Valley House Tour: A Case for New Floors

Some of you commented yesterday that you really liked the dark wood floors on the stairs and in the family room and that I should just replace the ceramic tiles with dark wood to match and call it a day.

That was definitely my Plan B. My problem with this flooring is that it's engineered wood and for some reason it has that sort of swishy, sticky, hollow sound to it when you walk (drives me nuts). Also, it's made to look hand-scraped, which can be really pretty when done subtly, but ends up being a bit too much texture I think in a large space.

Also, I really, really dislike the way they did the stairs, where you can see the individual pieces of wood instead of cut-to-fit planks. Even if we were going to keep the dark wood floors, I'd pull those off the wood on the treads and risers and have new planks cut. This look is not my favorite.

For the record, I still really like the look of dark stained floors. I think it's classic and the contrast against light color walls is so pretty! My mom has really dark floors in her house and they're lovely. The stain shade on the wood in this house is almost the same as my mom's and I really like it.

I actually spent a few days at the new house recently working on a pre-closing project (photos coming soon! Can't wait to share.) and the dust on the floors ended up being a daily chore to tackle. The footprints!! They were everywhere. I was practically married to my swiffer when we lived at the loft with the white epoxy floors, and the idea of having endless years ahead of me wiping up the dark floors every time the kids come in from playing in the backyard sounded like a nightmare.

And while it would be less than half as expensive to replace the tile with the same dark engineered wood (assuming we could buy more of the same wood), I feel like it would be a little like throwing good money after bad. Since there's a good chance we'll live in this home for a long time, I'd rather put a bigger chunk of my renovating budget toward doing the floors right from the get go.

So what am I envisioning? A light golden gray. Basically the color of dust and kid smudges. :) This first photo here is my inspiration.

I'm shooting for a more classic "Paris apartment" color on the stain, which I think might be a little more trend-resistant than the really light grays (which are so, so gorgeous).

World of Interiors (I think? Dang Tumblr!)

Arch Digest

We're putting in an order for 3.5" unfinished white oak. The bulk of the order will be sent in random lengths for all the straight-laying we'll do in most of the house. But in the library (which I'll show you next) I want to lay the wood in a herringbone pattern.

above and below via

The floor in the library is sunken about 8", which is not my favorite look normally, but it works pretty well to define the three different spaces we have going on in the front part of the house. It was going to cost thousands and thousands to fill in the step-down and we would have had to wait for 60 days for the concrete to cure before laying flooring down on top of the fill. I was on the fence about filling it anyway, so problem solved!

Doing a herringbone will make the step down look more intentional I think. And actually, it's really a chevron pattern we're doing, where the planks aren't offset, but meet at an angle - just like in all the example photos above. I'm sort of getting ahead of myself though. More plans for the library and the parquetry in a bit.

What do you think of our stain choice? We need to test some more samples, but it's looking like three parts golden oak to one part gray stain is just about right.

Valley House Tour: The Entry

I only have rough measurements of the new house, so this floor plan is not completely accurate, but it might help you get a sense of the layout. Here's the first floor (I'll share the second floor a little later, still working on that one):

Like with every house, there are some funny quirks in this place, but for the most part I love how our new house is laid out. A part of me is dying to just get in there and get started, but we're really enjoying our last couple of weeks here in New York, so I'm not actually thinking about the new house too much. (PS some of you emailed about renting out the brownstone and luckily we found another family about 12 hours after we listed the house on Craigslist a couple weeks ago, which was a huge relief. I'm glad another family gets to enjoy this space and the yard we worked so hard on.)

So like I mentioned earlier, I'd love to share the new house with you in its before state, room by room. Might as well start at the entry. Here's the front door again:

And as a reminder, I'm planning to rip out that faux balcony situation so you can actually see the front door from the street better. I might need to leave something up high for the roofline and for shade, but I'll figure that out later.

Wouldn't that green color from yesterday's post be so pretty on a new door? I'll probably have to keep this one for at least a little while, so I'm thinking I'll just paint it out and see how I like the color before committing to it on the new doors. 

Then here's the front door from the inside. The previous owner, who is just about the nicest a person could be, actually spent a lot of money on the house, getting it just how she liked it before putting it on the market to move into her new-build home. The look is actually pretty tame for most of the homes you see in Arizona (which almost across the board aren't at all my style). The ceramic tile here in the front of the house is about the worst offender, but everything (including the tile) is an easy fix. The things that weren't easy or even possible to fix with most Arizona houses weren't an issue with this home. Things like having smooth, not highly textured walls, really high ceilings without plant shelves and good, but not super-scorcher light with north/south exposures - these were all here with this house. I feel like I won the AZ lottery in that the house needs work, but the work it needs is just perfect for us.

You can see some of the gingerbread moulding continued on the inside of the house (awesome), but I'll talk about that when we get to the library post. Here's the view as you walk in the front door.

This is one of the walls that I want to rip out and rebuild. I can't stand that picture window cut out above that low walkway. We're looking into how much we can change the opening there without having to do major electrical work. 

Also you can see here how the owner put in dark wood floors in the family room. The tile is just in the entry and hallway and the front common rooms. Probably only about 800 square feet of tile and the rest of the house is that dark wood, with the exception of the playroom/guest suite area on the other side of the house, which are carpeted.

I'm going to do a separate post on the floors, because there's a lot to say there, but the operating plan is to replace everything now, before we move in our furniture. I care more about the floors than about putting in a new kitchen right away, just because it's so hard to change all the floors down the road while actually living in the space. And I think beautiful floors really just set the tone for a home. Anyway, more on that later.

The stairs will get a fresh coat of black and white paint and I think that will go so far! I'm still debating whether or not to do a runner on the new wood we'll be putting down, but it's probably a good idea with the kids. (those are their bedrooms upstairs)

I think the previous owner was starting a paneling project that was never finished. (see those two boxes next to the coat closet?) I'd love to do something similar on the walls in here, but with an even more dramatic moulding. Also all the moulding and floor boards will be replaced when we do the floors and I'd love to replace the doors while we're at it, but we will probably need to wait on those. I might just do my old trick of painting them black to take away from the hollow-core look.

So, a recap of my entry plans:

- Paint the front door exterior a fun color, like jade green.

- Replace front door eventually with a taller, more modern double door. Maybe something with glass to bring in more light.

- New wood floors on the stairs and to replace all the ceramic tile

- Maybe a stair runner

- Paint the stair rail black and the balusters and stair risers white

- New entry light (something really big and unique)

- Strip and stain the ceiling beams?

- Rip out and reframe the entryway into the family room

- Trim out the walls with paneling

- Replace the door frames and floor boards with more substantial mouldings

- New solid wood doors eventually, but paint the existing doors black until then

- Cool rug in front of the door

- Hang a mirror and maybe a small, wall-mounted console table next to the coat closet

- Paint the walls - maybe a glossy white on the paneling? Would help it feel brighter for sure.

What do you like to see in a home's entry way? I think it's such an important space! For visitors, it's like a little summary of your home style.

Inspiration at Colonial Williamsburg

This post was brought to you by Colonial Williamsburg. Book your stay at colonialwilliamsburg.com.

I've been really into classical architecture books lately (this one is completely fascinating). We're going to be knocking out and rebuilding a few interior walls of the new house that will need some special moulding. I've been doing as much research as I can before we have to make final decisions there. So when I was invited to come down to Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia with my sister Heather and sister-in-law Kenzi, I jumped at the chance to have a girls weekends and to tour the beautiful, historically restored town and soak up all the classical and colonial architecture (and I'll be honest - the spa and the amazing food were a draw, too) :)

The past couple of weeks have been SO intense with work and the upcoming move, it was really amazing to hop in the car, get out of the city and have some kid-free time with these ladies I love so much.

Also, I was excited to go straight to the source to see the new collection of historically accurate paint colors Colonial Williamsburg recently launched with Benjamin Moore.

The colors are more vibrant than you might have guessed, which makes complete sense after touring some of the homes in Colonial Williamsburg. Those early Americans were not afraid of color!

I fell in love with one of the greens especially. Wouldn't this dark jade make the perfect front door color for the new house, with gray for the body of the house, white for the trim and charcoal on some of the accents? I'm feeling good about this combo:

The weekend really was magical. The Williamsburg Inn was amazing, the grounds were stunning, the museums and historical sites were fascinating and inspiring. I practically never put down my camera - there was so much beauty everywhere.

It was so nice to be staying in the hotel right in the middle of the town. We could pop home in the middle of the day if we wanted a little mid-day nap :)

And then we could head right back out to the fun!

Here are about 500 more photos of what caught my eye on the streets of CW. :) I was so inspired by woodwork! The fences, birdhouses, porch railings, radiator covers - everything had such a lovely attention to detail! Check it out...

Last Minute Father's Day Present: Framed Ties

Hello from the road! I'm in Virginia with my sister and sister in law, having a little girls trip today. The weather is fantastic, the food has been delicious and my cheeks are burning from all the laughter. 

Just wanted to pop in and share this idea in case you are scrambling for a last-minute Father's Day present. I saw these framed neckties at a vintage shop in Brooklyn last week and thought the idea was so cool. 

When my Grandpa passed away earlier this year, some of us took a few of Grandpa's ties to keep (he always had cool ties). I picked one out for Michael and he wears it sometimes, but now I'm kicking myself for not taking a few more to put in a shadow box. These guys had a similar idea and used IKEA's deep Ribba frames to display a bowtie collection.

If you use those specimen pins with the hooked ends then you don't even need to glue/potentially ruin the ties. I love easy-to-do and special gift ideas like this. Happy Father's Day to my guy readers! :)