needed (I thought).

Then last year I stumbled upon this blog post.

In it Katie talks about their 480 sq ft apartment in Germany and her renovated 36 sq ft kitchen.

36 sq ft.

Wow.

She is big on simplifying and gave me a little push to start looking around at what I really needed.

I then stumbled upon the Tiny House movement.

Never heard of it?

Check out tinyhouseblog.com

If you want to see my favorites you can check them out on my Pinterest board.

Some of these houses are only around 100 sq ft!

My 900+ sq ft house started feeling really big.

Huge even.

Up until last year I thought I needed a bigger house.

I dreamed of a bigger house.

Now I see a bigger house and think, “wait, who is going to clean it?”

I do not like to clean at all.

Now I ask myself, “how much space do I really need?” and “do I really need that new gadget for the kitchen when something I already have does the job?”

30 Day project, Day 8

Tiny houses are not for everyone.

But they have made me appreciate what I have a lot more.

So instead of knocking down a wall in a desperate search for more space, I think I will just stick to painting.

Instead of looking for room for that new gadget, I will just use what I have.

My kitchen is big enough to do everything I want to do and more.

How much space do you really use?

He made me an entertainment center!

Before

After we bought my baby a new tv the old entertainment center was not cutting it.

Especially since the tv was resting on it!

He mounted it to the wall and designed an entertainment center around it!

First piece!

After!

Have I mentioned how much I love that my husband designs and builds me anything I want?

Because it is awesome!

I have been reading a lot about minimalism and tiny house living.

It has really helped me to see what is important to me and what is just taking up space.

I decided to fill most of the shelves with things that mean a lot to me or I like a lot.

I have been collecting old books since I was a teenager.

I love the history wrapped around an old book.

I have been given many as gifts from people I love.

So many memories in these beautiful books.

I put gifts from my families travels on these shelves as well.

All of my siblings and I went on missions trips as teenagers.

They were nice enough to bring back gifts for each of us.

Each little gift makes me think of the sibling that gave it to me.

My Grandma gave me the teapot.

One of the books under the tea cup is very special to me.

My Grandma’s childhood bible.

It has been hiding on a bookshelf not standing apart at all until now.

Of course I collect old cameras!

I love my new space but most of all I love seeing things that are meaningful to me having a place of honor in my house!

I have to admit I was shocked at how little I had that meant enough to me to make it to those shelves!

If you do not love it, find it useful, or find it beautiful, get rid of it!

I am working on it!