First Things Floors...

It's been a while since Stephen and I have DIY'ed together.  He moved down here the beginning of August, and we put a halt to all DIY since... you know... moving.  So I'm excited to get back in the game!!!

At least, I thought I was.  Then I started thinking of things we could do to the new house.  Then I got really tired and unmotivated.  After all, the immediate need of this house is a huge project - 1500 square feet of new flooring! - are we really ready to jump back in that quickly?

Well, time will tell.  And after discovering that labor to install a new floor would run us about $3k (on just the first floor!), more than the floor itself, Stephen promised me that even though he would at some point get frustrated with the project, it would be a marriage-strengthening endeavor.  So that's where we are now.

Why even replace floors, you ask?  After all, installing laminate at our old house was kind of miserable.  Well, let's take a look-see at what we've got going on.

Upstairs, it's 100% (filthy) carpet, except the linoleum bathrooms.


The sole patch of tile in the WHOLE HOUSE is in the entryway.  Do you see how the flooring divides the rooms up? Well, you probably don't, because this is not a good picture.  Just trust me.

One thing I noticed is that the highest-traffic areas are all carpet.  The upstairs and downstairs hallways plus the staircase.  And because the downstairs feels so awkwardly divided, we decided to tile the entire thing.  (In the southwest, it's not uncommon to have 100% tile in single story homes - yep, even in the bedrooms! We don't have any bedrooms downstairs, but I just wanted to let you know it's not weird to have that much tile.)

But to bring in a little of the country charm, we're planning on wood look tile! I think it brings in more warmth than regular tile, and makes us feel a little closer to home.

We aren't sure if we would rather do the wood planks or the the larger tiles.  I almost like the large tiles better, plus it would go a lot faster and have way, way less grouting, so that's what I'm leaning towards, but Stephen likes the wood planks.  They're both in the ball park of $1.50/sq ft from Lowe's.  We haven't checked out any local tile shops yet.

Dargento Tile from Lowe's

GBI Tile & Stone Wood Oak Ceramic Tile from Lowe's

Anyhow (I just typed "Anyhouse" - appropriate!), even though I'm anxious to get started on the downstairs, it would help us out a lot to get the upstairs done first, since that's where the big furniture goes.  It's all neglected carpet (except the bathrooms).  The easiest thing to install would be carpet - because we can hire someone for that!  There are always "Free installation" or "$37 installation" deals going on.  For right now, we're planning on just doing two bedrooms in carpet.  This one, in fact...

Coronet in Proper from Lowe's

We might change our minds and just do the whole upstairs in that, but as of right now, we're not entirely sure what's going to happen up there.  I guess we'll decide soon enough!

Overall, I'm estimating about $3100 in new flooring, which isn't so bad, especially considering we got the house for a very, very fair price. In fact, our realtor predicts we'll get dollar-for-dollar return on improvements in the home (I'm weary of that though, so we'll still be smart!).

Anyway, still 2 more weeks to go!

Happy Monday!

posted by Emma