Historic New England: Providence House Renovation

Hey everyone!  I’m Andress, the newest member of Staging Studio’s team, and I’m taking over the blog today to tell you about my new home that we are renovating. We are calling it the “Providence House” and it is a beautiful, historic home in Providence, Rhode Island.  Built in 1852, this typical New England home has gorgeous hardwood floors, lots of space, and an amazing walkable location.  

But when my husband and I were looking for a house in the area (we moved from the U.K. for his job), we didn’t even consider this one because the floor plan was so bad.  The kitchen is at the very back of the house, isolated from all living areas, with no clear path to get to it!

It is a seller’s market right now and we were getting a bit desperate to find a house, but one evening over drinks we happened to show my mom, Debbie Boggs from Staging Studio, the options we had to choose from.  (There were only about 3 houses available in the area!)  And we got lucky!  She had VISION for this house that we just couldn’t see ourselves.  “Why not MOVE the KITCHEN??”  Brilliant!  With the idea of moving the existing kitchen to the dining room and knocking down the wall into the library to create one big kitchen/living space, we were SOLD on this house!

We closed last week and we have been knocking down walls, refinishing the floors, and beginning the process of moving the kitchen cabinets to their new location.  The new kitchen/library is looking great as one big open space.

We’ve already hit a few snags though…

After ripping up the carpet on the stairs, we found that there are big cracks between the stairs.  What should we do?? Wood filler?  A molding? Carpet runner?

 And then while taking the cabinets out so that we could paint them white and move them to the new location (what is currently the dining room), we found that the wood floor does not go all the way under the cabinets.  Big bummer.  So do we tile or try to match the wood?

And for our last puzzle… what stain color do we choose for the newly refinished floors?  Downstairs they are red oak, but upstairs we have a mixture of the same red oak and wide plank pine.  We are leaning toward Minwax’s Special Walnut (SW) or Provincial (P).  Remember, my cabinets will be painted white.  Which would you do?

Comment and let us know what you think we should do: runner or some other fix on stairs? tile or find wood to match? And pleeeeeeease help us pick a stain color asap!

If you are a realtor and would like to learn how to give your clients vision for homes like this and earn your SDP® for Real Estate Agents designation, you can learn more here. 

If you want to learn more tips and staging strategies, our Staging Design Professional® course includes everything you need to be a BOSS Stager! We've created a FREE Design Series for you to see if home staging is right for you.