We bought our home just over six years ago now with the intention of remodeling within the first two. While we have been doing a bunch of DIY projects along the way, we had yet to tackle the major renovation we were always planning on.
The flooring was a combination of white carpet and white tile, and with two kids four and under, having flooring that I had to constantly battle to keep clean turned into one of my worst headaches. Fast-forward SIX years and we had still yet to remodel because it just never seemed like the right time. Oh! And in the meantime, we also added another kiddo and a pup into the mix as well.
As you can imagine, keeping the carpet and tile looking somewhat decent with three kids and a dog was near impossible, though I did give it a good shot. But in doing so, it made me dread any time the dog or kids went outside in the Winter (or Spring or Fall, for that matter) when muddy or wet feet would come running in soon after. Drinking coffee or wine in the living room also left me uneasy and don’t even get me started about training a new puppy. You can clearly see where our old rug was in this room no matter how hard I tried to keep it clean. It just always felt dingy.
About two years ago we thought we were ready to start the remodel, so we began the hunt for new flooring. I scoured Pinterest looking for inspiration photos, we read up on so many different types of flooring and went to so many stores as well and while we found some beautiful options, we weren’t able to find one that checked all the boxes and we just felt completely overwhelmed and ended up backing off the project as again, the timing wasn’t right. In that time, though, we did narrow down what we were looking for in our flooring which helped us greatly with where we are today.
Since my husband is an arborist, he has always yearned for real hardwood floors. The look, the wood grain, the texture; it’s just ingrained in him. But with three kids and a dog and having lived with white carpet and tile for the past six years, I wanted something durable and low-maintenance.
So when we decided to FINALLY move forward with our remodeling dreams this past Spring, the hunt began once again and THAT is when we found something that seemed almost too good to be true; an engineered hardwood by Shaw Floors that gave us that real wood my husband was hoping for, as well as the durability I was hoping for being water AND scratch-resistant. Yep, you read that right. With this flooring, your worries are gone if you have pets. If you have wet kids running through your house, your worries are gone there, too. Shaw Floors created a line of flooring, called Repel, to be lived in, and this could not have been more fitting for us.
Okay, so it checked the boxes in terms of material and performance, but could we find one that fit the look we were going for, too? Once we found this flooring online we knew we had to see it in person so we went to a local flooring store that we knew carried Repel and saw it for ourselves. They had dark options, light options, rustic options, modern options, and everything in-between.
We pulled out our favorites, took a couple of samples home to test in different rooms and see what they looked like throughout the day and it didn’t take us long to decide on the color “Fireside” in the Sanctuary Oak line for its warm tones (without being too red or too yellow), variation, and how well it nicely coincided with existing elements in our home. Our runner-up was the “Horizon” in the Exploration Oak line.
For us, this flooring gave us the light oak look we were going for while also providing that assurance I so desperately needed in its durability. I just cannot express enough what a dream-come-true it is to not have to worry about the flooring in our home anymore and that I finally feel like I can live comfortably and worry-free, no matter the season!
As a final goodbye to the white carpet I despised, I opened up a tub of markers and let them have at it. The looks on their faces are ones I will never forget, and I am thinking they, too, will never forget it. I did make sure to be very clear this is the only time they’re allowed to do it!
I DID want to leave a lasting effect on our home, though, and once the carpet was torn up we wrote what we thought to be some fitting bible scriptures on the subfloor to bless the home. It was important to me that the kids partake in this, too, since this is their home as well and I wanted them to remember that these walls mean nothing without Him.
The Repel flooring was just recently installed and the whole time it just felt surreal. I shared the whole process in videos, too, and saved it to my “flooring!” highlight on Instagram if you want to see the entire process. I could not stop staring at it! But, to protect it while the rest of the house is being worked on it was immediately covered up as soon as it was installed. So I have yet to see the big reveal myself! I did take some good notes, though, if you are curious about the install process; stay tuned!
As always, thank you for stopping by!
<3 Shannon
