Floored.

Wow factor.

Quite possibly the biggest transformation to the new house to date was the refinishing of our floors.  Someone (a floor guy) actually told us that it couldn't be done, but here we are with floors all shiny and new looking thanks to our brave refinisher guy.

Just say no.... to parquet.

Let's start with why/how the floors scared off some folks.  I have to admit, the task was daunting, in the kitchen at least.  Not only are we dealing with century old flooring, but it was covered in adhesive after we uncovered the original wood under some ugly parquet and vinyl flooring.  (Ok, parquet is not for us, sorry if you have it!)  BUT in my book, original (maple) floors always wins, hands down.

So who was the brave young soul to win the job??  Michael from J&M Building Maintenance Inc., Hardwood Floor Specialists.  He came highly recommended by one of our contractors, and he did not disappoint.  He is just starting out with his own company, but has been in the business for awhile mostly working with a bigger company and with lots of experience refinishing old gym floors (that's a lot of floors).  I'd say that Mike's off to a good start.

Our chosen floor guy did not shy away from all that scary, uneven, hard decades old adhesive covered floor, instead telling us about how he's seen and worked on worse (surprisingly, that made me feel so much better).  But this was still no easy task, he promptly informed us after the fact that he went through tons and tons of sandpaper just to smooth out the floor.  Thanks Mike, you are our hero!

He even weaved in new maple flooring in the areas where the wood looked like it was suffering from severe water damage.  (dark corner covered in dust, right pic)  All is well.

First day, he came with his floor weaver pro and a licensed electrician (all of this hardcore equipment required hardcore electrical work, apparently), so all in all 3 guys working on the house the first day.

We decided to go ahead and do the second floor as well (minus the bathroom and the master bedroom) just because A) he was giving us a good, solid quote for both the first and second floor combo and B) we would never ever be able to get it done in the future, no matter how much we convinced ourselves that we would (especially with 2 little tater tots running around).

view from front room,
to the dining room,
to the family room (carpeted)

So altogether, we were getting the kitchen, hallway, powder room, living room, family room (with new floors) in the first floor, and the stairs/landings, hallway, office, nursery, second bedroom in the 2nd floor done.  That's a lot of wood to do.

But, aside from the carpeted family room addition, it was mostly original, and it needed love (especially the kitchen).   We have 4 different species of wood throughout the house now (which is pretty cool, if you think about it): Maple in the Kitchen, white oak in the front/dining room, we added red oak in the family room, and pine floors upstairs.  It's like a tree-loving hippie's nightmare, but it's being repurposed and giving it a new life, so simmer down now..

Unfortunately, the family room threw us a curve ball as we realized that the subfloor underneath the carpet was much too high to be weaved in to the white oak in the dining room.  BUMMER!  So we had to decide on a transition piece between the rooms..  

new red oak for the family room

We went with a slight leader instead of a T transition piece.  And since the floor joists underneath in the new addition ran parallel to the floors in the dining room, we ended up running the wood perpendicular to the wood in the dining room.  We might as well make the room a whole departure from the rest of the house, so instead of matching the white oak, we went with red oak on the floors. Why not?

  

 Here are a few more before shots of the rest  of the floors:

Old carpet on stairs, revealed hardwood underneath, and pine flooring at the top landing (covered in icky carpet tape)

nursery

2nd bedroom

office

1st floor hallway

Fast forward to 2 days later, the floors are sanded and pretty (and had that new wood smell to it, ahhh)..  It was a gorgeous sight, oh the possibilities.

Mike and his crew did a a technique they liked to call "water popping" before adding stain.  It was basically wiping the unfinished floors down with water to open up its pores and take in the dark stain much better.  Good idea.

Side note:  the other floor guy (who shall not be named) also said that dark stain was going to be hard to do on our floors and would not take well.  Boo on you, other floor guy!


So the choice was ours (according to our actual floor guy, the sky is the limit), and we wanted dark floors to contrast our uber white kitchen (dark floors, light walls.. it's our color scheme).  And after seeing the beautiful unfinished floors, it was hard to go dark.. but we did anyways.  For a second though, I thought about just slapping on some clear varnish and calling it a day (plus it would have showed the natural colors of the wood).. but it's not like we had hickory or rare wood or anything like that, so on with the staining.

Anyway, we chose our stain and we liked the one on the left (and maybe the one with the hint of red on the right)

And not to say that my floor guy was without his flaws, he gave me these choices below, both a bit more red than I'd like. Rosewood on the left and Dark Mahogany on the right.  He asked us to trust him, so why not now.

We chose Rosewood because it seemed less red (Mike, the floor guy, said it has a more purple undertone than red).  Here it is stained without the clear coat, looking good so far..

Here it is with a new coat of polyurethane (still wet)

And the beautiful finished floors.. TA DA..  I am so *ahem* floored with the results!  It all turned out so beautiful.. and shiny.. and even the hint of purple/red warmed up the cool grey paint in the walls (yellow kitchen wallpaper is gone, btw, replaced by more grey).  

And that problematic kitchen??  Solved.

And the new red oak in the family room.. just gorgeous (accented by our new ikat rug).  Don't you just love love love it??  (ha, ok I do)

After about a week's worth of work the entire house had new looking, beautiful floors and we couldn't be more thrilled.  That varnish smell did linger for a few days (we scheduled our big move a week later), but in a week's time the house just smelled new and refreshed and less like a vat of poly.  And of course, other downsides were sawdust in every crevice, in every piece of furniture, clothing, and even inside closets (so much for moving some stuff early).  But that just required elbow grease and a groupon for a cleaning service in the future.  Also, one other big bummer, since the staining required getting under the shoe base moldings, Mike removed and replaced those pre/post stain.  Which was great, but we are left with chipping paint throughout the whole house.  Nothing a little paint touch up can't fix, but still.. (hem and haw)

And this was the project that completed the house before move in.  Of course, we would have rather finished the kitchen and every other odds and ends throughout the house, but we gotta move in sometime!  This was just enough so that we can live while working in the house.  OH Joy!

How do you guys feel about dark stained floors? (shows too much dirt for your taste?)  Anyone think the parquet should have stayed?? just kidding

If you guys want to read the rest of this *exciting* remodeling series, CLICK HERE!

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Movin' on up to the east side...

Well, more east of where we were (west chicagoland and closer to the big city), at least.

So this is obviously a late post about our move since we actually made the big move almost 2 weeks ago, now (the weekend of my birthday -- a good gift, I would say).  We've made a lot of changes to the house even before the move, but as much as I would like to blog about all remodeling/renovation projects in the house in chronological order, at this point in time with all the hustle and bustle going on, I only have a somewhat organized chaos thought process going on in my brain as everything is all happening at once.

I think posting about the big move is a good way to start to get me out of my blogging rut.  (And I'm only in a rut because there's so much to post about, I don't even know where to start.)  So let's take the first step and start here.

WE'VE MOVED!! Yahoo!

Almost exactly 2 months after our closing date, we moved out of our cozy starter home and made the move to the new house.  After over a year of living out of boxes (we packed a little prematurely), we were soooo ready to go.  I was a little skeptical about fitting everything A) in the 26 ft. truck  and B) in the new house, but we somehow managed it.

I'm sure you all have moved at one point in your life, but you truly never realize how much stuff you accumulate over the years (over 6 years, in our case) until you pack 'em up and stack 'em up in your living room (and garage).  I was very overwhelmed by it all.  At this point, I made a solemn oath to never, ever hoard  collect junk and always make sure to pare down as needed.  NEVER AGAIN!!

Our poor pup, Erin, was so confused by it all, she literally jumped on every couch, bed, and laps shaking and wouldn't leave our side for a second for 2 days.  I think she was literally thinking that she would be left behind.  Poor girl, we made sure to comfort her and tell her that we were not going to do that and that she is coming with us to the new house.  A little love from mom, dad, and Olive, and I think she was feeling much better..

So on to the movers..

This time around we wised up and hired movers.  Unlike our last move from our old apartment to our first house, we have waaay more junk to haul and also, I would be moving for two (14 weeks preggers 2 weeks ago).  So hired muscle was definitely in our cards.  And I am never ever going back to manual labor ever again!! (spoiled doesn't even cover it).

halfway full

We went with a company called Professionals Moving Specialists, a company based out of Chicago per the recommendation of our good friends Jen and Dusty who recently made the move from Chicago to Bartlett (and still a better price than the local Allied and 2 men and a truck).  Not only did they arrive early, but they brought with them four scrappy dudes and a huge 26 foot truck.  They moved so quick, I barely got out of bed before half of our stuff was already in their truck!


It truly was surreal to see your whole life in boxes.  In the year that we lived out of them, I pretty much convinced myself that the task of moving would be impossible.  Little did I know that they would be able to pack and unpack our whole existence in 4 hours including travel time.

I was pretty impressed with how fast these guys were (total pros), and they were pretty good with packaging our valuables in saran wrap, blankets, tapes.  They also strategically tetris'd our stuff in their truck, so we only needed one, thank god.  It was close, but we made it fit and it was packed to the nuts!

It's hard to believe how empty our old house was.  I was exhausted from packing and moving, but I still had time to shed a small tear.  Even as I'm writing this, the feeling is overwhelming (could be the pregnancy hormones), but this was our first real home.  Where we had our first kid.  Where we had dinner parties, and barbecues, and holidays. Oh boy, here comes the tears..waaaahhhh.  I love you old house, you'll always be in our hearts.. 

But moving on (no pun intended).

As if emotions weren't on high enough already, we come home to this chaos in the new house.  Pangs of anxiety and panic almost knocked me out into a deep sleep (this is my natural reaction to stress), but we carried on and literally carried every box to where they belonged (not all in one day, of course).

We did manage to direct our speedy movers to move the upstairs boxes to a holding room upstairs (large 2nd bedroom) and downstairs boxes into the front room (spilling out into the dining room) and even managed to have them move the massive mancave couch and entertainment center into the basement (where it belongs).

We even had time to celebrate my big 33rd (gasp!) birthday with some frozen yogurt from Ninang Lisa (Olive's godmom).  Yum!  Thanks Lisa <3

All in all, it was a crazy day, but the fact that we did it with barely any casualties, I was more relieved than anything.  Everything is falling into place, and we are just in a happier place period.

Now to throw half of this crap out... ;)

OK, before wrapping it up.. First, this post is dedicated to my friend Jane, who is my blog motivator and keeps me going in life (ha, also I will always listen to all of her advice from now on.. Rugs USA.. ARRRGGHH)..  Second, in the days ahead I am going to trudge on and post about our new floors (the catalyst and final project before we made the big move),  rugs, wallpaper removal (fun, fun), kitchen cabinets, and overall room transformations.  Stay tuned..

If you guys want to read the rest of this *exciting* remodeling series, CLICK HERE!

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