I'm So Nervous [& Excited] To Finally Post This!!

…. Truthfully, I never in a million years imagined putting this down in writing. NOT ONCE!! Yet here I sit at my desk, typing away to let you know that… OUR FLOORS ARE GETTING PAINTED. Wow, this feels amazing. Alright, I have quite a bit of backstory to share. So, where do I begin? Let's rewind all the way to 2016, when we made the call to install wide-plank pine boards throughout the entire house as our flooring. After moving in, we began tearing up the existing carpet and flooring, only to discover the original 1800s floorboards underneath. Most of the rooms were in rough shape and unsalvageable [gaps dropping down to the basement and destroyed by past renovations]. The only space that held up beautifully was the dining room, though even that was a bit questionable. That's when we chose to install the wide-plank pine floors ourselves, ensuring we'd have a solid, continuous surface throughout the home that could grow alongside us for many years to come. The installation was a breeze—we simply nailed the boards straight into the subfloor. Then came the big question… paint or stain?

My ideal home? It's a blend of chippy painted floors, tile, and some with existing stain. We have a sizable farmhouse with plenty of rooms, so that dream might just become reality. You know what the typical choice is? Staining the floors. I'm not calling that 'boring' at all..I ADORE stained floors. Like truly, deeply. But painting flooring feels almost forbidden, and when the choice between paint and stain came up, I kept telling myself, 'we have to stain or people will think we're strange.' Well, I've always been an oddball, and I suppose this decision just confirmed I'll always be one. After a few months of walking on the unfinished pine floors, we decided to go the conventional route and stain them [read more about that HERE]. We picked two gorgeous tones from Old Barn Milk Paint [HERE], blended them together, and stained the front living room and dining room floors [the kitchen boards weren't quite installed yet when we tackled this]. When I say Old Barn Milk Paint is incredible… I'm not exaggerating. It has zero odor [which, if you stain frequently.. you understand how miraculous this is!] and it soaked into the wood with such depth and richness. Without sealing it ourselves, we cleaned them, walked on them in wet boots, scrubbed them, lived on them, and even let a sheep roam across them constantly, and there was never any wear or tear. Even a professional floor specialist who visited the house mentioned how stunning the stain looked. Truly stunning. We intend to use this stain in additional spaces around our home, but after staining those two rooms—even though we adored it—my heart quietly knew it wasn't exactly what 'White Cottage Farm' needed. The fate of our floors was sealed when I had a meeting at the house with a flooring specialist who was going to assist us with the rest of the staining…

So, I had this sit-down with a stain professional who was going to help us tackle the rest of the house. He arrived, and before we could even discuss stain options, he asked if he could be 'blunt with me.' I agreed, since I appreciate honesty—particularly from contractors about to take on major projects in our home… He kindly shared that the moment he stepped into our house and saw the flooring, he envisioned it with painted floors, and he felt that was what the house was practically begging for. Most folks would find this unusual, but I believe the house speaks to me too… okay, that's strange, but let's move on. This happened before he was even aware of my affection for painted floors or had glimpsed the painted floors in one of our rooms. That meant he wouldn't be earning money from us and that our meeting would be a waste of his time, so the credibility of his opinion skyrocketed for me. He also went on to share a few additional insights that made my low-maintenance, cozy-loving farmhouse heart yearn for painted floors. That was the clincher for me. Deep down, I knew I wanted them painted and felt it truly captured the spirit of our home.

So, after spending a week testing roughly 25 paint swatches on our floors over the past week, we finally settled on the flooring paint color today and applied the first coat in the dining room today [The final shade we picked is in the photo above!] Oh my, I'm smitten already. I can't wait to share with you all and will be sharing our progress with you later this week. Additionally, we filmed a lot of the process this time, and that footage will go up later this week as well. Today, I simply wanted to break the news. I know many of you loved our stained floors [we did too!], but we hope you can appreciate our desire to paint the floors of our farmhouse here at White Cottage Farm. Jose and I are absolutely thrilled with how they're looking so far, and I can't wait to reveal the color we chose later this week. Let me know your thoughts [please be gentle haha] and if you'd like to see another room in our home with painted floors, click [HERE] to see the start of our office when we painted the floors. THANK YOU all for being a part of our renovation adventure and for cheering us on along the way and dropping by the blog each day to follow along with our projects. I can't thank you enough. xx

I'm So Nervous [& Excited] To Finally Post This!!

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