Projects Update.

In 2008, we purchased a bank owned property that was 20 years old. The townhouse needed quite the interior facelift. But the unique floor plan offered so much potential, we knew it was the right house for us. When we closed, the living room and kitchen looked like this.

Isn't that peach kitchen terrible! TERRIBLE.  I changed that super fast. We actually did a first phase of updates right away. It's amazing how much a little paint can change how everything looks and feels.  So for the last couple of years, things have looked like this.

We have talked for a long time about replacing the light colored faux wood floors and the living room carpet with a darker floating floor through out the entire first level. We would love to put down real hard wood, but in a 20+ year old town home, the return on investment just wouldn't exist.  For Christmas, my generous in-laws offered to pay for a portion of the new floating floor. We thought this was great idea and quickly crunched the numbers to make sure we could afford the entire project. We picked out a great faux floor and were excited have it installed.
The night before the installation was to begin, Michael and I decided to pull up the carpet in the living room to have a head start on the day. Imagine our surprise when we found this.

Yep, that's real hardwood under the carpet. We went on to find more of it under the FAUX light wood in the dining room. Then we found this under the faux wood in the kitchen.

This discovery sent us back the the drawing board. How would we even think of being as crazy as the previous owners by covering up perfectly good hard wood floors?

So we didn't. We made the decision to have the hardwoods refinished a darker color. We also selected a 12inch slate looking tile for the kitchen and foyer. The project has been a long one. Much longer then we anticipated. But here is the first glimpse at our new first level.

There are still some finishing touches, including painting all of the banisters white. I hope to complete these in the next week and then I'll take a few more photos. The first floor face lift has been amazing so far. Once complete, we plan to put the floating floor in the basement. Stay tuned for that transformation this summer.