Farmhouse Living Room // What We Found Under the Carpets

THE FARMHOUSE Well, we finally pulled up the living room carpets late one night last week.  My oh my, what we found beneath was glorious!

The Grit and Polish - Living Rm Hardwood Floors 2

The living room hardwood floors - softwood technically, since they're fir - are far from perfect, but they look pretty darn great considering that they're 104-years old!  We had to remove approximately 1,000,000 carpet pad staples, and there were some gouges that needed fixing (I'll share our DIY spot repair method with you guys another time), but the rest of the floors were in great shape. Phew!

From the picture above, it's obvious that the living room hardwoods were refinished at the same time as the dining room floors, and I'm guessing that a subsequent owner laid the carpets.  I can't tell you how much more I like both of these rooms now that the flooring is continuous between them!

The Grit and Polish - Living Rm Hardwood Floors 1The Grit and Polish - Living Rm Hardwood Floors 3The Grit and Polish - Living Rm Hardwood Floors 4

Full disclosure, Garrett and I pulled up a corner of the living room carpet months ago, so we knew that the floors beneath were in pretty good shape.  But we've been renovating old houses long enough to know that just because a corner looks good, doesn't mean you won't run across significant staining, large gouges/scratches, or other anomalies that may require a full floor refinish.  Needless to say, I breathed a deep sigh of relief when we pulled up the rest of the carpet and found the floors in such good shape.

Now that the carpets are gone and the walls are painted, I cannot wait to start decorating this room.  The sofa arrived yesterday and now I'm looking for the perfect chandelier (the current one is killing me!), side chairs, and vintage furniture.  As I mentioned on Friday, I don't expect this room to be done for a good month or two (or three?) so this room will keep evolving, but I'm pretty excited to finally use this space for more than toy storage!

In case you forgot what the carpeted room looked like 6 months ago, here's my original house tour.  You can also catch up on this room's paint, sofa, and inspiration.

xoxo

-Cathy