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There were a lot of unexpected twists and turns along the way until we finally ended up with this Pinterest-worthy white oak ceiling in our dining room. Remember, we’re updating a 1970s home for our family of 5 with all of its charm and some of its quirks in tact.
Like many secondary bedroom closets of the 1970s era, Cline’s closet was basically filled at the bottom with an HVAC box and had an ordinary rod for hanging clothes. Not cute and definitely not the best use of space. We knew this closet had unmet potential and we set out to find it.
Call us biased, but we whole-heartedly agree that hardwood flooring projects belong at the top of the list. When remodeling or building a new home, flooring choices take center stage. The impact of your flooring choice will be felt for decades and is key in achieving a well-designed and high performance interior.
As an owner of two home construction and design service-based businesses, The Hardwood Co and 2540 Love, and also a homeowner myself that has remodeled our own homes a time or two, I now know what to look for when hiring a contractor. I haven’t always followed my own rules and I’ve been burned. Don’t get burned. Read below.
We love a light, natural white oak floor but when refinishing, we’re often working with red oak as that’s a common hardwood floor choice. A few years ago I was working on a design client project and knew I wanted a light natural white oak floor but the existing floors in the 1950s home were red oak. After lots of research we decided to do a custom mix of 2 stains to try to hide as much red as we could. Since then, we have done quite a few floors using this custom mix and love the results. I do want to say, it doesn’t completely hide all the pink, especially if it is a select or #1 wood but if your heart is set on light floors and you don’t want to rip out all of your red oak (which I ALMOST NEVER (I’ve learned to never say never) would recommend ripping out real, solid wood) then this is the best method we have found to achieve that light look.
Ta Da!!! We are ALMOST finished with our back foyer and I cannot believe it! We still have to put the final coat of matte water-based poly on our 5” white oak select hardwood floors. It’s so hard to get to our own floors when we’re doing everyone else’s every day, but we’re hoping Tom can find a little time to squeeze our own house in soon.
Are you in the middle of a home improvement project and feeling stuck when it comes to design or just being able to pull your vision together? I understand! The decision fatigue we experience can keep us from pulling the trigger on design choices and purchases. There are just too many options and it’s easy to get overwhelmed. But maximizing your home’s potential and creating relaxing spaces for your family to come home to is important. Instead of becoming another stressor, home can be a place you never want to leave. But, making your house a home takes time. Scheduling a virtual design call with me can help you take the guesswork out of designing a room that’s optimized for your family’s enjoyment. You’ll leave our FaceTime call armed with a plan and a list of sources.
We’re often asked to perform magic. It seems many homeowners with existing red oak hardwood floor would prefer to go lighter, brighter and achieve a “white oak” look instead of the typical red oak look which tends to read orange. We’ve mixed and experimented and mixed and experimented some more. We’ve developed a special stain mixture that takes a lot of the red and pink out of red oak floors. What’s left is an updated + fresh finished look.
Creating a home that provides comfort, safety and enjoyment for your family is a priority. That's why we offer LVP as an option to you. We know you have many factors to consider when making flooring decisions, including cost, maintenance, and aesthetics. Explore our Flooring Shop to see all of your LVP options and consider booking a virtual design consult here if you need help deciding which particular floor will work best in your space.
We will forever and always be fans of solid, site-finished hardwood floors. They are classic and add so much value to a home. However, it should be noted that engineered hardwood floors have several benefits, as well. Let’s chat about each!
At the beginning of the year, we touched on hardwood flooring trends for 2021 and herringbone topped our list. I’ve wanted to incorporate a little herringbone into our homes for years and finally included it in our design plan for our current remodel. Our Part 1 of 2: the inspo, the history and the install.
Since purchasing our home last fall, we knew one of the first things we wanted to tackle is the stairs. The dark basket style iron balusters, and red oak treads, handrail and posts were just a little too formal for me. Our goal was to lighten up and comfy up this house and if we want that vibe, the stairs have to go.
Hardwood floors are timeless. They’re classic. They add to a home’s value and give the sense of strength and stability. We’re big fans of hardwood floors, obviously. A few things to consider in the care of hardwood floors—we’ll call them ‘essentials’—-will keep your floors looking fabulous for years to come.
Our client wanted a total transformation of her living room, from dark & heavy to light & bright. So, naturally we decided to refresh this room with paint. It provided such a nice blank canvas for us. The room felt 10x bigger, too! This young family uses this room a lot throughout the day and the goal was to make it a space where they could relax and recharge. One of the pieces we brought in was an art ledge that Tom designed and built. It would serve to ground the main wall and provide a focal point of art and interesting textures.
Many homes with existing hardwood floors have oak, red oak to be specific. We’ve found that most homeowners would like to get rid of as much red as possible when refinishing. Many times they want to go light (more on that look here). However, after much discussion and inspo sourcing with this homeowner, (more info on our virtual stain consultations here) we knew we wanted to do the complete opposite and go dark. The warmth of the rich brown tone complemented the neutral design scheme so well, as you’ll see. We used a water-based polyurethane to achieve a matte finish. Water-based poly also has no VOCs and a quicker drying time than oil-based polyurethane. Check out this blog post for more on water vs oil poly here.
When we bought the Matlock house we knew we wanted to transform the “church room” into a multifunctional bonus space. We tried to make every inch of space functional and take advantage of every nook and cranny for built in storage and use. It wasn’t until we started demo that Tom had the idea of adding a shed dormer and built in beds in the bonus room.
You’ve likely heard the phrase ‘keep it simple’ and it’s a perfect motto when it comes to cleaning your hardwood floors properly. There are just a few guidelines to remember when cleaning your hardwood floors and we want to share our top three tips with you today.
We gave our sofa a makeover! We paid $300 for this sofa at a Pottery Barn outlet in 2007. She served her time, but that microsuede fabric and dark frame and legs were ready for an update.
When we remodeled the Matlock house in 2016, we installed 3 1/4” white oak #2 throughout. Because 3/4” solid hardwood floors can be refinished, we had the opportunity to change up the space 3 years later by refinishing floors to achieve a warmer and more natural white oak look. The benefits of 3/4” solid hardwood floors include durability and timelessness, as well as providing the option to refinish when you desire a fresh, updated aesthetic.
You may have heard for years now that white oak is what you want, whether it’s for your floors, cabinets or ceiling but do you know why? Let’s explore some of the differences between red oak and white oak and dive in to the information you need so you can make the very best choice for your home and lifestyle.
Lately I have gone down too many rabbit holes of stair inspo to count. We’re in our sixth house and this is the third time we have remodeled the staircase. The first two houses didn’t have stairs and the third one was new construction so that leaves us with a 50% stair remodel rate in our own homes. To me, one of the most dramatic features in a home is the staircase. Since it is usually seen from the front door, it tells the story of your home immediately after entering. My problem is, I like too many different stair designs and have such a hard time narrowing it down to just one but I know the story I want our house to tell. It’s a story that says, come on in, you’re welcome here. We take pride in our home and want it to reflect our style, design preferences and lifestyle. We want it to be relaxed and peaceful and to me, our choice of stair design reflects that. The staircase in our current house made me twitch, not relaxed and peaceful so it was one of the first things we wanted to change. Let’s get started with that inspo.
We’re six months in after closing on this house and boy does home take time. We’re starting with the upstairs which includes our kids three bedrooms, a hallway, two small bonus room spaces and one bathroom that we turned into two. The first thing we did after closing was remove the carpet everywhere in the house. We decided we would rather live on plywood subfloor for a while than move everything in onto the existing carpet.
Sometimes homeowners ask the question, “should I have hardwood floors in the kitchen?” and our answer is a resounding YES, with a few caveats that we’ll go over in this blog post. But, first….why hardwood in the kitchen? Well, here are our top 5 reasons to go for it and install new hardwood floors or refinish existing hardwood in the kitchen.
Oh the Modern Memaw House (this was my client’s Memaw’s house and we modernized it just a bit, so it seemed only fitting to name this project the Modern Memaw Project). The house that started it all. The house that began our quest for achieving a light floor while hiding as much pink as we can in red oak.
Though we live in a world of natural white oak floors right now, there is something so beautiful about a rich deep brown solid site finished hardwood floor, in the right setting. Each home is different, that’s what makes it yours, and your floor stain should always compliment the design style of your home. We actually thought we were going light on these red oak floors, but after much discussion and inspo sourcing with this homeowner, we knew we wanted to do the complete opposite, dark dark dark.
Want that raw natural white oak look for your hardwood floors? Me too! If you want this look, it’s best to start out with, well, white oak of course, but we have had some luck hiding as much pink as we can in red oak by creating a custom stain mix and then applying a water-based poly.
Let’s start with the first question, is it normal for your hardwood floors to gap in the winter? The short answer? Yes. The long answer is that wood has a love/hate relationship with moisture and if you don’t nurture that relationship, your wood could give you the cold shoulder. Just like cararra marble will etch if you squirt a lemon on it, unlaquered brass will patina over time and your four year old can leave you a love note on your Italian leather chair with his fingernail, real wood will dry out and shrink in low humidity.
We love to see a house come together from the ground up but there is just something about taking what is old and making it new again. That first swipe of the sander when the wood is brought back to its original raw condition is so satisfying. The choices are endless with what happens from there. Light, dark, natural, brown, gray, black, water based, European oil? So many choices with solid 3/4” hardwood.
Sometimes we get surprised and this was one of those times. We were scheduled to remove damaged 1 inch red oak from a beautiful historic 1895 home. We had new 1 inch red oak acclimating in the home before we arrived for demo and install but as we began demo we noticed a big surprise…..another layer of hardwood, heart pine to be exact. You never know what you’re going to find in old homes. Since this home already had a mixture of heart pine and red oak throughout we, along with the homeowners, decided to refinish the existing heart pine.
Since we are starting demo on our current stairs, I thought it would be fitting to look back at our stair remodel Tom did in our last house. We removed carpet, balusters, handrail and posts and replaced with white oak treads, white painted risers and metal railing.