Floor Decisions

I jumped from “I’m never leaving this city” to “What floor stain should I use in our house?” but now that we’ve left our NYC apartment, I feel like I can finally focus more of my time on new things. The last month or so in our apartment hadn’t really felt like “ours” since the moment we started having showings nearly everyday to find a new tenant… not to mention having zero control over the price the landlord was asking. Somedays it felt like we had gotten ourselves into a mess and I learned my lesson to never sign leases for 2 years at a time because you really never know where life will take you. I’m so thankful to be past that all and we finally said our goodbyes to the apartment on Tuesday this week. The new tenant also requested we leave all of the molding, paint colors, etc. which saved us time and helped all parties involved. They also asked to buy a few furniture pieces so it really all worked out in the end.

I hope that life will feel a *tad* slower here and I look forward to putting a lot of my creative energy into this home, spending a lot more time with family (my dad came over while the movers were here yesterday and seeing him play with Brooks was something I will never take for granted), and just having a bit more peace and quiet in my brain. As much as I loved and cherished our time in NYC, I could tell it was getting more challenging by the minute with a toddler, a large dog, a car – which is basically a job in itself trying to handle parking. I’m just hoping that this move will result the feeling of more space, not just literally but mentally.

Our house is a late 80’s home and came with a pretty wide variety of carpet upstairs. The previous owners lived here for 30 years and made it look straight out of Home Alone or Father of the Bride…. which had me sold from the moment I visited its open house. It took me back to a different time, a 90’s movie setting, and felt so nostalgic and warm as soon as I stepped inside. Since we had some time between buying this house and leaving our apartment in New York, we decided to take advantage of the timing and go ahead and remove the carpet upstairs before we moved all of our furniture in. Removing the carpet was the only large to-do that I wanted to take care of sooner rather than later. Everything else can wait and I’m in no rush! Although, I ordered probably 30 wallpaper samples the other day.

Always finding inspiration at The Met… even their floor color.

Found another floor color I loved at Sézane which made me consider darker options.

I basically fixated on flooring during my last weeks in NYC. This townhome in Brooklyn Heights confirmed my love for the dark railing/medium floor situation.

We decided to add the same white oak flooring that the house originally had downstairs to the upstairs and refinish the floors downstairs since there was some damage and discoloring.

For this entire floor process, I had some family members (thank you!!!) swing by the house to take some photos and videos so that I could choose a stain color from afar and, after seeing it in person for the first time last night, I’m pretty happy with the ones I chose.

First off, as I was doing some extensive Pinterest research, I came to the realization that I love a darker stair railing with a medium toned floor. Some inspo:

I wanted to find a stain that felt less orange/yellow than what the house had downstairs, but still not too grey. Something that felt timeless, but not too dark because apparently Pearl’s hair and dirt would show everywhere. I loved the look of no-stain too but I also didn’t want it to look too Scandinavian and not go well with all of our current furniture.

Top Left: 50% Weathered Oak/50% Fruitwood, Bottom Left: Weathered Oak, Bottom Right: Special Walnut

I ended up settling on 50% Fruitwood and 50% Weathered Oak (both DuraSeal) with Bona Traffic HD finish. My concern with 100% fruitwood was that it might look too orange but my concern with 100% Weathered Oak was that it would look too grey. So, the result of 50/50:

I also splurged on a teensy little herringbone area at the top of the stairs to remind us of our apartment in New York.

For the darker stair railing, I went with Dark Walnut. Dark Walnut has to be one of my favorite wood stain colors of all time. It’s what I used for our DIY TV frame and it’s just so classic and beautiful.

My next step for this area is finding a staircase runner. I actually really loved the green trellis design on the original carpet so I’m the hunt for something similar.