Out with the old

It was no secret that we needed new flooring. We knew it the first time we saw the house, the day we moved in, and have thought about it every day since. Our house was built in 1995 and the carpet—the once white, now disgustingly gray carpet—was never replaced. Add that to the fact that a family with four boys lived here before we did and we had all the evidence we needed to plunk down the cash to update our downstairs flooring ASAP.

But we languished on the decision. We thought, oh, we’ll wait til CJ’s a little bit older. We’ll wait til we have another baby. And all that putting off meant that in the mean time, we could get the carpet as messy as we liked, because who cared? We’d be replacing it eventually, right?

After an initial steam clean of all the carpeting in the house before we moved in, we reserved vacuuming for special occasions, like Christmas. Or if there was an inordinate amount of crumbs on the floor because someone ate cookies on the couch. The creaminess of the carpet began to fade, and the Pollock-esque stains of the previous owners became ever more prominent. When I could no longer stand to have my crawling baby eat his cheerios off of one particularly nasty black stain in front of the TV, we bought an area rug and covered it up. When I inadvertently spilled an entire cup of coffee over the back of the couch one morning, I blotted it with a couple of baby wipes and then ever so discreetly moved the couch back a couple of inches. No one was the wiser, I’m telling you!

Chris and I like to dream big, and we tossed around ideas about what to replace the carpet with for a long time. I was in favor of hardwood for the entire downstairs. He liked the division of tile, carpet, and hardwood that we currently had. I wanted wood on the stairs with a chic carpet runner in the middle, ending in a wooden landing and a neutral area rug. I think I lost Chris at “runner”. We both agreed on broadloom in the bedrooms, more for comfort when playing on the floor than anything else.

Eventually all our talk led us to a flooring store, which led to an estimate of what we thought we wanted (wood wood wood!), which led to us putting it all on the back burner for a while. We had dreamed big, all right—right out of our budget.

Until about a month ago, when we got a flier in the mail from our floor store for 50% off plus free labor (or something else equally enticing). Suddenly our flooring radar was up and decisions came more quickly. We’d just do the downstairs, and wait a while longer on the upstairs (I just couldn’t fathom having my entire house turned upside down and being pregnant at the same time). We’d pick a quality carpet but would be OK with laminate if the price and color were right. And we’d act fast—fast enough that the downstairs would be done in time for CJ’s birthday party at the end of May.

Our builder basic house is laid out in an O shape. The entryway is at the base of the O, and the floor there was a shellacked hardwood. To the right of the entryway is the dining room, which was carpeted, and to the left, the playroom/living room, also carpeted. The breakfast area is at the top of the O and it’s tiled, as is the kitchen, laundry room, and bathroom, which make up the rest of the downstairs. I conceded to Chris’s request to leave the tile where it is—he brought up washing machines and toilets and water damage and my argument for wood just didn’t hold up. Plus, he promised a future kitchen remodel replete with new tile and I couldn’t say no to that. But I could never understand why the dining room was carpeted, and we decided to put wood down in there and in the entryway. We’d keep carpet in the playroom/living room, but update it to suit our taste. And when it was all said and done, our downstairs flooring would be divided into three materials: tile, carpet, and wood.

On Decision Day we found a laminate at the floor store that was everything we wanted in a wood but about a third of the price, so we bought it. We stuck to our guns on the carpet though, picking a neat, burbur-esque pattern that it turns out, is the EXACT same color of our couch. You can take two things away from this, people: (1) When it comes to color, my tastes don’t really ever change, and (2) when Martha Stewart talks about carrying around a swatch book with all the paint colors and fabric patterns you have in your house, listen.

The floor was delivered last week so it could “acclimate” to our house, which admittedly, was kind of a joke, right? I mean come on, people, it’s laminate, which I think also means PLASTIC. Chris and his sister spent Saturday demoing the downstairs floors. Most of the laminate went in yesterday, and today I’m home “supervising” the carpet install. Currently they’re gluing two short pieces of carpet together to make one longer piece, and the fumes from the glue gun are just wonderful.

So I’m going to go continue “supervising” and maybe take a nap. They promised to be done with everything today, so hopefully I’ll have some gorgeous pictures of our brand new flooring for you soon!