A couple of years ago, we sold our home in Boulder, ready to look for something a little closer to town and easier to maintain. Think soon-to-be empty nesters.... looking for a smaller house and smaller yard.
After living in a rental for a year, we found this 2,400 square foot charmer in a very special neighborhood about a mile northwest of downtown Boulder.
After remodeling in a couple of different phases, we are just now wrapping up landscaping and the final touches on this project.
Whew hew!
In this first blog post I'm going to focus on the front two rooms of the main level: my office and the TV room. When you enter the house, they are to the right and left of the entry.
We remodeled these two rooms early on, which allowed us to store tons of stuff in them during our main remodel.
The TV Room
Real estate shot of family/entertainment room near the front entrance:
A couple of shots after it was vacated:
My Office
Real estate shot of then front office/piano room:
Photos after vacating:
The plan of attack: new paint, floors and lighting.
Paint: For the walls I went with an off-white to lighten these north facing rooms.
Benjamin Moore Sea Pearl OC-19
For the trim, I used a tried and true white that will contrast just slightly with the body paint color.
Benjamin Moore Simply White
I came across these gorgeous dark cabinets featured on HGTV, which inspired me to give it a try on the cabinets in our TV room.
Benjamin Moore Soot 2129-20
This color is black with the slightest hint of blue. Here we go.....
Big impact change with this paint. Onto the floor... the carpet that was in these two front rooms had to go. We knew we were going to need to replace the wood flooring in the main area of the house eventually. My plan was to lay new wood flooring in these two front rooms... add the rest in the main area later.
Choosing the wood flooring was an odyssey. My family puts some serious wear and tear on flooring, with bike cleats, visiting dogs, and more. I REALLY wanted to find a more durable flooring option than true wood floors. After a TON of research, it became clear to me that I needed to go with real wood due to the character of the neighborhood.
The flooring I ended up selecting is an engineered wide plank white oak from Provenza Flooring. Specifically their Affinity Liberation flooring. You can find it here.
These floors changed everything.
We installed this West Elm light on the ceiling of the TV room.
This light can be found here.
Replaced the blinds...
with these bamboo shades (went in both rooms):
TV room before:
After:
Office before:
After:
*That's the IKEA hack cabinet that I blogged about here.
Once we had the rooms nicely finished, we proceeded to fill them with all of the stuff we had to move out of the other areas of the house to launch into main remodel.
Lots of moving parts ..... but worth it in the end!
More to come soon.