Day 23... Basement walls have been poured and waterproofed! I see some large steel beams on site so I assume that will be the next step and we will likely see some framing in the coming days. But that's not what I'm hear to talk about. Today's post is about floor & tile...
What was supposed to be the easiest of our decisions, will probably keep me up with my head spinning for the next 7-10 nights. Flooring was going to be simple: Our builder offers some pretty nice 3/4" Oak Hardwoods (not cheap laminates), bathrooms were to have ceramic tile (not vinyl), and the carpet we saw in the model home seemed like it would get the job done in bedrooms and the basement. We planned to drop a few dollars on some upgraded wall tile in the bathroom, but that was really about it. Boy, did that spiral out of control...
Hardwoods
I'll take the heat on this one because the wavering (and the $$$ attached to it) is entirely my fault. Having seen the Bruce Hardwood (right) installed in the model home, it felt like a slam dunk. I loved the mocha color, I loved that it was a solid 3/4" product, and I loved the way it played off the cabinets that were very similar to what we are getting. Then I did a little bit of recon at Home Depot/Lowes and fell out of love. The more I look at hardwoods, the more I prefer a wider plank (std. is 2 1/4") and the more I prefer the hand scraped look. Unfortunately, those options (left) come with a $2,200 price tag. I work in construction and still can't pretend to understand what makes a wider plank more expensive. I'm sure they receive great bulk purchase rates on the standard materials and I'm sure that there's slightly less waste with the smaller planks, but wouldn't a large plank require less labor? I've installed a number of floors and it goes a hell of a lot quicker when you have wide planks... But I digress.
Ultimately, I'm probably going to have to swallow this one and stick with the standard floor we originally loved. After a lot of debate, we'll probably spring for the hardwood to extend into the Family Room anyway. I've been on "Team Carpet" since birth, but I've come to the realization that I'll probably regret not going with the wood right now because it can never really be added in seamlessly at a later date. If I'm that miserable with hardwood, I can always lay down an area rug or wall to wall carpet on top of the hardwood.
Carpet
Speaking of carpet, that might have been the biggest bummer of the night for me! The model & quick delivery homes we toured had a standard carpet that seemed perfectly reasonable. Decent color, decent comfort, and best of all: included in the price! Carpet has a shelf life of ~10 years if you treat it well so there's really no reason to splurge on something like that. But when we opened the sample book, everything available to us felt dingy. The dozen or so selections available looked like they were a greatest hits of "grandma's house" colors (not my grandmothers... your carpets are all lovely!) So we asked to see selections from the next level up. Boom! The first carpet we saw was a color called "Greige." How am I supposed to resist a color called greige? It's basically Jen's theme for the entire house! And it was a much nicer product too. Denser fibers, nicer loop, thicker padding, etc. Definitely a step up and IMO a much needed step up! Afterall, I'll probably be doing a lot of horsing around with Chase on the basement floor for the next decade or so (haven't ruled out wall to wall wrestling mats yet!) But of course, this comes with a price tag too. About $2,300 for all of the rooms we need done. All I could do is shake my head.
Bathrooms
To me, bathrooms are a place of business. I want them to be clean, neat, and modern but beyond that "pretty" is not a requirement. Jen does not agree. From the moment we first started looking at building, Jen knew that we might not get EVERYTHING just how we wanted, but she wanted some custom flourishes in the bathrooms. Our builder was offering 6"x 6" white ceramic tile which felt like a pretty reasonable solution to me. Lesser builders would slap a vinyl product in their as standard. But Jen wanted the bathrooms to be a place of peace and serenity, not institutional (we have a 4 year old... there is no serenity).
Because I know how to pick and choose my battles, I agreed to consider some minor upgrades in the bathroom. She had spoken about an eye level course of decorative glass tile which I thought sounded like an easily affordable upgrade. Then she called my bluff on the floor... I love the wood-look ceramic tile. I'd install that instead of hardwood all over the house if I thought I could. She pointed one out that matched well with a white subway tile and I couldn't resist. It even matched perfectly with the charcoal stained vanities we picked out. We could have probably just installed it in one bathroom, but I'm a fan of consistency so of course it has to go in Chase's bathroom too! The sales rep wasn't even able to tell us that number. It's probably exceeds the characters on her calculator screen.
We expect all of the flooring options to be priced out over the next few days. We have some money set aside for these changes, but probably not enough for all of them. I told Jen she needs to get a summer job but she doesn't seem to be biting on that one... So in the next week or so, we will have difficult decisions to make. In the meantime, we're off to Florida for the weekend to catch the Phillies at Spring Training! Hopefully the job site dries out while we're gone!
