Saying goodbye to painted floors

When my husband wanted me to look into replacing our kitchen floor we were intrigued by rolled vinyl.  We found this at a big box store...

(Home Depot)

Pretty cool, huh?  And while the product isn't expensive, the installation was ridiculous!

After removing four layers of peel and stick and linoleum tile from our kitchen floor we discovered red oak hardwood underneath. See the layers on the right in the picture?  On the left is paper stuck to the floor from the tile but you can see hints of hardwood!

So we decided, let's get them refinished.  Our kitchen leads right into the dining room which leads right into our living room.  Ostensibly our entire downstairs of our home!  You can't really do one floor and not all the others.

I loved my white painted hardwood floors in the dining and living room.

My husband, not so much.

So it was an easy decision for him to say goodbye to them, me a little harder.  But what was underneath all the tile and paint was truly beautiful.

Looking fabulous...

Then we had to decide on stain...

Which one would you pick?  Which one do you think I picked?

At first I thought I'd have the top two colors mixed but then decided on the darkest called "Coffee".  (Upper left.)

Here they are after the stain and one coat of poly...

This is the kitchen...

I think four layers of tile actually protected them!

The dining room...

The living room...

They look gorgeous!

We hired a friend of ours that has been doing hardwood floors for over 30 years.  He started on a Wednesday and by the following Monday had applied the last coat of poly.  The cost...it was less than what it would have cost us to do that rolled vinyl in our kitchen!  And that is our entire downstairs!  I'm not gonna lie, it was quite the disruption having to remove everything out of our main floor.  Not to mention the smell was awful, we had to stay somewhere else for three nights.  Eventually we intend to do our upstairs also.

Here's how things look with furniture...

In both the living room and dining room we had to repaint.  Funny how changing the color of the floors can throw off the wall color.  The color of the living room is Crystal Clear White which is actually a Glidden color but I had it mixed by Valspar.  It has a grey undertone to it.

The rug I purchased a while ago from Overstock.  It's quite large, an 8 X 10.  It's called Safavieh Madison Vintage Snowflake Medallion.

Here's what the dining room floors look like...

I'll share another post about the new table and rug soon.

Here's the kitchen where it all started...

We still have to put new shoe moulding all around the room.  I just haven't gotten to that yet.

As you come in our back door this is what the foyer floor looked like when I removed the tile...

This is how it looks now...

Happily I didn't have to repaint the kitchen or foyer walls at all.  In addition to adding shoe moulding I do have to touch up the lower cabinets.

As much as I loved my white painted floors I must admit that I love these finished dark floors.  I'm happy for my husband too because this was all his idea.  He tolerated my painted floors for years and now he can enjoy a design decision he made!

Looking forward to one day tackling the upstairs of our home!