Our downstairs family room is I think, the last room we haven’t really touched since we moved in 2 1/2 years ago and it completely looked like it.
The only thing we did was paint. Now when I say paint I mean, I was literally painting the room the day I went to the hospital to have my son. I just knew it needed a new color before he came home. Look at it! This is what it looked liked the day we put an offer in on the house.
It hurt my eyes. It had to be changed. So I quickly picked a color and slapped it on the walls. The next two years I still hated that room. I hated the light wood floors that were stained, I ended up hating the paint I picked out. It was dark and I never wanted to be in that room.
We had bought a great sectional but it wasn’t enough for me want to sit down there.
So when we decided to re-do the flooring, I knew it was my chance to make the room a place where I’d want to relax in with my family.
I figured since the flooring was going to be redone, it was the perfect time to paint the ceiling, and since we were painting the ceiling it was the perfect time to paint the walls, and since we were painting the walls it was the perfect time to take down the chair rail.
So basically our little reno turned into a whole room makeover and I couldn’t be happier.
I was so excited to start ripping up this ugly flooring. It was a laminate that should have been floating… so I thought it was going to be easy..
I removed the baseboards and it should have just lifted right up. Until I realized that the previous owner had nailed it down.
Not just a couple nails here and there, but a ton of nails that were not needed and just ended up being a pain in the butt.
So what I thought was going to be a demo day turned into a demo week.
Thankfully my parents were visiting for my son’s birthday and once the floor was up my mom laid down all fresh underlayment, so I would have a a nice smooth surface to put down the floor.
She also helped me paint the ceiling, paint the room and patch where the chair rails were. (Don’t worry my dad also helped me a ton, I just had him helping me with other project…)
Here is the paint color before.
Here is the after. I chose Collonade Gray by Sherwin Williams. I love it. The lighting in this picture doesn’t really do it justice, but it brightened up the whole. room.
Now that everything was painted, patched and the fresh underlayment was down. I could finally put in my floor!
Read all about the easiest flooring ever here. There is even a video!