When we first moved into our ranch house, one of the big items on the listing was that the house had Pergo Laminate floors. Pergo floors are supposed to be good quality laminate floors, so if you have laminate flooring, Pergo is a great type to have. The floors seemed to be in decent condition. Here are a few photos of how the floors looked at the time when we moved in.
The maroon carpet was a definite “had to go” item before we moved in. The carpet was old, definitely dirty, and far from the aesthetic I was going for in her room. I started pulling up the carpet and to my surprise, found beautiful hardwood floors! I was shocked and so excited. I could not believe that the previous owners had covered hardwood with laminate throughout the entire house.
It didn’t take long for me to begin ripping out the Pergo flooring in the rest of the house. This was a long and tiresome project, and I had to crowdsource some help from my partner, parents, and sister to get it all done. Here are some progress pictures from the master bedroom.
When we bought this house, we knew that the previous owners had cats. Multiple cats (I believe it was 5, to be exact). I am no stranger to pets- I grew up with four cats as well as dogs and we have two large dogs now. However, even being familiar with cats, I had no idea what we would unearth after pulling out the laminate. To this day (three-ish years later) I think about how glad I am we removed the laminate flooring to be able to clean what was underneath it. There was obvious cat pee stains, cat litter, dirt, hair, cat food in the baseboards, etc. There would be no way that the smell of cat would have ever gone away if we had kept that flooring. The picture below is the dirt that was underneath the laminate just in the master bedroom closet. You can probably imagine how dirty the carpet in the second bedroom was.
I chose to go with Pickled Oak as the stain. This is a whitewash stain which was something I had been dreaming of for a while. It felt very minimal and beachy to me. Here are a few photos of right after the floors were stained.
Home renovation is a slow and steady process when you’re simultaneously living in the space with kids and dogs. Each small step puts us closer to our end goal, but it takes a lot of patience. Stay tuned for more home updates!