Flooring

The decisions are coming fast and furious and most importantly - permanent - now. Up until the inside was done we've been able to just peruse and dream and sketch, but we have to make some very important and scary decisions ASAP!

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.

Cupcakes and Tile

Up until now I've been content to browse magazines and library books for design ideas, marking or ripping out a page here and there, sketching ideas, then stuffing it into an ever growing folder of design ideas - some for this house, some for homes to come. But going into a store, putting together concepts and colors - actual commitment - that seems so scary! I guess we've made quite a few decisions thus far - from the big decisions like the floor plans to the small decisions that come up daily - like which lights do you want to switch on at the same time or how do you want this or that window to open? But for some reason tile and countertops scare me to death. They also happen to be the most exciting. A recent (yesterday) trip to a tile showroom doubled as a workout since my heart rate was kept up for so long. (I get the same condition when perusing the high end architecture and design magazines at Barnes & Noble) First of all, they immediately put on a movie for my kids and gave them candy. On the other side of the room they had a plate of chocolate cupcakes with a sign that said - help yourself - don't mind if I do. Then Ben and I were able to roam the displays of tile at will (I know why they didn't want kids accompanying the parents, they barely wanted us to touch the samples on exhibit). In the floor and on the walls they had examples of how their tiles could be used - fabulously at that. I fell for a particular tile. A grayscale paisley that would be super cute in the kids bathroom. Unfortunately it was $53.20 PER TILE. A 4 x 6" tile at that. I could maybe afford one.

Unfortunately the tile selection turned out to be the least of our coveting/champagne-taste-on-a-beer-budget issue. Next we went to the stone warehouse. There I fell for the quartz, then the granite, then the basalt, then the limestone... Natures artwork, quarried and polished by man.

We left, awestruck, with samples in hand so that we could go home and try to figure out how we could work some of this fabulousness into our budget. Who knew tile shopping could be so much fun?

Some of my favorite tile stores that I can't afford but love to look at and you might like to look at too:

http://www.annsacks.com/home.html-

http://www.pentalonline.com/

http://www.redrocktileworks.com/images/prelude%20collection/texTILE%20Catalog.pdf

Finish Colors

Chrome is always the cheapest finish of course (for faucets) and we learned today that everything else is about 40% more. Luckily our builder sent us in with a budget for "oil-rubbed bronze" which is supposedly "in" right now, but doesn't neccessarily fit with the overall more-contemporary look we are going for. Plus it doesn't mix and match very well with chrome, plus there is the doorknob and hinge colors to consider... We settled for now on a pewter color in the master bath which seems to be able to go traditional or modern and could complement nickel or chrome fixtures/knobs elsewhere if we go that route.

What are your preferences for knob/hinge/fixture color - and what about knob shape - egg, round, level etc. Leave a comment and/or vote, I'd like to hear your opinions.