Extreme Makeover: Floor Edition

As you can read in a recent article about me, all my creations and designs are the brainchild of my wife. She has an amazing sense of style and ability to think outside the box.

When we moved to Kennebunk this summer, the landlord had the place almost completely made over. The previous tenants had trashed it completely, so there was new carpet, and paint, and some walls repaired.

The only place she didn’t get to was the stairwell hallway on the second floor. This is a high traffic area as it is where the bedrooms reside, as well as the way to get to the third floor.

It was left as is, with an old worn stained carpet, that had seem way more feet and substances than a carpet should before being replaced.

I have ripped up carpet before, as you may remember from our old apartment. Well at the last place there were beautiful hardwood floors underneath the carpet giving the whole area a new look and great feel.


I ripped away, and there was wood underneath, but not beautiful hardwood finished floors. Rather a mish mash of uneven wooden pieces.



I told my wife that I thought we should paint it, and she had a great idea. Let’s stencil it too. She had heard of using a rubber door mat as a stamp, so I thought hey, why not. I primed the floor and painted it a light cream color. (You can add a burnt orange to white to make cream… pretty cool)



I then took a roller to the back of the mat and pushed it down… It looked horrible; I tried a few more times… not any better.



So I thought, maybe we should use an actual stencil that we had. We got it for a different project entirely, but I thought it was worth a try.

As it turned out the squares I was making were actually forming into diamonds, and it started to look really cool.



The best part is when my wife told me that it looked exactly how she envisioned it. (I sometimes try but do not succeed at accomplishing the design)



The boys had a blast picking out faces and animals that they found in the pattern. It is now all dry, and I love how it came out.