Lark & Lola

So you've seen my home tour, which took place in my rental house. For four years I decorated that little white house with the picket fence and the awful, damaged 1940s original hardwood floors. We have now moved on...

Today, I'm introducing you to the NEW Lark & Lola house. We just bought our first home, a yellow 1950s ranch with a finished basement, a Dutch door, and a really stinky old garbage disposal that needs replacing. We love it!

If you follow my family/personal blog, you've already seen all this. But I have a hard time having two blogs sometimes. I don't know what to post where. I knew my friends and family would love seeing the pre-move updates we made on our new home, but I've also thought to post it here, as Lark & Lola is all about decorating and beautifying the home.

So you tell me, Lark & Lola readers, do you wish to continue seeing home improvement updates? We have a lot planned for this place!

Here's the before and after of what we got done the week before moving in. We had a LONG to do list! It very nearly killed us.

We refinished the hardwood floors, on the entire main level {apart from the icky, possibly-asbestos-containing linoleum floors in the kitchen and baths}, because not only did we want to change the stain shade, the floors desperately needed refinishing.

{There is an air conditioner unit hidden behind those sliding panels, hence the crack. We love funky old homes!}

That also meant getting a paint job done--before staining and refinishing the "brand new" floors--because as you can see I painted those wood beams. I wanted all that ceiling painting done before the floors.

{Yes, the bottom us still unfinished, we need to attach a quarter round down there.}

The walls are Seal Gray by Glidden in satin finish. The white is Swan White by Glidden in semi-gloss.

The floors are Royal Mahogany by Dura Seal, and we chose a water-based varnish by Bona in semi-gloss.
The entire sanding process, and all the headaches involved, is well documented on my family blog. If you want to see more of what that process looked like, see here.
For my Lark & Lola fans, I mainly wanted to share my before & afters of the first redecorating project in the new Lark & Lola house. {Yes, I've named my house.}

What do you think? It's EXACTLY what I had in mind. Here was a photo that was inspiration for me, when I went Googling for "dark floors gray walls white beams".

Cheers,
Homeowner Heather