So flooring. We've pretty much been settled on our hardwood choice since we laid eyes on it and put a deposit down in November. It's hardwood of the engineered variety - which is thinner layers of real wood veneer, usually with a stronger finish and more versatile than hardwood but more versatile. We fell in love with a handscraped (but not overly so) Acacia (also known as Asian Walnut). We choose it for it's color pattern - the blonde in it goes with the cabinet color we are going with. We also could have fallen in love with many other beautiful varieties - but this one happened to be in our price range. Here is a sample of Acacia wood:
Our is more distressed looking than this, because if we didn't order it distressed it would quickly become so anyway. (We get flooring samples and let our kids carry them around, try to gouge them, use them as weapons etc. not to mention I toss them in the back of the car and tote them around a lot to see how they hold up - and this one passes the test.)
So that only takes care of about 500 sq. ft (kitchen, dining, and surrounding areas) Are we dumb to put wood in the kitchen? We'll soon find out.
In the entry we are putting tile - TBD. There will also be tile in the master bath.
In the kids bath we are probably putting vinyl. I am kind of interested in doing the vinyl that looks like wood and comes in planks. I saw it on Divine Design (dee dah) and I think it looks cool.
In the laundry room I have been dead set on cork since the beginning. It feels so nice underfoot - it would be ideal in the kitchen but if we did that we'd have to do the dining room in it also and it might be a little much. So the good news for me is that Ben has come around on the idea of cork and we are considering it for the mudroom and possibly downstairs bathroom as well. There are so many variety's and looks of cork and the installation is a snap (literally) so it saves Ben some time tiling and it's super sustainable/environmentally friendly so I'm sure that swayed him as well. The reasons I want it is that it is not cold and hard like tile, and it absorbs sound. The only downside (that I can see after my extensive research) to cork is the price. If you put it in rooms where you had originally budgeted for vinyl it can be 5-6 times more. You can get cheaper cork, but it doesn't hold up as well and it's still more expensive. But we found some of the good stuff on sale and have seen leftovers lots on Craigslist - now we just have to choose a color.
If you want to see some crazy (I think tacky) cork installations click here.
The rest of the house will be carpet - color and texture also TBD.
1 comment:
That is very pretty. And no you're not dumb for putting it in the kitchen, especially engineered wood. It is extremely durable, verses real wood. Almost water resistant too. We had it in our old house. If it's the same thing that I'm thinking.
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