FIRST & FOREMOST, my apologies to anyone who is not in a life stage that would relate to all this home buyer/home decor/reno content. Don’t fret- some great NON HOME RELATED posts are in your future- but today, we are talking FLOORS. Next week the kitchen dining reveal goes live (!!!!), so I wanted to make sure we covered the flooring fiasco first.
YES- FIASCO. Let’s explain…
When we saw the house for the first time I knew the floors needed to be redone. I hated them. The kitchen was a tile that was meant to look like grey wood, the living area was a cheap gray laminate that had weird markings all over (they were intentional but looked like cat scratches), & the bedrooms had a thick pile LIGHT BROWN carpet. See below:
SO DRAB, RIGHT? We really wanted to brighten up the place so we decided that on a white oak LOOK (didn’t want actual wood), as light as possible without being white or grey, neutral tones (NO orange), and LITTLE TO NO MARKINGS all throughout the house. SO- off to Home Depot I went!!
LESSON LEARNED: DON’T GET FLOORS FROM HOME DEPOT!!!
I really thought I found my dream floors at Home Depot. I brought two small samples home & showed them to Zack. They appeared to be perfect so I went online & ordered appx 1100 square feet of this flooring. It arrived, by courier, about 3 weeks after I ordered it. I opened one box & my heart sunk. They looked PINK & were covered in massive markings. Only ONE out of each block sort of looked like the sample!! I had a good cry & then we loaded the floors into Zack’s station wagon, which was an inch of the ground thx to the weight of the floors, & we returned them that night.
The following week I went to every single flooring store in a 15 mile radius of our house. I spent HOURS looking & comparing numerous amounts of flooring options, brought home over 10 samples, & FINALLY we chose our floors. We ordered them ASAP (from Rayo Wholesale in San Diego) & when they arrived looking just like the sample, I was ecstatic
We called our flooring guy (recommended by a friend) & got a date set to start. The only issue, which I didn’t realize would be such a huge issue at the time, was that we decided to stay at the house while they did the floors.
LESSON LEARNED: GET OUT WHILE THEY DO THE FLOORS
I touched on this in my last post here, but let me say it again for the people in the back- DO ANYTHING IN YOUR POWER NOT TO BE THERE WHILE THEY DO THE FLOORS. If you have a mansion, just go to another wing, but if you have a normal persons home- get an AirBNB for a week if possible I know it’s an extra expense on top fo the expense of putting in floors- but it really is miserable to be there while they do the work. DUST, noise, construction, chaos, nowhere to go… ESP. if you have animals and/or work from home (I was LOSING IT).
The whole thing was an ORDEAL but so worth it because I LOVE THESE FLOORS SO MUCH & good flooring is one of those things that can up the resale value so YES to good floors please! These floors, although they appear pretty simple, were actually HARD AF to find. A light colored vinyl plank is rare in itself, and one with no markings & a very small “seam” (is that what it’s called?)- NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE. Trust me, took me forever to find… but I found ’em & of course had to share!!!
ALL THE DETAILS ABOUT OUR FLOORS
+ What Kind of Flooring + Why We Chose It:
At first I wanted to do concrete like every other place we’ve lived together but our house is on a raised foundation, so that was out. I thought about doing epoxy as well cause I wanted something cool & different like concrete- but that was out for the sake of resale value.
I then came to the conclusion of doing very light, very minimal, wood look floors. Not actual wood because that’s just too risky for us so I decided on luxury vinyl plank in the lightest color possible. We opted for luxury vinyl tile for the sole reason it’s durable af (& waterproof!). Dogs, spills, future kids- we wanted something that could stand the test of time & look good.
+ Brand/Collection/color:
We chose the brand GemCore & the flooring was part of the Ruby Collection (which of course I took as a sign since our dog’s name is also Ruby!). It’s funny cause they sold this brand/collection at a few places & I was always grabbing ones that were by this brand. I guess I liked it- they all had a pretty seamless look which I really liked.
We went with the color Venice as it was the absolute lightest vinyl plank color we found after our extensive search. Any other that slightly compared in the lightness was more of a fake looking gray than a natural oak color. This was the PERFECT floor for us.
+ How Much Did it ALL cost us?
This particular floor was $3.50/sq ft & then another $2.50/sq ft for install. I do believe we got a “homie” deal on the install & it’s typically around $3-4. Our house is about 1000 square feet but you do need a certain amount extra so we ended up with having to get approximately 1300 square feet.
You can do the math, but yes- it’s expensive as shit. I don’t know if there is much getting around it- someone mentioned we did pick a pricier floor, but I am not so sure cause I really didn’t find anything of decent quality less than that.