More Flooring

The hardwood has been completed on the rest of the main floor (office, study, foyer).

For the main room in the basement we chose a cork flooring. We thought this was a good compromise since I didn't want carpet and Scott isn't a big fan of laminate.

Cork is naturally warm and insulating, durable, absorbs sound, and looks cool. It's basically great in every way except that it's a little pricey, so it was an upgrade above our inexpensive carpet allowance.

I love how it turned out though. You can really see the sawdust in these photos:

Bathroom Tile

Tile is done in all the bathroom shower areas.

I love how the ensuite turned out, and I really love the boys' shower, which coordinates with their floor tile.

The girls' bathroom is so pretty, with light subway tile and a detail band that matches the flooring and paint. I love subway tile - so clean and classic looking.

The basement shower walls were changed about 3 times, as we kept hitting challenges with supplies being on back-order or out of stock or production. The final tile was our least favourite, but I think it looks fine. We weren't even supposed to have tile down there anyway, as it was going to be a tub-surround, but they changed it for us at no extra cost.

Flooring Installation: Tile & Hardwood

All of our tile and hardwood is in. Some of these pictures were taken before the grout was complete.

Sacwal Flooring: Part 2

After our initial meeting at Sacwal, I came home to tell Scott about the flooring. I was trying to describe the cork for the basement, and we decided to stop back into Sacwal to see it in person.

Scott really disliked the cork once he saw it, so we started looking at other samples. Since they were getting ready to close, we made a plan to go back and look another time.

But in the short few minutes we were there, Scott found this maple hardwood that we hadn't even looked at earlier and we both fell in love with it right away.

We decided to switch the original selection and go with this one instead:

http://www.kentwoodfloors.com/ca/originals/products/30191

I had been second guessing the original hardwood ever since the first meeting, so I was thrilled about the switch.

John said he'd try to work it into our allowance.

Today we went back in to choose a cork for the basement. After a lot of deliberation in store, we took some samples home, and agreed on one that we both really like.

I think flooring is really done now.

Sacwal Flooring: Part 1

Today was another decision-making marathon with Joanne.

This time the meeting place was Sacwal Flooring, and I had my Mom with me because Scott was working.



We started with hardwood, and found some nice maple flooring. My stipulations for hardwood were:

1. Hard Maple (We like the grain AND it has a high rating on the Janka hardness scale.)

2. Medium stain (I LOVE dark stained wood, but it is hard to keep looking clean and shows scratches and dents way too much)

3. Not too glossy (Again, it looks awesome but too impractical.)

4. Has to be in our hardwood allowance, and not over budget.

So, these options really narrowed our choices down to about, um, three choices. I quickly choose the one that looked the least red and had the widest planks. It was actually under budget which was amazing.

Then we moved on to tile. This was so fun! I was the most nervous about tile because there are literally thousands of options and we have a lot of bathrooms plus a laundry / mudroom area.

But Joanne really took over here and started pulling out beautiful tiles that matched the countertops so nicely and I have to say that the tile was one of the most fun things I've done yet in the whole building process.

Joanne gets all the credit. And John (The Sacwal owner who was part of the whole process). He was awesome too. They can pick out grout colours like nobody's business. Seriously, it's a well-honed talent.

We even manged to do some cool detail stuff in the bathrooms which I'm so excited about. And again - all within the allowances. I think we may have had one $100 upgrade.

We picked out tile for the fireplace surrounds as well.

Next we moved on to carpet. I took a leap of faith and got the berber / plush blended carpet that Joanne & John simply raved about. It was a nice colour, practical for kids, and again (not to beat a dead horse here) was in the carpet allowance.

Three of the bedrooms will have the same carpet as the stairs / hallway, but I chose a shag carpet for the master and Samantha's room (different colours though).

Finally we moved onto the last flooring area: the basement. This is where Scott and I have had the most discussion on WHAT to get. I hate carpet. He hates laminate. What else can you put in a basement?

We thought we had found a suitable compromise when we found CORK flooring until we saw the prices. $$$ Yikes! More than our hardwood!

We found a cork flooring clearance and the colour was bearable, not great, but okay. We went ahead and selected it.

By this time, it was 2 1/2 hours later and time to go. Joanne had brought her paint samples, but we decided to save that adventure for another day.