Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Magic Carpet Ride

Well, we finished with our flooring meeting and it wasn't as overwhelming as I thought it would be. Our SR was great and had our cabinet choices ready to show us with the flooring and counter top options.  She wasn't pushy at all, which was fantastic and let us introduce the idea of considering upgrades before showing us something that wouldn't work with our budget.  Overall, we had a great experience with Rite Rug and hope their installation of all the flooring goes just as smoothly!

I didn't think to do it at the time, but I should have taken a picture when we had about 10 carpet and 20 vinyl samples scattered on the floor of the showroom. Hopefully we didn't drive the SR too crazy, but I'm pretty sure she's used to this happening several times a day.

Here's what we went with:

Kitchen/Morning Room: Station Square X2112 Vinyl (Level B Upgrade)
Family/Living Rooms: Simple Touch 00102 Capri (Level C Upgrade with 8lb Padding Upgrade)
Powder Room: Station Square X2055 Vinyl (Level B Upgrade)
Stairs/Halls/Bedrooms: Collinsville 00106 Gentle Beige (Level B Upgrade with 8lb Padding Upgrade)
Hall Bath: Initiator 66180 Linoleum
Master Bath: Initiator 66180 Linoleum
Laundry Room: Initiator 66180 Linoleum

Those words probably mean nothing to you unless you've already been through this process.  I think our hardest decisions were the kitchen/morning room and the family room.  We knew we wanted to do some type of linoleum in the kitchen because we decided we could install a real hardwood floor down the road after the kid(s) have beat up the first floor.  I've been trying to do research on the vinyl floors that look like wood floors.  The idea seemed kind of neat, but I was afraid it would look too cheap.  Then, I kept going back to, well the only other option is fake tile, so is it that much worse to get fake wood?  I was pleasantly surprised with the look of vinyl hardwood and so we went with that, so no judging if you see our house and our "fake" wood.  Some day we'll have nice floors, but for now the durability of the vinyl will suit our needs better.

The other hard room to pick for was the Family Room. I knew that I wanted an upgrade in that room, but it also butts up with the stairs, which need to be the same color as the upstairs areas.  I knew we couldn't do a lot of upgrades with carpeting, so I think we found a nice compromise which will coordinate.  The Family Room carpet is sort of a multi-colored carpet and the stairs will be a solid color that matches one of the colors in the other carpet.  I'm not exactly sure how it will look, but I think (hope) we'll be happy with our choices.

Here are some pics of our choices.  These pictures don't really do any of the colors justice, though.

Kitchen Floor on bottom, with cabinet and counter selections.  I was originally leaning toward the lighter counter, but since the cabinets and the floor are both on the lighter side, it needed some contrast.

Standard Bathroom cabinets/counter.  We chose the top right flooring for the upstairs bathrooms.

Powder Room.  I really liked this one and would've liked to do it in all the bathrooms, but we decided to spend the extra money on the heavier carpet padding upstairs.

Family/Living Room carpet is the bottom sample, stairs/upstairs is the top sample.  The middle sample doesn't look as multi-colored in person.  I think it looks more blended.

Here are all of our choices laid out.  We definitely stuck to a neutral palate.  I think it will be more fun to add pops of color in other features of the rooms.

So, there you have it!  Now, I don't want to think about it anymore because I don't want to second guess myself.  I told our SR if she sees me trying to come back to change my mind that she should just lock the showroom doors and pretend to be closed!  A couple came in to re-look at carpeting while we were there and we found out it was their 4th time coming back.  The funniest part is that they ended up staying with their original choice every time they came back, which, from talking to our SR is pretty typical.

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