Paint, Floors, and Carpeting: Updating a 1990's House

We bought the house we’re living in now back in Oct 2014. It was an awful mustard orange color, had the original “builders grade” carpets from the 1990s, and a room addition off the living room whose woods floors didn’t match with the rest of the floor. 

For the first time ever, we didn’t DIY all these issues. We were in a rush to move in and there was no way we could do everything that needed to be done in time; plus it was an extraordinary amount of work we simply didn't have the time for. I know that this blog isn't DIY within a DIY blog. But I can't talk about the other projects we've done in our house without mentioning the first and biggest one we did, despite the fact that we turned to help. So while we were in Seattle at my brother-in-laws wedding (shout out Zac & Rach!) we had some renovations going. 

First they painted the whole house- I wanted Restoration Hardware's paint color Flint. The painter insisted he could match the color in a cheaper brand and since we were stressed about the cost of all this we went against our better judgement and said okay. We were in Seattle when they painted and they painted the entire 3,000 ft2 house in a blue/gray that looks nothing like Restoration Hardware's Flint. I ended up still really liking the color, but at first I was pretty damn annoyed. We went a shade darker in the bedrooms and two shades darker in the media room.

Then they pulled up all the carpeting and replaced it. The random patch of carpet in the dining room (surrounded by hardwood in entire rest of the bottom floor) was replaced with matching hardwood and the entire downstairs we had lightly hand-scraped and re-stained so the woods all matched and you couldn’t tell two sections had been added at two different times. Word to the wise – deep hardwood scraping and dark stain color is on its way out according to HGTV. ​ 

And here's the new carpet. I was worried about two shades of blue/gray competing or being too much. But I think it worked out well. We did a patterned carpet going up the stairs only. I love the pattern and think it's pretty timeless. It definitely classed up the joint. 

The most random and ugly thing we changed was to have the tile floor that was on 1/2 the media room floor removed and carpet put down across the entire media room. The previous owner told us he put the tile in because him and his buddies would spill food/drinks while watching the game and he didn't want to deal with stained carpets. Hahaha what!? Sooo much better now!

If I remember, or care enough, I'll update the picture with the carpet once it's been vacuumed and the place has been picked up. Anyway - that's it! New paint, tile pulled out, ​new carpets, and new/refinished wood floors in one week's time. We moved in and starting the remaining 100+ list of projects we have to truly make this place our own. Follow me and see!