HILLSIDE AVE - 2 WEEKS OF RENOVATIONS
Happy Weekend! It has been a whirlwind of activity over the last two weeks at Hillside and we are excited to show you the progress. The home was lovely, but just not really our style, so we are knee deep in making it our own. Forgive the rough unedited cell phone photos - we are moving quick!
The first step was to uncover the 120 year old pine flooring throughout the home. This is always one of our favorite parts because floors have so much character and clean up so well. However, the deep ebony stair treads had likely never been sanded down and hats off to Dustin Brewington who had to sand them several times and then hand scrape them four times to get down to the natural wood. AH...MAZ...ING!
We have a mix of red pine and yellow pine in the home. We love the look of the yellow pine, but the red pine was very red. In order to draw that down, we chose a deep (actually black) stain to neutralize the red in the wood for the lower level of the home. As for the upper level, we are in love with the yellow pine. We wanted a natural stain, but even an oil-based natural stain has a yellowish/orangish undertone that will deepen over time. Additionally, oil based stains are very high in VOC chemicals, which we are trying to avoid in our renovation.
You can see how the natural oil based stain on the left really made the wood a orange tone…..not what we were going for.
Same here with the upper floors - the oil based tone really yellowed up the wood - and it deepens over time, which is likely what was already on the floors to start with. Any stain will darken the floors a little, but we wanted to preserve the yellow pine color as much as possible.
As a result, we ended up choosing a natural water based stain for the first floor to really allow the floors to be at their best. We are thrilled with the results, which will be posted once all the mess is cleaned up! For downstairs, we chose a black water based stain. The wood really soaked it up and created a lovely walnut shade. Plus, the water based stain is faster and less toxic. It is a great alternative to oil based, but it does cost more so be prepared for this if you choose that path!
We are adding shiplap detail to sections of the home. It is a great way to hide some of the rough plaster and it adds character and charm to the rooms. Texture is a huge element in rooms and it really provides warmth and comfort to the spaces. Although some people like the character of rippled plaster, we opted for more clean lines and less of this look.
Painting has begun and it is a task! There are a lot of areas to try to address in the walls and to optimize their look once the paint hits them. Choosing paint is never one our favorite tasks because there are thousands of amazing colors and they all look different in each space! Total fear of better options. We are somewhat married to cool undertones in this home due to flooring choices and cabinetry that will be staying, so we had to stray from our typical warmer undertone palate. That has been an adventure, but you can see the dizziness of the ride below. We’ll be chatting more on paint later.
We have a lot more photos to come as wall repair and painting continue this week. However, this should give you an idea of the controlled chaos at our new home!
Until next time!
Casey and Carl (and crew)