Shore condo files: paint & floors

As I mentioned already ( click here to catch up on our little secret ), I don't have good before or in progress photos of the work we already completed at the shore place. I'm oddly upset about this but nothing I can do now.

I did find a few crap shots to show you the two things we did right away.
Bedroom
LivingRoomStaircaseLivingRoom
In case you are wondering, that is not me laying on the ground...its my brother taking a break from the hard labor enslavement. Naturally the TV was the first thing that we moved in. I know all of you tv haters are screaming at your monitors right now but I love tv no matter what state I'm in :)

The first being the color on the walls. I wanted something light and beachy but not stark white. So I went with a soft beige color careful not to get anything with a peach undertone (have I mentioned how much I hate peachy beige colors? barf.) If you are curious, I used Behr Parisian Taupe. I would have liked to paint every room a different color but Mr. Limestone veto'd that idea. So we compromised on painting the living room and bedroom in this shade and the kitchen in another (Restoration Hardware Silver Sage, not pictured). In light of the fact he does do all the heavy lifting, it seemed like a reasonable middle ground.

The second change we made was much more work: the floors. The existing carpet was completely disguisting. There were blood stains as well as myserious marks of unknown origin. We pulled up that nasty business right away. Oh my god, the smell of it! We spent an entire weekend pulling up the one gazillion staples before calling in a flooring guy to sand and poly the the whole thing. (We briefly considered renting the equipment and trying our hand at the project to save money before realizing fixing our mistakes would probably cost more than having it done right to begin with. In fact, the cost of the work was really reasonable b/c we have so little square footage and we did all the prep work) We didn't use any stain b/c we wanted to keep the more casual, natural wood shade.

And even though we had no furniture to speak of at this point, it made such an incredible difference. The odor, which up until that point was like a bad tenant you can't rid of, was evicted. It not only looked better but it felt better. Finally we could focus on the more fun stuff.

28 comments:

  1. I wish more houses in the Atlanta were old enough to have wood floors hiding underneath. Unfortunately, in my house's case, when you see ugly brown carpet, it's nothing but a slab underneath :(

    The floor looks great! Effort (and cost) look totally worth the hassle.

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  2. your brother's pose cracked me up when I saw it...takes true talent to be able to get comfortable in a room with nothing but wood floors and a tv!
    Things are looking great, by the way!

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  3. We just did our floors over the holiday weekend and the first thing we moved back in was the tv. We needed something to drown out each other's complaining while finishing the renovation!!

    Looks great!

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  4. Anonymous11:39 AM

    OOOOOOOOOOO.....very soothing beige and those floors look gorgeous. When are you going back there? Want. More. Pictures.

    And, hello? Of course you HAVE to have your tv--duh!

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  5. You must really be working the hired help too hard! Great start.

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  6. Congrats! You're on your way!!!

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  7. Ah...I'm sure you will be able to make it look gorgeous!

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  8. Refinishing your floors yourself is such dirty and maddening work. It does save money, but sometimes your sanity and time is more important than money. Love the paint color, too!

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  9. Floor are looking great...so fortunate they were there! Janell

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  10. Sarah: how old is your place? Im pretty sure our place was built in the 70s so its not very old at all. At least by my standards.

    Jill: I go back regularily - im just trying to show some in betwen shots. It looks quite a bit different already.

    Janell: We knew they were there when we bought the place so it wasn't fortune but so glad they were.

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  11. Malissa1:45 PM

    Can't wait to see more! The main living areas in my house are all painted Silver Sage. It is such a great color, and even better at a place by the beach:)

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  12. Your floors look amazing. Can't wait to see more!

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  13. Hi just found your blog and LOVE it!! Where do I START??..lol..

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  14. Oh my - I hope you got that place for a bargain-basement price! I think I would barf if I saw blood on the rug! The new color looks great though. Glad the smell is gone. :)

    FYI, I saw wooden beads at JoAnn Fabrics this week, in 3+ different sizes. Smaller ones were about $4 for around 20 beads, I believe.

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  15. I second the peachy beige. And you lucked out on the floors, huh?

    Kelly

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  16. Oh, Mrs. Limestone, I love that you own your love of TV. Can I assume you'll be watching SYTYCD tonight? I will :)

    We painted most of our first house Parisian Taupe and I loved it so much that we painted most of our current house Parisian Taupe. Unpeachy but still warm and bright.

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  17. Soooo lucky that hardwood floors were underneath! Paint color looks great....

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  18. The hardwood floors were a blessing. The best thing you did was get rid of that disgusting rug that was there. I hope the other areas weren't as gross.

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  19. I do like that you are using warm colors (without a hint of peach) and bare wood floors. It will make for easy cleaning and carefree beachy days! I think I will have to use that color when I repaint my living room. I have to have the floors redone here, 50 year old oak flooring, and its never been refinished.
    I also must have my TV..used to be a TV snob, but my hubby has me hooked now.

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  20. Isn't it simply amazing what new floors and fresh paint can do? Congrats for progress!

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  21. I can't wait to see how it all turns out. I do have an off topic question for you. My hubby and I have a whole week to go somewhere alone without the kids. We can go anywhere. Since you have traveled so much Do you have any vacation favorite spots? We are on the west coast? Thanks

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  22. Can't wait to see it all finished! I love Silver Sage :)

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  23. The hubs and I helped renovate our previous rental house (in exchange for cheap rent) and refinishing the floors was one of the tasks. We had to pull up linoleum that had been glued down everywhere, scrap as much glue off as we could, sand, stain, and seal. It was quite the project. You can tell where they didn't sand just right and there were swirl marks from the sander. Good idea to go with the professionals. We didn't mind so much because it wasn't our house. :)

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  24. I love the floors, they are gorgeous and how convenient that they were there the whole time. I can't wait to see more!

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  25. I am so excited to see wha you do with a whole new home!

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  26. You are too funny about the tv. I too am a tv lover and make no apologies for it:)

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  27. This series of posts is very exciting! Looking forward to following the progress!

    And, I have to say, I'm so grossed out that you had to handle carpets with blood stains. If that doesn't paint a terrible "before" picture, I don't know what can!

    :)

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  28. PhillyLass10:08 AM

    Blood on the carpets?!! Blech! I'm having visions of you crossing police tape to get into this place and get to work.

    (Probably stupid) question about the floor redo: are the carpet staple marks visible because you went with a clear finish on the floors? I know you must have patched with wood filler, but is it possible to get an exact color match to really disguise the holes? Thanks! And keep the updates coming-- I just love watching how you transform spaces. It's surprising that you don't do this for a living! You're so talented, and the design world is missing out!

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