Adventures in natural painting and other house renos

It will soon be a year and a half in this house exactly, and perhaps a good enough time as any to take a look back on the work we've done. When we first moved in there were two big indoor projects we said we wanted to accomplish: painting the walls and getting the floors re-done. As of August now, both of those projects are done. It was a busy autumn and winter: final coats of paint, expanding a doorway between two rooms by removing an interior window, putting in a solar tube in the roof, and the final step of getting hardwood flooring installed. It looks completely different from the house we first saw in December 2015 on our first viewing!

From the first house visit showing vintage carpets and the interior window.

The other side of that window. (For some reason we decided to buy this house??)

 The day the floors were finished with all the furniture moved out of the house.
Now we have a nice open doorway instead of a window!

Then and now: the same vantage point as the first house photo.
The expanded doorway is great and we have finally started using this room. Before
it felt closed-off and uninviting but now it is open and has a nice feeling about it.

New floors!

The thing I am probably the most happy about is the interior painting. Instead of buying paint from the store we bought raw ingredients and made our own natural paint out of powdered clay, wheat starch paste, borax and a little linseed oil. It was great to know our renovations were eco-friendly and wouldn't have any toxic implications at any point. Plus it was so cheap compared to buying paint from the store! We figured we spent a fraction on paint that what we would have using normal paint, considering we had to paint every surface. (Although we did end up buying some latex paint for some windowsills, and the exterior painting we did was store-bought paint.) But the natural paint is a nice soft white and we're both very happy with the color of the sage-green accent we did below the chair rail.

Making natural paint

Mixing the color

Test patches of color

The finished accent (pre-flooring)