Welcome! I’m excited to share the progress of our lower level family room and our new Mohawk flooring. If you missed the before photos, you can view them in the previous post. We are thrilled with how the room is coming together and how much the new floors have transformed the space.
The new flooring was installed the week before Christmas, and despite the holiday chaos and multiple projects, the install was fast. Because the floors are pre-finished, there was no sanding, staining, or sealing required after installation. The one-day transformation felt like a dream — if only every project moved that quickly.
Pre-finished flooring is one of the quickest, most impactful updates you can make to a room, alongside fresh paint. We’ve used Mohawk flooring before and loved it in our last home as well. This time we chose the Concertina laminate in Smokey Chestnut, and the result is a warm, natural look with a matte, slightly rustic texture that feels both traditional and current.
It’s amazing what a difference paint and flooring make compared to the swine-colored walls, pink blinds, and old carpet we started with. New floors occupy a large portion of the room visually, so once they’re updated the entire space immediately looks and feels better. The warm tone of these floors makes the family room feel cozy and welcoming — a place we want to spend time.
Beyond the flooring and paint, we added a few furnishings to make the space comfortable. We purchased a new sofa from Interior Define a while back and will share more details in a future post. The wood Persian rug is a family heirloom, and most of the other pieces are things we already owned. There’s still more to do, but it already feels great as-is.
Family arrived just days after the install, so the floors were immediately tested with gatherings, games, and holiday meals. The new flooring handled everything — furniture moved around, four dogs tracking in muddy paws, and the usual wear of a busy household — without issue. We needed durable flooring for everyday life, and so far it’s holding up beautifully.
The wall behind the chairs is a newly added partition; the other side becomes our new office, which I’ll reveal in an upcoming post. I’ll also share before-and-after photos of the wall addition so you can see how the layout changed and how the room grew more functional and welcoming.
One more look at the before and after:
In addition to the new wall, we painted the walls and fireplace in Simply White by Benjamin Moore, added trim around the fireplace to close gaps between the brick and drywall, removed the dated pink blinds, and installed the Mohawk flooring. The result is a much fresher, brighter family room.
There are still updates we plan to make over time, but we’re very happy with how far the room has come in the past few months.
Thanks to Mohawk for providing the beautiful flooring that helped bring this makeover to life.