Floors--hooray!

Like I said before, we considered a lot of options before we decided on the floors we have. During the move this weekend I came across my stack of floor samples. And these are only the samples that we brought home and got to keep!

We are thrilled with what we ended up with, so want to see pictures of our pretty, pretty floors before we up and put furniture on them this weekend?

Before:

After:
 

Don't the floors almost change the shape of the room? It looks so much brighter and bigger and taller. For a while I was sad that we hadn't been able to get our act together to paint before we moved in (instead we'll be painting slowly but surely for the rest of our lives). But now I realize that I couldn't have made decisions with the blue carpet if it wasn't staying. The blue was reflecting everywhere. These floors are a lot lighter than the original, damaged hardwood too, so those rooms look bigger as well.

Upstairs we replaced two colors of carpet--the same blue as downstairs and a light blue industrial-feeling berber--with a crazy soft specked tan. It feels amazing underfoot and we're hoping that the variation in color will help keep it looking new.
 

On Saturday a friend brought us lunch who had also come to see the house on closing day. She has been encouraging us to take our time and work carefully through the house--don't get in a rush to make big changes.

But she said she was so glad we were able to do the floors before we moved. "Now you can take your time on the rest of it, but at least it feels clean!" she said.

I can't imagine what she meant.