New Cabin Wood Floors

 One of the big benefits of our Cabin Up North was the open floor plan.  While other renos need to knock down walls to achieve a big, open living space, we were actually putting new walls up.  But even though our Dining Room, Kitchen and Living Room were all one big connected space, they all sported different flooring. 

The Dining Room boasts a blue painted, weathered wood plank.  While it's fantastic in a shabby-sheek sort of way, it was really damaged and there were major holes and patches into the Kitchen area.

 

The Kitchen's flooring is by far the best (read: ugliest).  This copper-toned laminate masterpiece can only be made better with peeling corners and cigarette burns.  

The Kitchen transitions into the Living Room with an interesting curved boarder.  The carpet in the Living Room is actually new.  It was replaced before the sellers put the house on the market, but the shape of it really limits the size of the Living Room and crowds an otherwise large space.

Here's another look at that sexy curve.

The plan was to install one consistent flooring throughout all of these spaces to make them flow into each other, and become more functional.  First the Living Room carpet had to go.

And just like the terrible Bedroom carpet removal, we found more, super awesome linoleum underneath.  Plus a carpet pad that had been glued to the floor, which made for a lot of scraping.

So here's the fun part- the floors magically installed themselves!  Okay, that's not true, but that's what it feels like when you hire an installer to put them in for you.  Amazing!

Now you guys know that I love a good DIY project, and it literally pains me to pay money for something I know I can do myself.  But this time around my Mom was calling the shots.  She got a fantastic deal on the flooring, and reasoned that with the savings she could just hire someone to install it.  Since we only have occasional weekends up North, and when we do we've got the whole family trying to live out of this space, she felt like it would be hard for us, and unfair for the kiddos, to live among the construction of floor installation for a weekend or two. 

She's a smart lady, because not only was the main living space a construction zone, but the bedrooms were stuffed with all the furniture that needed to be displaced.  Not ideal to put a baby down for a nap in here.


And that's how it came to pass that my family left the cabin one weekend with 1970's linoleum, and entered the cabin a few weekends later to this:

 

That may be my favorite entrance ever.  Here's a look at the eating area, still void of chairs and bar stools as we waited to attach anti-scratch pads.

 

We were working with a bunch of different wood tones in this cabin, the natural pine planks, the dark wood cabinets and furniture, and the natural wood trim.  Finding a floor to make all of these look good was a challenge, but we focused in on a rustic hickory that provided lots of variations in tone.  Over all the floor is light, which brightens up the space, but the variations work with all of our different wood tones in different ways and make them all look intentional. 

The hardwood is also hand-scraped which gives it a worn and lived-in vibe.  Plus it helps us hide any future scrapes and damage that our little home wreckers can create, because it's amazing how much a child can ruin your home.  Seriously.

My little tiled entryway turned out just how we intended, plenty of room for the door to open and lower than the wood floors to protect it from winter boots and puddles.

  

This area is currently wood-central, with wood on literally the floors, walls and ceiling.   It's a little much now, but once we get a chance to break it up with chairs, curtains and a rug I think it will feel really warm and cabiny.  That is an adjective, don't bother to look it up.  Trust me.

Am I the only one that feels compelled to jump up and lay on these counter tops? Sure, this photo is from before I had a chance to fix the back splash tile in the kitchen, but it's still beautiful even with the lime green party strip.

The kitchen looks magical now that the floors, new quartz counter top and apron sink have come together- as it was always intended.



Obviously there's lots to still do in the Living Room (you can see our plans here, but the idea is to remove the small window and add a fireplace in the center of that wall flanked by built in shelves.)  Once the construction of that space comes together we'll work on a rug, curtains, furniture and artwork.  But I mean COME ON.  How about that progress- eh? 

 Here maybe this will help- my favorite part of reno blogging- the before and afters!

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

And for those of you asking what the counter looks like with out the curved bump out, here's the before:

Before

And the much more open and passable after:

After

After a year of hard work, I couldn't be more thrilled about how the cabin looks today.  We have tackled SO MUCH (mostly wallpaper), but to see it slowly coming together as a warm, homey and well loved space is everything I could have hoped for.  Sure, there's still a lot to do.  Some of it is more challenging (I'm talking about you new deck and old entrance), but in other places we're finally getting to the fun part- decorating.  It will all take time and patience (neither of which I have), but we're building this full scale, amazing family heirloom, and the journey is way more important than the destination. 

And this is the part of the journey where I strip down to my socks and underwear and slide Tom Cruise style across our new floors.  Because wouldn't you?