Shiny new floors smell good.

Thank you for the sweet and loving welcome back that you gave me yesterday. It means more than I can adequately express. Hugs all around!

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My mom is a woman know to have such an intense sense of smell that she could smell water. My childhood (and adulthood) is peppered with her voice saying "What's that smell?" time and again, and once – yes – even smelling water when something leaked in the basement.

I teased her for her obscene sense of smell. And then I bought this house. And it smelled funny. And I heard my mother's voice come from my own mouth as I said "What's that smell?" Time and again. Not a bad smell, but a synthetic floral, so faint that after a while we could only smell it when we came home from a weekend away. I could smell it on the contact paper I ripped out of the closets or the wallpaper we pulled down when we moved in. But the smell has never gone away in almost five years.

What does this have to do with wood floors? You shall see. Or sniff, as it were.

Let's start with some before photos, shall we?

Please ignore the battling knights and observe the dirty shag carpet in the playroom and the plywood in the dining room. I know. It's classy. I have become a master at creative cropping so that the photos I share with you here rarely show off our nasty floors. Because they were everywhere. Bad carpeting or plywood in every room.

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We've lived here sine just before Lupine was born in 2006. We called this house the "Wallpaper Palace" as it was a different floral in dusty blue and rose in every room. (Some even had matching curtains for the disappearing-window-trick when night came.) The curtains and wallpaper came down fast, but the flooring took us some time.

With a baby business and a baby girl a project on the scope of new floors was more than we could work into our flow, so the project was moved to the back burner indefinitely. And every time we came home after a long trip away Pete and I would look at each other and say "It smells like the house." (Meaning it smells "like the-house-before-it-was-our-home".) That faint funny floral never went away in nearly five years. Then we'd adjust and couldn't smell it again until after our next weekend away.

The upshot is not only was the carpet ugly, I decided it was stinky too. Add to that the fact that our playroom had once been an office with a built-in desk, and the carpet was patched together in places with rugs and scrap carpet. Double-classy.

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It was time. For an upgrade on a grand scale.

While the kids and I were away last week Pete ripped out the carpet and in its place installed a beautiful shiny wood floor. (This is the local hickory I referred to here.) The photographs below are taken in the same space – our playroom. Better?

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Better! It is a whole different world. The shiny floors go from the front door through the family room, playroom, dining room, and kitchen, and even into the office and bath. Serene, clean, and lovely.

And perhaps the best part of all is that for the first time in almost five years, when I walked in the door there was no funny floral. Just the smell of home. Welcome home, at last!

18 thoughts on “Shiny new floors smell good.

  1. Jody says:

    SO JEALOUS!!! Pete did a wonderful job! Our house is wall-to-wall carpet and I HATE it! I too come home (from even just an afternoon shopping trip) and smell “the house”. Ick. I know its the carpet. But I will attempt to be patient as new wood floors are not in the near future…sigh.

  2. Brinda Braun says:

    Your floors really turned out nice! You and Pamela both have Mom’s with nose that pick up to many smells. Sometime it’s a curse being able to smell things that even we wish we couldn’t smell. Ha!! Have a great day!!

  3. Karla says:

    Beautiful floors! My hubby is a carpenter/contractor, and pretty much thinks everything should be made of wood. 🙂 And if he had his way, nothing would ever be painted – but I love me some color!

    We have hardwood floors (with tile in the bathrooms and kitchen), and it’s so much better than carpet. When we first moved in, we ripped up the existing carpet, and there was a thick layer of dirt and other stuff that had seeped through out of the vacuum’s reach. My hubby just did some work on my grandmother’s old house, and when he tore up the carpet in there, it was all moldy underneath (he had to scrape it up by hand). No wonder people get allergies!

  4. Bianca says:

    Congratulations! I love our original oak floors (1950’s). Now if only I could get our landlords to rip out the carpet in 2 bedrooms and finish the oak… yeah, if only. Pete did a fantastic job.

  5. Tracey says:

    Congratulations on your new flooring. Mine is sitting in the front foyer until I can paint the ceiling and the walls. I really need more hours to my day.
    Warmly,
    Tracey

  6. Marian M-S says:

    Gorgeous floors! We are renting, and I am so very done with cheap carpet floors. Looking forward to my own smooth shiny wood floor…in the mean time I will live vicariously through you and enjoy yours 🙂 Congratulations!!

  7. Kathy Carbone says:

    I really envy your floor! Like Jody, my floors are carpeted too. I can’t figure out what to do to make them smell clean. =[ I’m still hoping to have wooden floors someday, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

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