Before and After

It took a while, but I promised to show the new wood floors in our house, so here it is. One reason it took so long, other than every square inch in the house needing to be cleaned, is because I've had a difficult time getting good pictures of the floors, true colors, etc.  These pictures do not do justice of the beauty of the floors.  We've had a lot of rain recently here in FL and the lighting has not been good.  I took a few flash pictures, but they aren't so good either.

This is the view from where I'm sitting at the computer:

I'm sitting at the computer in the living room:

The computer is in the armoire, see below:

This picture was taken with the flash, and it does come close to the color of the floors.

The other side of the living room:


Looking through the dining room to the living room:

Dining Room:

Dining room. Door on the left is to the kitchen. The double doors in the middle - to the master bedroom:

Wood ends at the master bedroom:

Hallway from dining room to Family Room:

Family Room:

Family Room, kitchen on the right, breakfast nook where the French doors are:

View of family room from the breakfast nook (guest room thru the open door:)

Family room. Shows my doll curio cabinet on the left:
 

View of hall from family room. The white door is the pantry in the kitchen. The open door, the guest room.

The wood ends at the two bedrooms and bath. Open door is guest room, to the right is the bathroom and another bedroom.

Moving back toward the dining room. Door is the front door.

This column helped me decide to buy this floor plan! I've always loved it!

Dining Room, without the flash the floor looks dark:

It is more of a golden wood. The wood is Brazilian Acacia hand-scraped wood, 5-inch planks. Each plank is different, makes for an interesting pattern, so pretty especially since we have so much open space.

With flash, above -

Without flash, below -

Now I will show you how it looked with the carpet!

I guess I should have titled this post "After then Before" since I posted the after pictures first.  Here are the pictures of our house with the carpet before the big project. When you walk in the front door, this was the view:
 
 The dining room on the right:
 

View from the dining room to the living room where my computer is in the armoire:
 
I just realized I didn't take a closer shot of the living room.

 Family room and breakfast nook:
 
 Another family room angle (kitchen is on the left)
 
 Looking from Family room toward front door:
 
 Dining room (walking from Family room toward front door)
 

I couldn't get a shot like this with the wooden floors because of the glare on the floor.
 

This is the best I could do! I hope you like the wood floors better! I sure do! It makes the rooms look bigger and it also makes the house look cleaner! Yay!

Summer Fun Challenge

 I'm joining Cuisine Kathleen's Summer Fun Challenge, click on her name for lots more inspiration. Thanks, Kathleen for hosting these fun challenges for us! I'm so glad you didn't do one for fall, we are still hot here in FL and not ready to start fall decorating.

Inspiration for this tablescape started with these two adorable figurines I bought about some time ago at an outlet store.

As you can see the price was certainly right! Can't beat $3.99 each! I even received an extra 15% off for senior day!


 

 Cute sailor suits!

Love her hat and shoes!

 

I bought the aqua plates at Old Time Pottery Barn for 99 cents each! The white plates are from Dollar Tree and the placemats from Dollar Tree. The flatware was from Ross, quite a while ago.




See that water glass on the left? I also bought those at Dollar Tree recently, just for this tablescape, but alas, they look more blue than aqua! (They sure looked aqua in the store!!)


Still didn't work, so I went to Plan B: Aqua napkin in crystal goblets -


 

 The centerpiece didn't happen until just last week. I was at TJ Maxx and lo and behold, look what I found!

Great price too, $6.99 I can justify buying, probably wouldn't have bought if it had been ten dollars! It was perfect!






Are you noticing the two different surfaces with this tablescape?  First I did it with a white tablecloth.

After taking all the pictures with the white cloth, I redid it just on the wood table and it looks so much better in our house with the new wood floors we have! (For those who saw my "Big Reveal" (click to see) and are waiting for more pictures showing the floors, they will be posted in a day or so.  I'm having problems getting good shots of the floors, the photos just don't do justice to how pretty they really are.)

 More pictures of just the wood table with the place mats.

 Which is your favorite?

Thanks for visiting my Summertime Sailing tablescape!

 I'm trying to think of cute names for them! Any suggestions?

(Added Note: Cuisine Kathleen named them for me - Sandy and Skipper! Perfect names, huh! Thanks, Kathleen!)

I'm also linking to Susan's Thursday Tablescape, click on her name for more fun.