How a little bit of paint and new flooring can take any room to the next level!

It’s amazing what you can do with a little bit of paint and some new flooring! When we first looked at purchasing our home, it was the large open space that got us! (Definitely not the once-white carpet!)

We thought oh man, how amazing would this space look with hardwood floors in it?! After we decided to make this house our home, I started dreaming of new hardwood floors, but didn’t actually think it would be something that we would be able to afford anytime soon.

Then, one day, we were just randomly shopping at Home Depot, and happened upon this beautiful hardwood flooring on sale for super cheap! I was about 98% sure that it matched the color of the hardwood already present in our dining room. We quickly snatched up a sample and ran home to check… and it did! Yipee! We were one step closer to getting our hardwood floors!

Although we could afford the flooring, we were not 100% sure that we could afford to pay for someone to install it, or that we wanted to pay someone to install it.

This lead to a quick phone call to my parents, to see if maybe they would help us, since they had previously installed hardwood flooring (that they made themselves from trees on the farm!). They said yes, and that they had all of the equipment that we needed and would bring it!

My parents live about 5.5 hours away and are always super busy with their farming, so I had a little bit of time to do the prep work before they got here.

The very first steps that I took were to remove the baseboard, and then start ripping up the carpet. When I removed the baseboard, I was very careful to label the baseboard itself and the wall where it came from, so I would know where to put it back.

Once I had ripped all of the carpet out, I thought, oh man… if we ever want to paint these walls, now’s definitely the time to do it! So I called up my husband at work, and said hey… I kind of want to paint too! Not really having that much of a choice, he said ok fine, and that night we went to pick out our paint colors. The next morning I started painting!

As you can see, we actually decided to paint the living room two colors to give it a little more dimension. (Please ignore the mess!)

After all of my carpet was ripped up, and my walls were painted, my parents headed up, and it was time to start installing the floors!

Row by row, we got it done. 564 square feet of hardwood flooring banged out in two days!

Here are the after pictures… What do you think? Would you choose before or after?!

Psst! Like these Oak Gunstock floors? Get your own here: Elk Mountain Oak Gunstock Dark 3/4 x 5″ Hand Scraped SOLID Hardwood Flooring FH261 SAMPLE

*This post may contain affiliate links*

A little fall here, a little fall there, 2016 Fall Home Tour!

000Welcome to my home! This is actually the Project Pile’s very first fall home tour — ever! Fall is my favorite season decorating-wise, (and winter is, snowmobiling-wise!)… So I’m very excited to share this post with you!

Let’s start outside!

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This is the front yard… not a whole lot going on out here yet, but I still love the view! The soy-a-beans are just about ready, and as soon as this rain clears up, I expect that the farmer will be out and ready to harvest them… My little girl Lacee, just loves tractors and combines, and will sit on the front porch and watch once the time comes. (Please ignore the un-mowed grass in this pic! We’ll just blame that on the rain, for now!)

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This is the backyard, and as you can see, the leaves are just starting to turn… Maybe another week and they will be all ready?! Then we can rake and jump in them!

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And here is my actual home… Come on in!

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This year, I decided to decorate my front porch with some of my old antique pieces that I have been collecting over the years…

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Here is my antique wagon wheel, and a few of my antique bottles that have been collected on my family’s 180-year old farm, over the years.

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And here is my antique milk-can, also from the farm, and an antique ladder, from that area.

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You can check out my full front porch décor here: A Rustic Fall Front Porch, using Some of my Favorite Antique Pieces!

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From the front porch, let’s enter into the dining room! Just a little fall décor in here, so far. I still have to do my table-setting, but being the master-procrastinator that I am, probably won’t get it finished till the night before Thanksgiving! I just did a little decorating on the buffet in this room…

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A few pine cones and flowers here…

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A few hand-painted and real pumpkins there!

[Psst! You can learn how to hand-paint your own pumpkins here: How To Transform Dollar Store Pumpkins!]

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You can see my full buffet décor, and learn how I put this look together, here: A Quick & Easy Fall Buffet Makeover!

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Now let’s mosey on down to the living room! Sorry, the lighting is a little more than off, in here… I love my big, beautiful front porch, but it really seems to hamper the photo-taking quality in this room… Oh well, what can you do?!

11On the way down, we pass my antique barn windows that were used as the seating plan for wedding…

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All I did here, was switch out my regular white rose garland for some leafy-red sunflowers, and then hung a very simple wreath in the middle. Very colorful, and yet a really, really, simple update for fall!

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These are my chickens! I actually stole these from my mother! I love them so much, they stay out all year, no matter the season. All I did here to dress them up for fall, was switch out the flowers in my faux flower box for some fall colored ones.

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I did the same thing for this side-table… just added some more rusty-colored flowers for fall, plus my deer head!

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Oh, and a few cutesy, little pumpkins too!

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Oh… and just in case you wanted to see what the other half of my living room looks like, (the half that I always try to hide from you), here it is… Toy City, over here! LOL

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Let’s head to the kitchen now!

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Again, just some very simple fall season updates in here!

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Pretty, mini pumpkins here…

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Plus a few wicker pumpkins there!    

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Oh – and let’s not forget my 2 second kitchen table centerpiece! All I did here, was take the leaves off of an old fall garland that I had kicking around, and stuff them into this transparent vase… Doesn’t get much easier than that!

OK… are you ready for my fall bedroom décor?!

Just kidding! I really wanted that to happen, but let’s face it… I’m just not that good! 😉

I really hope you enjoyed this “a little fall here, a little fall there,” 2016 Home Tour! Thanks for stopping by the Project Pile!