Painting our Floor & The Transformation of Our Family Room

We bought a house in September and have spent the last 5 1/2 months trying to change every surface in it. We have painted ten rooms of walls and trim, changed light fixtures, and built shelves. We have some big projects coming up, though, and I just decided I had to start documenting our progress.

Home Sweet Home

 We have made a ton of changes throughout, but the biggest transformation so far has definitely been our family room, the room where we spend all our time, the room that was the very worst of all, when we purchased the home.

Here is the before:

Dark paneled walls and The Floor. 18 inch square tiles in green, red, yellow, and blue, in a random pattern. Just... no.

Knowing this was going to be our main living area, we had to have real vision to be able to see that, yes, we could make this beautiful.

Before moving in, my husband, my mom and dad, my father-in-law, and I stormed in and tried to paint as many rooms as we could. First up was this. My mom and I tried to whitewash the walls and quickly figured out that was not going to work. So we primed and painted the whole room Country White, a pre-mixed can of paint from Walmart. I love white, and I couldn't see myself living in such a dark, dark, room. Even having white walls and baseboards and mantle made such a difference.

Before Christmas, we found a sale and purchased all new cabinets for our kitchen, and while we were at it, we got cabinets to fill in on both sides of the dark-brick fireplace. My wonderful husband has been very excited for our home renovation, but, in reality, most of our experience with home improvement is from Pinterest and YouTube. His entire Christmas wishlist consisted of tools, and as soon as he opened his huge set of drill and about 100 other pieces, he told me, "Now, I have tools. Now, I can do anything." At the very least, we have a lot of enthusiasm.

He did an amazing job creating built-in shelves on either side of the fireplace, which we also painted white and plan to stain the wooden top of the cabinet a dark brown to match the ceiling beams, etc..

We have had plans from the beginning to put down new engineered hardwood floors, but we decided to do our kitchen remodel first. As the costs for that project added up, I realized that hardwood floors were getting further and further down the schedule, and I asked Ryan if I could paint them. So we scoured Pinterest for tips and went for it. 

Taping off the walls and brick, with the help of short people.

My mom brush-painting the edges Chocolate Kiss

Magic Mopping

Voila!

 I am so excited. This is such an incredible improvement. Sure, this isn't our dream flooring, and yet I can now see the room and relax without having my brain frazzled by random primary colors. I cannot express how much more calming it is to be in this room now.

Before

After

We are loving it. 

Laura