Flooring

Decisions...

Wood Floors

One of the first things that needs to be decided is flooring. The existing house had carpet everywhere except for the foyer/kitchen/walkways on the first floor, which were tile. Neither of us likes carpet, so we knew right away that we wanted hardwood, but we also knew that upgrade would be expensive. Switching the tiled areas to hardwood would be "free" for us, but replacing the carpeting would be costly. We considered replacing the tiled areas with wood and living with the carpet for a few years until I found time/money to lay wood myself... but that would be difficult to match. At the end of the day we decided to bite the bullet and pay $4,000 to upgrade to hardwood on the entire first floor. We still have carpeting on the 2nd floor because we can't afford to upgrade both :) The plan is to replace that in a few years when the carpet wears out. $4000 is a lot of money, but I know myself... if I cheap out on the flooring now I will likely find myself in the midst of a tearout and upgrade in a few years... and much of the appeal of buying a new house comes from NOT having to do any remodeling!

Despite the upgrade, I still wanted ceramic tile in the kitchen/breakfast nook area. I've never been a fan of wood in the kitchen, I feel it's to easily scratched or damaged by spills/overflows to be practical. However we have an open concept great room that combines a kitchen/casual dining/family room together and Theresa was eventually able to convince me that having one cohesive flooring solution in that room was the way to go. At the moment we're thinking we want to go with a darker stain on the wood floor...

Travertine Bathroom

We do still have some areas will be tiled. The mudroom/laundry room will be tile, as will both the master and main bath upstairs, and I'd like a small tiled section in the foyer at the front door to help protect the wood from people tracking in dirt/water/salt/rocks. We've been to the tile shop a few times to check out our tile options... and we're starting to lean towards doing a natural stone. Natural stone is not as durable or low maintenance as a porcelain tile, but the richness and textures do no even come close to comparing. Natural stone is GORGEOUS.

We're thinking of doing a traditional travertine in the foyer and upstairs main/guest bathroom, but then trying something a little different and more modern for the master bath.  Maybe a slate or quartzite look.  The laundry and mud room areas will not get upgraded to stone, we'll stick with porcelain there.  Porcelain fits into our allowance budget, so that's always nice and it is more durable and requires less maintenance, which is good for utility space.  Plus, one of the things we really loved about the existing house was their choice of floor tile, so this gets us an excuse to work that exact same model of tile into our house as well.  

Slate Bathroom

This is another area where our builder choice has proven to be wise... we're getting a discount of sorts on any tile purchase. While natural stone is not in our budget the increased cost per square foot is manageable and because we're doing so little area, it should fit into our budget, so we're currently leaning towards installing that. Our thinking is that we're getting a pretty good deal, and adding a little bit natural stone is probably going to go a long was towards increasing the richness and value of the home. One wildcard is the cost of the installation. Stone may cost a bit more to install, and we're not quite sure how many sq feet of tile we will need to cover shower walls, etc... We have a hard budget of 5k for all of our flooring upgrades, 4k of which is being taken for the wood flooring. So fitting in a natural stone tile may take some compromises and/or deal shopping!