Kitchen Floors Part 2

I am really drawn to painted wood floors and have looked at countless images for inspiration. When it came down to it, we decided to go with our gut after looking at a few stains on the floor. Below is an image of a soft gray, espresso, and black.

While I really liked the color of the soft grey, we were not as happy will the orange of the pine showing through. If the wood floor did not have so much orange/red we may have selected this stain. What we didn't like about the espresso was how muddy it ended up looking. The grain in the wood didn't pop as much as it did with the black. Hence, we selected the black.

Below is a picture of the staining process and the final result. As the stain was not as translucent as we had desired, I used the brush to wipe off some on the stain allowing the grain to show through.

After the stain came the varnish.

The only thing left is the painted border which will follow after the cabinets are installed and painted.

Kitchen Floors Part 1

We have been going back and forth for some time as to what will become of the kitchen floors.

We first were looking at a very contemporary ceramic tile that emulated natural stone. When we had a structural engineer come and look at the house since deciding to take down the wall he advised against it. We would need to add a column in the basement as the weight of the stone and the removal of the wall may cause the floor to deflect too much.

Next we thought of adding a floating cork floor over the existing pine floors. The reason being that the backer paper and glue for the original laminate was going to be a pain to remove and therefore no way to stain or even paint the original pine boards.

However, to our surprise, our flooring guy decided to sand all of that away. Which was probably since he felt bad that it was taking the remainder of our floors so long to complete. (6 weeks instead of 2) Below is a picture of the before and after of pine floors were sanded.

After this little surprise, we finally decided on staining the majority of the floors and then painting a boarder once the cabinetry was installed. But first as you can see from above, we need to fill the missing boards. This was a little tricky as we would need to find wood that was the same species, size, and thickness. We ended up using a pine board that is typically used for building furniture. Our flooring guy may scoff at this if he ever reads this post but the end product looks pretty good.

God is in the Details

...and here comes the Mies quote! Something Cory and I heard quite often at our alma mater, IIT.

As we have been painting like crazy, I can't help but look at the minute details of the house. Which is of no surprise when you're hand painting all these window mullions! The original hardware was driving me a little crazy as some were rusting or the finish was wearing off. As new hardware can get really pricey, I decided to spray them. Before and after pics of a little over half of the window hardware in the house are below. Yup, I even painted the screw heads. Only slightly OC :)

Painting the Walls

I am sure you all know the decision process that can go into painting. And with two opinionated decision makers... we went back and forth a few times. I should mention that we have both approached the design of this house with respect to its history and context. Neither one of us could envision going completely modern in this house. So we hoped to maintain its 1930s character and add a few contemporary touches where it will work.

Our decision process started with pinterest. Or I should say I used pinterest as a dream board to gather my inspiration and make my case to the hubby. :)

In the few weeks we have owned the home we have managed to paint all three bedrooms and the living room. We did have a little help from some great friends to help knock this out!

Living Room
I'll start with the Living Room and the inspiration photo for the paint color.

What we loved about the color was it's complexity and how it paired with the creams to create a soft environment. Below you will see the inspiration photo taped to the wall along with several Sherwin Williams paint chips. Our final color selection was Sherwin Williams #SW6213 Halcyon Green.

 

Master Bedroom
There really wasn't an inspiration photo for the Master Bedroom. Although I am drawn to photos such as the one below that reminds me of lazy Sundays and cozy covers.

The Master Bedroom was already painted a cool gray which we really like the idea of painting the room grey only we wanted to add a little warmth to the color. Below is the final color we selected, Sherwin Williams #SW7044 Amazing Gray.

Second Bedroom
For the Second Bedroom we really wanted to keep it simple and fresh. We had already been repainting all of the wood trim in the house a soft white. With that in mind we chose a white on white room, the walls are painted the same wood trim color only in an Eg-Shel versus the gloss finish of the wood trim. Sherwin Williams #SW0050 Classic Light Buff.

Third Bedroom
For the Third Bedroom I found myself really inspired by some bold colors. In the past we have been fairly conservative with color (it's stereotypical of architects to always revert to white). There were some amazing deep, grass greens that I was drawn to. But in the end we went with a rich blue. Here is the inspiration photos.

Below is our sample color and an image of the final product, Sherwin Williams #SW7610 Turkish Tile.

I cannot wait to get the floors refinished! It will really make a huge difference.