When I spotted the mantel at a local thrift store I was thrilled! I grew up with a wood burning stove and fireplaces in every house after that.

I love the details that can change and update a room easily. I say easily, but for this project, my husband graciously did most of the work!

I thought the stairs would be easy, but the more I considered it the more I wanted to leave the carpet down. We needed to pick a stain that would match the new floor and we didn’t even know what the stairs looked like under that carpet.

We wandered into a wholesale store on one of our weekend getaways and in the back corner, I was stunned to see dozens of chair options with amazing costs! We got to pick our style, they were packaged up for easy transport, and all ready for assembly, plus a nice finish.

When we arrived the second story and stairs were carpeted. Clean carpet, but still carpet. Not my favourite, but I assumed we would eventually get around to changing it. We had many conversations when we should do this (as many of your know, flooring isn’t cheap). We had just seen the paperwork, with final house costs and our budget was slim.