hardwood

The first time I saw our house it was a video of a video. Matt had recorded my parents skype as they walked through the house. A video of a video. Because we bought it before we saw it in person, there have been some surprises. Nothing overwhelming, but some funny little changes. One of the big ones was the hardwood upstairs. Almost the entire floor in one bedroom was covered with a giant, plastic rug (that crumbled when we removed it). We left it down as a drop cloth when we were painting, but mom had looked under it in the video, so we knew it would come up when we were ready. What we didn't know was what was underneath it.

I don't know if you noticed it at first, but do you see that dark border by the wall?

See it now? Everything the rug wasn't covering was made dark (and dirty). Time is funny like that. It makes things old. The rug (which may have been there for the past 70 years) kept the floors underneath just like new. The whole house has dark brown wood under the carpet, but not in this room. Under this (apparently sunproof) rug, the floors were their original color. Here's what they look like after a good scrubbing.

There's still a difference, but I think it's pretty. So now we have both of the upstairs rooms painted and we're ready to move furniture in upstairs! Yes, that means we have a place for guests to sleep (and to continue hoarding our collection of children's toys).

I also pulled up the carpet in the hallway downstairs.

It took an afternoon to pull up all the staples and such, but look how pretty it is!! I love how the hardwood flows seamlessly into the bedrooms. Consider me impressed. We're still so far from being finished, but every step is a weight off our shoulders. We can't wait to start having people over for dinner and using our house to reach out to others!

Have you been working on your house? It seems like a constant project!