Welcoming Back Character

I could never live in a house while it's being flipped.  I know some people do it and it's a great way to save money, but Hubby and I are too much creatures of habit.  With our entire 500sf second floor displaced to get the floors refinished, our routines are severely outta whack. But OMG the floors kind of look amazing now. Once I pulled up the carpet, pad, and plywood, the floors were looking a bit worse for wear and I wasn't sure if they were salvageable.  Big gaps, nails everywhere....

But that's why I called in the pros for this part and didn't attempt a DIY.

It would be creepy if I hugged the floors, right?

Hubby's office, my office, and the majority of the hallway are sanded, patched, and shiny and newly refinished.  We were lucky enough to be able to patch with old salvaged pine pieces from our realtor's own antique floor (thanks Amy!!) and you can barely tell!

Hubba hubba, am I right?  Perfect color and patina.  We had him darken the floor just a bit with a Golden Oak stain and it was totally the right move.

Starting today we'll be able to start emptying out the bedroom onto these floors so I can pull up the carpet and plywood and do the same in there.  Sadly, though, that means we'll be a little off kilter for the next week or so too, but at least once the floor is done, it'll be done!

Did I mention the stair treads are getting refinished and the railing is getting an update too?  Hubby's still not sure why I'm insisting on this part, but the railing has bugged the bejeezus out of me for 4 years.  That orange, bowed wood, 90s railing feels so out of place to me in a house from 1900.

I'm still contemplating reusing the spindles, but certainly not the newel post.  Those are getting an update... or a regression, I guess would be more appropriate.

I found this pretty pair of antique newel posts at an architectural salvage warehouse in New Hampshire and I already feel like they belong in my house.  Right era, right level of detail, right scale.  Now I just need to patch them up and build up the bottoms a bit so they are the right height for a modern railing.  I never make projects easy on myself.

I can't wait for the stairs and floors to be set!  4 years of daydreaming about no more wall-to-wall carpet and a 'new' vintage-styled railing.  Hubby's understandably eager for me to start on the next flip, so I'll stop making new project for our own house.  I'm apparently an addict.  I can stop whenever I want..... I swear!

Carpet Adieu

Keeping projects that I'm working on under wraps is not my forte.  If you follow me on social media, you have more than an inkling what I've been up to the past few days.  Hint: it has to do with floors.

After 4 1/2 long years of grumbling about the wall to wall carpet in our upstairs rooms, we're finally doing something about it!  I'm not the biggest wall to wall carpet fan.  It has it's place sometimes, but in general it kinda weirds me out.  No matter how much you clean or vacuum it, it absorbs dust and, stains and dirt from the houses previous owners still linger.  Especially when you have a textured loop like was in my office and the hallway- it was like velcro for dirt.  Ick.

I'd much prefer to live with hard wood floors with area rugs.  Not only are area rugs MUCH easier to give a deep clean to, they're also much easier to switch out when you want to give a new look to the space.  *steps off soap box*

In the past I've always tried to show you as little of the upstairs carpet as possible.  Between the bedroom, hallway, and 2 tiny offices, there was 3 different beige stained carpets that we planned to do away with from the moment we put an offer in on the house.  Some stains we inherited with the house, others are from a cat with a very sensitive tummy who also enjoyed using the carpet as a scratcher.  He's lucky he's cute and fluffly.

But back to the floor.  Probably 50 years ago, the then owners decided it would be a great idea to put plywood and then the carpet pad and carpet over the original wide plank pine boards.  Silly homeowners.

It's looking pretty promising that we'll be able to save the original 115 year old wide plank pine and as you can imagine, I'm cautiously giddy.  I still have to finish pulling up carpet AND plywood in Hubby's office and our bedroom, so I'll be keeping my fingers crossed until then.

I'm also super excited because the floors finally getting woodified (totally a word...) is going to be a catalyst for mini make-overs in all of these rooms.  I've already got paint swatches in hand!  Who doesn't love a room make-over?

2014 Look Back

Ya know how some years just fly by and when you look back at where the year went you can't figure it out?  That was 2013.  While this year flew by even faster, when I look back, I know exactly where the year went, and I'm exhausted! Here are some of the year's highlights:

I finished and sold 2 flip houses,

Frankie

and Grover

Completely staged Frankie for under $1000,

and took on my biggest flip project yet, Millie

Showed you several how-to's when it came to the flips:

Board and batten bathroom update,

Modernized a super dated built in,

and created a kitchen island from an old dresser.

Outside of the flip, I've been slowly working on my niece's room which will be revealed sometime in the new year, but I've already showed you the DIY butterfly art

and a peek of the concrete-topped dresser transformation

Back in the house that I actually live in, I updated my own living room by reupholstering my favorite antique chair

and building an 8 foot built-in corner bookcase.

I topped it all off with a new sofa and am finally in love with the room

In addition to all that, I also launched my interior design company back in March, Copper Dot Interiors.

2014 has been quite a blur, but it's been an amazing year for growth.  Thanks for sticking with me for the ride and I can only imagine the amazingness in the year to come!

Bring it on 2015!!  Cheers!