Finished!

I've lost track of time, but I think it's been about a week and a half since we started the Floor Project. It wasn't as big a job as expected, at least in some ways. Once the carpet was gone, the pine floor underneath was fairly easy to clean and paint. I kind of liked the way the plain white primer looked, but then remembered we don't live at the beach, and white floors in Taos are just not practical.

We decided on a two-part epoxy floor paint. I can't remember the brand, but it was the only one we could get in town, at Ace Hardware. The stuff can be tinted any color you want, so we grabbed a bunch of brown paint chips, tossed them on the floor, and walked all over them with our dusty shoes on. The color that showed our own Taos dust the least was "popcorn kernel," so that's what we picked. Not exactly a design theory you'll find on the home makeover shows, but it worked here! 

We spent yesterday afternoon moving furniture all over the house. You move one thing, it changes everything. So we kept shuffling couches, chairs, rugs, and lamps until it all felt right. Now we have our room back, with a clean, un-stinky floor, freshly painted walls, and clean, 10-year old curtains that are still in good shape, so I really had to resist replacing them. The goal here is to use and re-use what we already have. So far, so good. My ancient loveseat now lives in the bedroom, where the dresser used to be. It's a nice quiet place to sit and read, and Heidi thinks it's her very own princess bed. All we have to do is hang some art on the walls, and wait for a couple of small rugs to arrive.

One of the best surprises of this project is my new dressing room/office. It's beautiful and light, I can see all my clothes, and there's a nice couch/futon to lounge on. I call it my "room somewhere."

I have some art to move in here too, and some closet organizing to do, but it's pretty much done... until we decide to repaint the floor in this room too...