house flow and rugs

It's very fun to look around the house and start to see a cohesive flow from room to room. Each room has a piece of it's own that makes a pop but all in all the rooms work together (thank goodness!). We are beginning to feel settled here and most of our rooms are completely livable!

We haven't painted and the white walls are starting to bother me, but we have talked about it and we want to be very sure what color we want before we take the time to paint properly. Since it's such a task to really do a great job, we will probably wait for another month to paint the main areas. Bedrooms/sparerooms/basement might come earlier.

I just wanted to show you some of my favorite views in the house - from room to room so you can start to feel the flow like we do!

Photo 1: The first is from the living room to the dining room. The full view (more than just the floors) is much nicer but we aren't done decorating and I don't want to give anything away before we are finished. I love the way the two rugs look with the hardwood floors. Please don't mind the pukey green chair cushions, those are on our list.
Photo 2: The second photo is from the hallway entrance to the living room looking down the hall into the spare room. The hallway is shaping up with a couple of photos and art pieces and the spare room (sneak peak) is almost done! We will have a post about that room after all the spare boxes, etc. are moved out.


I also wanted to show you the rugs I have found for the house. I was never a big fan of area rugs but as soon as you buy a house with all wood floors you become a #1 fan almost immediately!! So far I have only paid full price for one of the rugs that we have in our home - honestly, a good price makes a lovely rug even lovelier still!

Row 1: Left - Dining Room Rug, Home Goods
             Right - Hallway Rug, Target
Row 2: Left - Kitchen Rug, Home Goods/Marshalls
             Right - Living Room Rug, Target (50% off!)
Row 3: Spare Room Rug - hand-me-down (FREE!)



For now, that's all we have to share but there is plenty more to come!

until then, Lindsey

Refinished floors and bruised knees

While we still had an empty house we decided to re-finish the hardwood floors in a couple of rooms. We didn't go all the way to full sanding and re-staining but my (Lindsey's) mom and I did sand the whole floor with hand sanders while crawling on our hands and knees - hence the bruises. You never realize until the next day how hard the floors actually were on your bare knees and chins, ha! We took the top layer of polyurethane off the floor and re-coated with a new layer. We had to sand, wipe, sand, wipe, make sure there was no dust remaining and then we started to paint on the polyurethane (clear coat). Mom was such an asset during this process, she honestly did most of the work!!

Mom rocking out the floor! 

The only parts that we had to stain were the replacement pieces from taking down the wall. The long piece in the walkway was replaced and stained to be a close match to the floor - we wanted it to be a little different that the rest of the floor for distinction between rooms. 

Close-up on the re-stained and replacement pieces. They blend pretty darn well! 

You can see the division between the rooms here. We only refinished the room to the left of the new walkway. It wasn't necessary to refinish the right side because it was previously a bedroom with very low foot traffic. What a nice perk that was since it took a long time to get the first half done! 

The finished product was shiny until it dried. Now, it just looks fresh and clean and there are no areas that are chipping away. We were also able to fill any holes or nicks with wood putty so there aren't any snags.

Before it dried.

Dry floor: you can still see the wear marks but everything is smooth and finished feeling. 

Big time thanks to my mom for all the help, it was so much easier with her help! We now have all our furniture moved in, pictures to come once everything feels more settled!