House Update: Fixing the Floors

One of the main things we loved about our house when we purchased it was the original hardwood floors on both the main and upper levels. What we didn't realize when we bought our house though was that not all of our floors were the same.

The previous owner had the floors in the entire house refinished, except those in the master bedroom. So, we had lovely floors in 90% of our house, except in of the most important rooms in the house.

Not the best picture, but you can tell the floors look rough

 

In addition to the master bedroom, we wanted to fix the ugly patch that was left over after we removed the built in cabinet in the office room (I've decided to call it the office since it has our desks in it).

Not even itty bitty puppy Charlie could make the two toned floors look good

 

The final place we wanted to refinish the floors was on the stairs and upstairs landing. The carpet on them had seen better days and I was more than happy to see the dated style go. The stairs that were not covered by carpet were really rough and a drastically different color than any of the wood surfaces in our house. 

 

I mean, no. 

 

We removed the carpet from the stairs and landing the same weekend we talked to the company we hired to refinish the floors*. We also moved into our spare (smaller) bedroom to keep the master bedroom open for renovations. And then we waited. And waited. And waited some more. They finally came to refinish the floors in November, which was just in time for us to order our new bedroom furniture before my dad came for the holiday.

 

The stairs were more expensive to refinish because they have to be done by hand, but they were so, so worth it. We are undecided on whether to add a runner on the stairs or leave them plain. Right now, indecisiveness and a laziness is keeping them bare.

Charlie approves of the new stairs

The landing is such a small space, but it makes such a nice impact on the second floor as a whole.

 

And, the area you're probably most interested in--the patch in our office:

 



Old floor on top, newly stained on the bottom

 

The color is not an exact match, but it looks much better than the glaring two toned mess that was there before. Plus, I haven't given up hope that over time, sunlight, and age may cause the stain to miraculously become the same color.

 

I am not sharing pictures of the master bedroom just yet because there's a lot to update you on in there than just the floors. I'll cover it soon, I promise!

*I originally wanted to try DIY refinishing the floors, but Brian insisted that we hire professionals since this type of project requires special tools to ensure a smooth finish. Plus, we wanted to match the stain in the rest of the house as close as possible and figured pros that do this every day would be better at it than us.

What home projects made the biggest impact on your house? Have you ever refinished floors?