Since I started the blog after we’d already moved in, I will try to fill in a few renovations we had to complete prior to living here…mainly, the floors and the “cottage cheese” ceilings. Messy stuff we couldn’t live in so we cranked out a few key changes to the house back in August.
The ebony stained hardwood floors have naturally made the biggest impact on the overall look of the house. If you’ve seen the before shots of the whole house…there was enough green carpet for an entire putt putt course in this place… and it was old and smelly. There was a LOT of floor to lay since we were replacing the kitchen linoleum, dining room carpet, living room carpet AND stairs all with hardwood. We hired this one out and if you live in the Nashville area….I HIGHLY recommend Verchota Floors. They are unbelievable to work with…moving to a new city meant having start over with my list of good subcontractors, and these guys really impressed me…keepers!
There was a herringbone parquet in the entry and in a strip along the living room butting up to the green carpet. I kept it only in the entry as a small homage to the original house…and it cleaned up so well -it would be rude not to!
We used white oak flooring which was stained ebony. They achieved this by wetting the floor with water to raise the grain, then applying the stain so more of it was absorbed into the wood. This is a CRUCIAL step in getting a dark stain to saturate properly…so they told me. It worked because I love how they turned out. We used a grey berber carpet in the bedrooms and playroom for sound and softness. It would have been nice to lay the hardwood everywhere, but budget and kids whining for carpet won out for now.
The stairs are also mentioned in this post.
