How do you recognize when a project is more than you want to deal with? It’s not easy for this DIY obsessed mama to acknowledge when she may be in over her head. I’ve tried enough projects to know what is manageable for me and which project would sink the S.S. Family Harmony.
This post is a peek into what is happening in our neck of the woods. I will pass along a few tips in case you have a big flooring remodel on your “to do” list. Flooring updates will be alternated with fun projects or instructional posts, not to worry.
Getting Floored
When we built our house and chose finishes at the design center, I spent countless hours researching all of the options. I categorized things into groups of “worth the expense” and “ones we could do later.” The goal was to avoid paying the builders a high price that would factor into our monthly mortgage payments. There were things, like the downstairs carpet, that we held off on upgrading because we weren’t in love with the design center options. We figured we would let the boys put wear and tear on the carpet while we saved up to replace it with a wood-look tile.
Late last spring seemed like the right time to get started. Unfortunately, my dear father underwent some serious health issues and passed away. Needless to say, I didn’t feel like picking out tile for a while. I miss that worker buddy every day. Every. Day.
Taking A Pass
This spring I finally pulled it together. Confession- this was partly to avoid shampooing the downstairs carpet ever again. I won’t miss that. The last time I tiled was the back splash in our kitchen remodel. That was a different house and years ago…like, 12 years ago. What the heck? Where does the time go?
My dad and I worked side by side on that kitchen remodel for quite a while. I even helped install our new cabinets while about eight months pregnant. My husband was away for a few months on a business trip, otherwise I am sure he would have done the heavy lifting. It’s amazing that I didn’t go into labor while holding up the upper cabinets as my dad attached them to the wall. That baby boy was a week overdue and I had to be induced. Clearly he had no plans of vacating his comfortable accommodations. Anyway, I just didn’t have it in me to even take that emotional journey down memory lane while I tiled and grouted alone on this house.
The Hunt
Pretty typical of me, I started off with some grand design plans. I scouted around to about four tile places when we first thought we would go with a brownish/grayish tile. We were attempting to find something that would go with our espresso stained staircase and all of the cabinetry. I ordered samples from online, I checked out samples from stores, and I bought a few single pieces of tile, all in an attempt to find the perfect match. Nothing really hit the mark.
Grand Plans
In the meantime, I had this brilliant plan to make a tiled entry rug. Inspired by an image I saw online, I went to a high-end tile place to find those same tiles. I met with the wonderful sales consultant, Carol, at Materials Marketing in Austin. She went above and beyond to get samples and exact tiles of the colors that I was interested in so I could test the colors at our house. I fell in love. Then I had to figure out how much tile to purchase and find a coordinating wood plank tile.
Using the photo edit on my phone, I “sketched” a rough plan to determine how big I wanted my tile rug. I wanted a blue and cream-colored tile to alternate the pattern in the tile rug. That meant ordering the square footage in both blue and cream. This tile was $25 a square foot…times two colors of tile meant that it was more like $50 a square foot. Justification: It would be worth it to have something unique in our home. I once again took my tile samples all around Austin to try to find a good tile match.
Too Much of a Good Thing
At some point my husband and I decided that we should ditch the dark wood tile and go for something lighter. I gathered a lot of samples of tiles that had a bleached wood look to it, or a white/gray wash look to it. There were some that went fairly well with my beloved blue and cream fancy tiles. I also picked up a sample tile of one that looked okay with the fancy tiles, but was a little more neutral.
You guys, I had so many tile samples. My 14 year old teased me that we wouldn’t have to purchase any tiles, we could just tile the floors with all of the samples. We were looking at covering a little over 1,300 square feet. Ha ha!
Once home, we found that some of the tiles were just too white looking, especially when placed adjacent to the dark stairs. The contrast of the light tile and dark wood was too great. It looked too modern, which is so not our house. There was one tile that seemed to be the best match. It happened to be the tile I picked up on a whim. That one ended up matching the best to our existing kitchen and bathroom tiles and looked good next to the dark wood. The only problem was that it was meh, next to the fancy tiles. What to do?
Torn But Focused
While we were having the great tile debate. (OK, that debate was only with myself since I am pretty sure my husband wasn’t losing sleep over it like I was.) I started to get bids from flooring installers. Always get multiple bids, make sure the companies are licensed and bonded, and you can even check references. The Better Business Bureau, or BBB, is a great place to find out if the company you pick is A-OK. After receiving all of the bids, we settled with a local flooring and remodeling company named A&N Construction and Custom Flooring.
Simplify
Sometimes in life when it’s getting too complicated, you need to let some things go. For our flooring project, I reflected on how hard my husband works to provide for us and what was needed versus what I wanted. I decided to concede and lessen the financial stress for my hubby.
Forgoing the kitchen and pantry replacement in the remodel and by, drum roll please, giving up my precious fancy tiles, we could keep within the budget. The kitchen/pantry was an easier omission because living without a kitchen for a week sounded awful and it was almost twice as expensive. Fortunately, the tile we picked matched the tones of the existing kitchen tile extremely well. Having that tile match meant that the visual transition would be barely noticeable. Giving up the fancy tile was difficult, guys. I was so looking forward to it. It just posed too many complications.
First of all, it was dang expensive. Second, the fancy tile was thicker than the other porcelain tiles we were going to use and would be another area to accommodate. Third, I would have a few thousand dollars of the reverse colors left over that I would not know what to do with. Not to mention, I would have to store it and it would never get tossed because it was so expensive. Fourth, did I mention that it was dang expensive?! I was dreading having to go back to return the tile samples and tell people I was going in a different direction. Turns out, no one cares that much about my specific tile project and they are used to people changing their minds. Phew.
Purchase Supplies
The tile and grout were picked out, my fancy tile dreams were crushed, and we had an installer booked, so I ordered the supplies and started preparing the rooms. Your installer should provide a shopping list for you which they can then pick up for a small fee. (It sure beat me taking 20 trips to North Austin!) My shopping list included: tiles, coordinating grout, thin set, and floor leveling material.
The down payment was made to the installers and supplies ordered and paid for at Floor and Decor. All part of the process. It can be a little overwhelming to spend that much money all at once, that’s why we had been saving up for this remodel. It’s also important to pick something you really love. It is a big expanse and expense. You want tile or flooring that will meet your needs and a style that will last for a long while.
Get Moving!
Demo was starting on Monday. We had the weekend to basically move out of the lower level of our house and make arrangements for the dog on the days when I was going to be out-of-town. Also, be sure to schedule projects when you are in town. There is a back story there but I refuse to throw any one under the bus.
Talk about getting in your cardio! I lost track of the trips up and down the stairs moving stuff, but my heart was pumping. The boys and husband were employed for the heavy lifting. Once we had the rooms cleared out, I vacuumed. My husband thought I was weird because they were going to rip out the carpet anyway. Hopefully giving it a good vacuum will diminish the amount of dust when they are tearing it out. We’ll see. Plus, I’m taking pictures for this blog, it must look somewhat decent.
Side Project
This may be a good time to throw in a side note about the partially painted office. Once we finally got my husband’s office cleared, he was putting that off, I went to quickly paint it. I discovered that he went through a lot of paint when he painted the wall behind where he wanted to mount his TV. He’s basically a novice painter and tingedblue.com wasn’t up yet to give him painting pointers. Ha ha. Anyway, there wasn’t enough paint to get the job done. Instead of starting and not finishing, I am putting it off until I can get more paint. Depending on where they start laying tile, it may be in the next day or two.
The tile guys will be here in about an hour. Rooms are cleared and vacuumed and we have plans to keep the dog contained upstairs with me. I washed all the laundry and have it piled upstairs for me to fold as they are working downstairs today. I think we are set. There may be some future purging on the horizon as I look out over our gathered mess of stuff.
In following posts, I will track the progress of our flooring install and any tips or lessons learned. So exciting! I am really looking forward to this. It’s huge. This is really going to make our house a home. 💙
More Home Improvement Posts
Demo and Install of Wood Plank Tiles
6 Types of Paint and When to Use Them
Furniture Hardware: Patch Holes and Get a Pro Finish
Sources for Affordable, yet Stylish Lighting
Tile Stickers for a Backsplash
Change the Look of the Kitchen Island for Cheap
Fast, Easy, Cheap Home Upgrades
How To Paint a Straight Edge on Rounded Corners
Thanks for taking us along on this project. I feel a bit more ‘normal’ now.
Absolutely! I think everyone is more alike than we realize. So glad you can relate. Thanks for your comment.