So obviously we were excited to find hardwood floors downstairs when we pulled up a corner of the carpet. We did that WAY before we had painted because we were curious. Considering the upstairs had hardwood, we were pretty sure the downstairs would as well. Although the upstairs is a wider plank and I think a different wood than is downstairs. I’ll try to get a better picture of the upstairs floors this weekend. They are currently covered in a lot of dust, so that may prove difficult.
Pulling the carpet
This part was fun for me and the girls liked it too. It was a big deal to get to the point where we could pull it up and get it out of the house. My lungs were really excited about it. Plus, it was fun to find out what was underneath that 50+year old carpet. Below is a link to a video of the girls pulling up the carpet.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7jXflUYWfHs
Then it was pulling up all the staples and tack strips. It’s a job I don’t mind at all. Morgan and I had a pretty good system for it, too. She would pop the staples up with a flathead screwdriver and I would follow behind and get them with the needle nose pliers. Brandon worked on the tack strips while us girls did the staples. Natalie floated in and out of both processes as 3 year old’s do.
Process that we will most likely follow
Once we got the carpet up, we could see that the floors would need refinishing. The living room has a rug-sized area that is a different stain than the rest of the floors. Plus the south facing windows in the dining room and office/computer room created some sun damage to the floors.
We are going to start upstairs with the refinishing because neither of us have ever refinished floors so we want to start in the rooms where most people probably won’t see. So if we screw up it’s not at the front door when you walk in the house. I am hoping this weekend we get the rest of the upstairs painted, so we can start prepping for the refinishing. I know we will have to get all the quarter round off, which means we will have to label all of it and try to bundle it by room/closet. Then there’s the dust that will need vacuumed, mopped, and vacuumed some more before we even start sanding and creating more dust. We will be getting the ducts cleaned after all this dust has been floating around. 🙂
Brandon and I both have longer weekends over the 4th, so I am thinking we should be making good progress upstairs those days. Once that is done, I’m going to move the girls air mattress upstairs to get them used to sleeping upstairs and farther than a few feet away from us (at either house). I think that will be a major hurdle. I predict it will take a long time before they are sleeping in their own rooms upstairs.
Stain Color
Of course with all this progress on the floors means we need to choose a stain color. I’m pretty decisive when it comes to paint because I know that can be changed relatively easy in the future. But the stain color makes me a little nervous. It’s a big commitment. I don’t think I want to match the trim exactly due to the amount of red that is in the trim. I think that I want something slightly lighter and more neutral in color if that makes sense. So going back to the “rug” picture above, I want more of the rug color, less of the border color. Anyone have any thoughts on that issue? The built ins are even a different color than the trim, so I think it will be fine if the floors don’t match the trim.