Picking Flooring

February 1 - We found our way to the flooring place.  It was in a fairly industrial area and off the beaten path.  So, our GPS told us "You are lost.  I think you have entered the abyss.  Abort! Abort!"  However, we found our flooring office, Exceptional Choices, amidst all of the factory warehouse looking buildings.

So, we were greeted by the Exceptional Choices sales representative, Dannie, with a smile.  She led us to a back room where we could view all of our choices for flooring.  We expected something similar to those wall hanging displays that you find at Home Depot, but we entered a room that was filled with what looked like giant dressers.  The office area was decked out with some pretty impressive swag.  This read to us, expensive flooring choices would follow.  We needed to stick as close to our target as possible and not be swayed by the allure of Dannie's sales pitch about the higher grade carpet that celebrities use to massage their feet as they walk.  To our relief, Dannie did not mention that jewel, although this may have been a good sales pitch.  Write that down.

Drawers and drawers of carpet samples

Dannie covered all of our options.  There were a few items that we knew that we wanted.  First, we decided that laminate flooring in the kitchen would be a pain to remove later.  I know that I have read many blogs about how they chose the laminate flooring and would install hardwood later.  To these people, I say good on you.  For us, the prospect of removing laminate in the kitchen sounded similar to sitting through an entire Taylor Swift album: painful and unpleasant for everyone.  So, we added cherry wood flooring to the kitchen to match our foyer.

Our floors in the kitchen and foyer will look similar to this.

The next item that we knew we wanted to boost was the carpet padding.  Mark suggested investing in the carpet padding because it would extend the life of the carpet and would be cheaper than upgrading all of the carpet.  In all, replacing the carpet in the future would not be as expensive as it may have been with this go around.  So, we upgraded from the standard (paper thin) padding to a thicker and water/stain resistant version.  We had this carpet pad installed in the basement and first floor.  We left the standard in the bedrooms and the hall upstairs.

We talked about upgrading the carpet, but it was too expensive.  So, we stuck with the baseline Rockport carpeting.  We also toyed with the option of upgrading the bathroom tile, but avoided it in the end.  We chose the standard white 6 X 6 ceramic surround for the bathtub and shower in the master bath.  Then, we selected the standard almond 6 X 6 ceramic tiles for the upstairs bathroom.  

Finally, we selected the type of laminate flooring for the bathrooms and laundry room.  We chose the one that most resembled stone.  Laminate is not the most desirable, but it will work for the time being before we figure out how to we really want these rooms to look.

Looks similar to this one.  Not bad.

Bryan is installing a media room in the basement, so he wanted to be sure what the carpet choice would look like with a maroon color of wall.  Dannie said "Redskins fan?"  Nope, he just really, really likes movies and wants it to look like a movie theater.  That's all. 

Here is what we ended with after our travel to Exceptional Choices and meeting Dannie.  [Disregard the maroon carpet as it was there for color comparison for walls and the Persian rug underneath]: