We got the floors refinished just before moving in. This is one of about three things that we did hire out. Floor refinishing is an art, and it’s not one that you want to practice on 1,000 square feet of your own wood floors.

The floors in this house are continuous through the entire downstairs, even into the closets. That means that you have to do all of it at once to keep it looking right, as there are no transitions between rooms.

We opted to have them refinished without a stain, because we thought that the lighter color would help offset the dark woodwork. In the end, we feel that we made the right choice.

It will be a full 21 months before these edges are touched up.  Writing a blog after the fact gives you a different perspective on each of your projects.  Sometimes you’re surprised by how quickly something seemed to move along (even if it felt slow at the time), and other times the low priority projects seem to live on forever.

First coat of stain on the dining room windows.  They already look 1000x better than the plate glass.

We completed the window and door trim and the wainscotting.  We modeled the wainscotting design to mimic that of the dining room.  We are very fortunate to have McCoy Millwork here in Portland, from which we bought the cove/crown moulding for the tops of the windows and doors.  While not an exact match for the house’s original moulding, it is very similar and adds a strong dose of authenticity to the appearance of our bathroom (and kitchen, too).  You cannot buy trim like this at Home Depot or Lowe’s.

We  purchased a new Milgard window, because the old one was completely falling apart.  While we try to reuse as much as possible, sometimes it’s just not all that practical.  If the old window had had any aesthetic or vintage value, we would have put more effort into saving it.  Since it was a complete mess, we felt better about installing a new, energy efficient Marvin window.  We used Marvins for all our downstairs replacement windows, since the wood interior trim goes very well with our house.  The no-maintenance aluminum exteriors actually look quite good and will hold up well over time.

We filled up this dumpster with wood to be recycled and another one twice the size with trash.  Julio’s brother Carmen was in town to help, and together the two of them carried over 11,000 lbs. from the back patio and 2nd floor down the twenty steps to the street level.  They both slept very well that night…