Monday, June 18, 2012

Floors and a little more...

This weekend we checked another item off of our building a new home process, we met with the floor consultant.  Although I went to the showroom armed with my confirmed selections,  I left the meeting paying for additional upgrades.  In all honesty, I thought I would keep everything standard but switched the game plan once the meeting started.  Staying true to form, we did not add any special tile to our bathrooms (gratefully, white ceramic is standard in our community). Another great standard item is hardwood floors in the foyer, kitchen and powder room. Although I love, love, love the dark wood color, I noticed from visiting the model home that the darker the wood the more dirt it shows.  The sales rep agreed that the dark wood is pretty, but really hard to maintain. Therefore, it made our life simple to go with the standard gunstock color. Gunstock is a traditional choice and color. It's a golden carmel brown and really is a neutral color .  The sales rep noted that gunstock has been the most popular color for hardwood since 1992. So, its longevity says a lot about the color selection.


Going back to how I added additional floor upgrades, I thought we would carpet the dining room, family room, and study room. Last week, I visited the model home in our community and with hardwood everywhere, except the family room, I became intoxicated with that look! As I mentioned in a previous blog, the model we selected is the smallest model in the community. Truth be told it is only two of us living in the house, so we will have more than enough space. But I'm coming from an aesthetic perspective, and having hardwood throughout the first floor would not only assist with the "flow" of  our home, but would give an illusion that our house is bigger. Unfortunately, I could not afford to put hardwood in both the dining and the study, so we selected the dining area and kept carpet in the study, family room, the hallway upstairs, and all the bedrooms.  I'm sure it's quite obvious that I am disappointed. And my husband, the sweet man that he is was willing to work even longer hours so that we could put hardwood in the study. I had to be a big girl about it, and say the hardwood in the study will be another project down the road.  We will have a beautiful house and the fun part of living there will be to decorate it and make it our very own.  The more I think about it, the more I want the upstairs hallway to be hardwood too…so projects, projects, projects here we come. 


On another note, it just blows my mind how upgrades add up so quickly and it gives me that nagging feeling that maybe we would have been better  off in buying an existing house. Ok, I need to shake it off, we're doing the right thing in building and when it comes to an existing home, one really needs to do work to make it there very own, right?    Anyway, we upgraded the padding to pad B,  in the family room.  We figured that we would spend most of our time in the family room and kitchen area, so we wanted that to be a little more plush.  I also read online that builders grade carpet lasts about 4-5 years, and I'm sure we will be switching out carpet in at least 3 years, so no need to add extra padding upstairs. Hell, I walk on standard building grade carpet and padding every day in our current apartment, so I will not know the difference!  Our carpet is also the baseline--I think the color is shadow (see the picture below). The picture makes the carpet look lighter than what it really is, but the carpet has a golden/amber undertone.  Well, folks thanks for reading. Enjoy the week and I will catch you cats later!

Baseline carpet, the color is Shadow.

13 comments:

  1. Just found your blog tonight. Congrats! The hardwoods sound beautiful! Good luck with the process! We are right in the middle of building our Milan. Excited to see your progress!

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  2. Thanks for finding my blog! Congrats to you on building a Milan. I look forward to reading about your experience too!

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  3. I wanted to get hardwoods in our entire first floor too. We ended up only getting it in the foyer, powder room, kitchen, and morning room. Our study, formal dining room, and family room will be carpet. They wanted to charge $3000 for the family room, $2000 for the dining room, and another $2000 for the study. RIDICULOUS!! I think carpet is more comfy anyway. Our dog has a hard time with hard floors so I'm sure she will appreciate the carpet.

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  4. Ditto on wanting hardwoods on the entire first floor, but settling for foyers, powder room, kitchen and morning room. We upgraded the carpet everywhere else, but it was a lot less than the hardwood. I'll put it on the "some day" list ... or not. Considering how little we will probably use the formal living and dining rooms, not sure that's where I want to sink money.

    Don't fret about your choice. Upgrades do add up quickly and I scoff at RH's "houses starting at" number. But (just from my recent house hunting experience) existing houses in the same price range either needed a ton of work or were significantly smaller. Plus there's something really cool about a house that is truly yours from the get-go!

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  5. Hello, congratulations on your selections. We just closed on our Savoy on Friday. It really is a spacious home. You will be pleased with your choice. We ended up with mahogany hard woods on the first floor. I love the color but I can tell after just a few days, its going to be a constant cleaning issue.
    -Kim

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    1. Congrats on your new home. Where are you living? Let me know if you have a blog, I would love to read about your experience and see another Savoy. I love the mahogany floors…it is probably worth the clean up:-)

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  6. We did the same thing- walked into the flooring appt thinking we wouldn't upgrade anything...and we did!

    Enjoying your blog...mine is www.buildinganewhouseryanhomes.com

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    1. I just took a look at your blog…love it! Thanks for enjoying my blog as well.

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  7. I think those are good choices. Way to stay firm on what you wanted and for the right price!

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  8. We did laminate (which looks like hardwood) through out the entire first floor and to be honest, Now i kinda wish I had kept our Great Room (essentially the Family room) carpeted.
    We didn't even consider hardwood because of the fact that we have 2 dogs and are planning on kids very soon and both are are hard on wood floors (think scratches galore!), but the laminate was ridiculously expensive too. We paid $5k for the whole lower level and $2k of that was for the Great room. I don't neccesarily regret it because I love the way it looks, but I think it was a really pricey choice and I could have used the $2k in other upgrades.
    Oh well... no looking back right!

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  9. We have a darker laminate just in the foyer, extended hallway and powder room. It has a high gloss finish and it is impossible to keep clean. As beautiful as it is, I'm so glad that we didn't extend it any further. The gunstock is a classic color (had it at our old house)and I'm sure it will look great in your house.

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  10. Thanks everyone for your comments! I really appreciate the support.

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  11. We are in the same boat! I would LOVE the whole first floor hardwood, but we just got the foyer and powder room for now and plan to do it later. My husband stood firm on our flooring upgrades (or lack of :)) so we only spent $25 extra at our appoinment. lol. He promises to give me hardwood later when we have some more $$, so we'll see! You are so right about the dark hardwood too... I have both dark and medium in my current home and the dark ALWAYS looks dirty. I have to clean that every day vs. the medium which I clean about once a month and it still looks great. Good choice on the gunstock!

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