When we bought this house, there were six different types of flooring in this house. I don’t know about you, but that just annoys me. It was visually very jarring- the bedrooms had old *old* dirty white carpet I just couldn’t keep clean, the laminate flooring that covered the hallway, living room and kitchen was scratched to oblivion, the hardwood parquet in the family room was sunbleached and had very noticeable bump in the middle of the room… it was a hot mess. Not even hot… it was just a mess.

We’d been going back and forth on when to put in floors for quite some time. Floors are a big ticket project, and this house isn’t small- almost 2500 square feet. We wanted to do the bedrooms and all the living area. (Basically, we didn’t do the pantry/laundry and the bathrooms.) I am also incredibly slow at making decisions about expensive projects- I want to be 10000% sure before I decide, because there is no going back- like, no freaking way am I going to rip out floors that just got installed because they’re not quite right.

We could have postponed for a year or two, but our timeline for new floors got pushed up when we found out Baby Devaurs 3 would be making their arrival in August. (By the way, it was a girl and her name is Millie <3) The thought of a baby crawling around on that dirty floor just wasn’t it. We got quotes from several companies, and set the dates- June 2021.

Side note: There are some projects I’m totally cool with doing myself- this wasn’t one of them. The demo was intense, the amount of precision required was overwhelming, and I was 7 months pregnant. This was a job best left to professionals. I know some people install floors on their own, and I am in awe. I am not one of those people. I know my limits!

Because this house is… this house, it wasn’t a relatively seamless install. (I know NO project is, but this house always has the wonkiest, weirdest, STUPIDEST issues caused by previous owners who wanted to fix things cheap and fast… every project. Every time.)

The first issue we had was the subfloor. Because of the way the previous owners had installed the laminate, we were facing replacing all of the subfloor throughout the majority of the house. This would have increased our project cost by 50%- which just wasn’t feasible for us. I cried that afternoon when the contractor was explaining the situation to us- tears of frustration, mostly, because it seems like decisions of other people always stymie our progress with improving this home. Thankfully, the contractor was able to find a way to work around this safely, and we didn’t have to replace all the plywood subfloor. {Note that by June 2021, plywood had increased in cost by nearly 50%, so this workaround saved the project.}

Another strange issue that just feels about right for this home was the hump in the family room floor. This hump was so noticable that you could place a ball in the center of the room and it would roll to the side! The contractors had to do a ton of self-leveling concrete. I’m grateful that it’s mostly gone- they could only do so much because of the sliding glass door that had to have clearance maintained so it could function.

This project was finished in a week- those men worked so hard and I was and am so grateful for them. I know that if we had attempted this ourselves, it would have taken months! The before and afters are unreal, too…

Before:

If I could change anything about the floors… it would be nothing. The floors we picked are perfect for us (I chose a light greyish/white because my children and my dogs are in and out all day, and so there is always a lot of dirt, dust and dog hair.) We went with LVP, because it’s waterproof and tough. I know some people hate grey floors-and that’s ok. I like grey so much. I live here, not them. *shrugs*

Despite the fact that I wouldn’t change anything about my floors, I would change a few things I did to prep, survive, and finish up this project:

1. I rented plastic storage bins from a local California company called Boxbee. I’m not linking them because they were terrible, start to finsh. They delivered my order late and were really unhelpful with giving me delivery details, and then they forgot to come and pick up the damn boxes! It was such a pain. Renting boxes for a move or temporary storage is a big yes from me, but **do not** work with this company if you’re in Northern California. I love that I didn’t have to deal with a lot of cardboard recycling, and this only added about $150 total to the cost of the project… it was totally worth not having to buy or find boxes, then tape them together, then break them down. I labeled the boxes with Post-Its so I could be semi-organized since the boxes just stayed in our garage during this process.
2. I would not stay in my home during the process, especially with small children who were not in school and being very pregnant. The crew that worked on our home was great, but it was tough to manage keeping my inquisitive posse out of their hair. Haha. Covid constraints made it tough to get out of the house and find stuff to do, so it was really just about making the best of a pretty difficult week. We went to the park a lot.
3. I wish I would have had a cleaning person come in afterwards, instead of struggling to do it myself. The house was super dusty and dirty from construction, and I don’t know why I didn’t give myself permission to get help, The funny thing is, this isn’t the first time we’ve done a floor installation, so I knew this would be a dusty process.

Alright… After:

To say that we’re pleased would be an understatement. It just feels better, and looking at the floors doesn’t make me feel twitchy, ha.

Any questions? Pop them below or find me on my Instagram!

Xx,

Lindsay

Before I do a deep dive into the indidual projects that have been completed, I think it’s beneficial to take a snapshot to see how far we’ve come since April of 2018. I get so discouraged when I look around my home- I tend to notice the unfinished and out of place before I see what IS in place. (Lemme tell you, living with kids is really testing me and teaching me how to turn a blind eye to things a bit more.)

Just last week, Google Photos very helpfully showed some photos from the week we did a final walk through on this house. I remember I wasn’t able to come, because I couldn’t miss any more work and child care constraints, so Jensen flew solo and sent me photos to keep me updated. It’s unreal how much this home has changed, as demonstrated through these few photos!

This house has great bones, which is why we chose it… but there were certainly big ticket projects we needed to undertake to make it OUR home. Four years later, and we’ve gotten much closer to our vision of what we wanted this home to become.

I get really discouraged when I look at the list of things we still need (and want) to do. But this photo reminds me of some the really, REALLY big things we have finished, and I have to smile. It really has come so far in the four years. That’s not to say that we don’t have more to do (looking at you, bathrooms, kitchen, and pantry!) but it feels like a totally different home.

xx,
Lindsay