The Buffalo BurrowInstalling the Burrow Floors December 20, 2019 This post is sponsored by Twenty & Oak. All opinions are 100% my own. It’s such an exciting day, friends! Our Buffalo Burrow is moving steadily along and it has been such a fun ride to watch it all unfold. We’ve dreamed since we got married nearly a decade ago of one day building a house. I’ve been planning this actual house in my head for such a long time, hoping I’d get the chance to build it. And now, here we are! We’ve had so much progress. We went from dirt to a dried-in house in a matter of weeks, which was crazy! We have some trim. We have that gorgeous fireplace above. But it is just now feeling real to me because WE HAVE FLOORS! I don’t know if it’s because these gorgeous floors from Twenty & Oak are the first thing I chose about this house. Or if it’s just because floors going in means we’re SO close to moving, but stepping into our house this week on these lovely Cottonfield floors made the dream of this place hit me in a new way. I walked around and said, “Oh my GOSH, I could just live here!” To which Chris responded, “Ummm….I hope so.” But I meant that I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving. I just wanted to walk around and around and stare at my dream taking shape and picture our life there. It feels like we’ve been waiting on these floors for so long since they’re one of the first things we chose and they’re installed toward the end of the project! Finding Twenty & Oak was a game changer for us on choosing floors. Floors have always overwhelmed me! It is one of the biggest investments you’re going to make in your home, both in price and how much they’re seen! So choosing the wrong color or even worst, a low-quality product is a BIG mistake to overcome. But their goal is to be there for the customer from A to Z, start to finish. And we have completely felt that! They make it so easy to connect you with the best flooring options and then the best retailers to have expert help in person and have them installed. If you missed the first two posts about these floors and our Burrow design plans, check those out below: THE BUFFALO BURROW DESIGN PLAN Remember, I used these floors as a base for my colors and design for the whole house. We were choosing between two colors, but my gut said Cottonfield all along. We first chose the type of floors and color options from the website and ordered our samples. CHOOSING THE BURROW FLOORS Our local retailer, Greer Flooring Center, made the process so easy. Twenty & Oak is meticulous at choosing the top retailers who are top-notch on quality, service, and installation, so you can trust their retailers! You can find the closest retailer to you here. Talking to an expert about the different flooring options, the 50-year warranty and special features these babies have, is what sold us! And getting to see the larger samples in the showroom solidified our decision. As a reminder, I was hoping for a few main things for this house and the flooring in particular: 1.) CREAMY & RICH – I wanted a creamy box that I could layer on all of my rich furnishings for contrast, floors included. I wanted to go lighter than we ever have before with flooring, drawing inspiration from all of those gorgeous European homes with white-washed and raw pine floors. 2.) AGE & CHARACTER – I wanted my floors to have some age and character to them. To me, that meant wide plank and some sort of wire-brushing or distressing. I was a little wary of that because I’ve seen so many mechanically wire-brushed floors where there’s a pattern and it looks really fake. It felt like a tall order, but I was hopeful there was a perfect flooring option out there that could meet these design dreams I’d been mulling over. And when I found Veranda by Palmetto Road’s Charleston Collection from Twenty & Oak and checked out the samples, I knew they fit the bill: wide plank, hand wire-brushing, so much dimension and character. Now, let’s take a tour of our space and see these gorgeous Cottonfield floors in action. These floors are like a work of art with all of their hand wire-brushing and dimension. To install them, they pull from different boxes and work really hard to make sure they’re laid in a completely random way with no visible pattern and the color dimension varied. Watching Greer Flooring lay these was fascinating! Let’s start with my favorite view in the house right now. We got these antique posts at a local salvage spot we love. The brick hearth will continue around the firebox as well, but this gives you an idea of how the space is going to look. And just look at the backdrop of these floors. To me, the fireplace is special, but it’s the floors that make it all shine. I absolutely love the tones of this all together. Remember, I wanted to steer away from the honey tones we’ve used so much in the past and go with a creamier backdrop. And these do it for sure. They’re super light like I envisioned without being white. But I’m so in love with the texture that the wire-brushing gives. They have a lot variety in color too, as I’d hoped vs. just being cream. And I think possibly my favorite thing about them is the knotting. As silly as it sounds, Chris and I are such big fans of knots in wood. Whenever we see a beautiful piece of wood, we’re like, “Just look at the knots in this thing!” It gives it so much character. Here’s an up close of them in our living room for you to really see the detail! Can you picture the creamy box this living room will be with light walls and these floors? And then contrast layered on with rich furnishings? I talked about it in Instagram stories and got SO many messages in response, but I’m picturing a dark olive velvet sofa or chair in here. Just look past the construction materials! It’s still a construction zone with different contractors in and out everyday. But soon….oh so soon, friends. This will be our home! Most of the house is going to be cream, but in several of the rooms, we’re doing different colors and I can’t wait to see these floors with all of it! I chose all of the paint colors in the house…the blue gray for our master bedroom, the puddy/olive for doors, the deeper cream and rust for accents…all of it based off of these Cottonfield floors as the base. These floors are a show-stopper and the spaces are still empty. I can’t get over how good it’ll be when all of my favorite things are layered on top. This is our master bedroom below. I’m still nailing down the exact plans, but I think this room is going to be a light blue/gray and I just know it’s going to be so pretty with the tones in the floor. These floors go throughout our main level except for two rooms where we decided to do tile. They’re also in our laundry, mudroom, and powder bath area, though that’s pretty full of construction supplies right now. It’s a little hard to get a good shot and envision it. We aren’t doing much with that space in order to move in, but I have big plans to add a lot of character in there after we’re settled and chose a special wall color for molding with these floors as the inspiration. It’ll be good! I can’t get over how seamless this process was. From choosing flooring options on Twenty & Oak’s website and ordering samples to heading into the local store to get more info and check out larger samples in person, all the way to installation was a breeze! The team from Greer Flooring Center had such amazing customer service. They worked with us on our construction timeline that was ever-changing with so many moving pieces. They stayed in constant contact with us to get the floors delivered as soon as our space was acclimated with HVAC. The boards had to rest in our house for a week to climatize with the space. Then, Greer Flooring showed up with an awesome team and had them installed in a day! Make sure you check out the huge variety of luxury flooring that Twenty & Oak has to offer. And you can order 6 free samples instead of the usual 3 using code BUFFALO! A huge thanks to Greer Flooring Center and Twenty & Oak for making our flooring dreams a reality! We are dying to move in.