In 2016, after five years in Austin, we decided to finally buy a house. It was in good condition but outdated and we knew that we’d need to do quite a lot of work in it to modernize it.
The first thing we really wanted to change was the cherry wood floor. It looked nice but really didn’t fit the aesthetic we were going for, not to mention the dark color really shows up the mess a busy family could create.
We love the look of Scandinavian houses with their light oak floors so that’s what we wanted to go for. After extensive discussions on what would be the best option, should we remove the existing cherry wood flooring that was glued on cement? How dusty would it be after? We’d probably need to re-paint the whole house. How long would it take? Would we need to move out while it happened? Should we keep the existing floor that was actually in good condition and put a very good quality vinyl on top? It would take a week and also it wouldn’t show dents like real wood do. Young kids in the family always make you think of such things.
So after a lot of back and forth we went for luxury vinyl. We didn’t want to move out, we didn’t want to re-paint and our summer vacation was just 6 weeks away! We wanted the flooring done as soon as possible so we wouldn’t have to deal with the stress of it after a relaxing break.
Here’s a sample of the floor we decided on against the old cherry wood:
Before photos:
In progress and after photos:
In the process we also replaced all the 5″ baseboards with 8″ ones for an updated look! We couldn’t be any happier with the final result!!!
Nothing But Design 