Benicia house updates

About a year after we moved in to our first house, we had the exterior painted.  My husband is generally hands-off with these kinds of decisions, which is nice but also intimidating.  The main Sherwin Williams Spalding Gray color I chose looked a little purple in the evenings, and it was more brown than gray, but I was happy with it.

Before:

After:

We liked our exterior paint guys so much that we brought them inside while we were away for Christmas 2015 and had our kitchen and laundry room cabinets painted white and kitchen island and butler pantry painted dark gray. We did a lighter gray on the walls in the kitchen and family room too, and changed the hardware on the cabinets.

Before:

After:

The bamboo hardwood flooring was put in throughout the main floor right after the paint was done, and it ultimately looked very nice. I say "ultimately" because the workers tracked glue residue around, which initially left us with cloudy, smeared floors in some areas and marks that wouldn't wipe away in others:

Some boards were cut so a gap was left when the baseboards and trim were put back. Not great, Home Depot sub-contractors:

It was painful, but eventually all the problems were taken care of, and when we put our house up for sale in summer 2017--something we didn't anticipate when these projects were done--it was lovely to have things looking nice. That and the $20,000+ we saved by selling with Homebay, a company that charges a flat fee to get you listed and helps you through the paperwork, made for a fairly smooth first-time house-selling experience.