Flooring Meeting - Creative Flooring

Tonight, we had our flooring meeting.  I was expecting it to take a couple hours, since somewhere in the blogger world, I read that it takes a couple hours.

This, though, did not take nearly that long.

We were the last appointment of the day, and the sales guy was definitely rushed.  I felt like I couldn't really ask many questions, and I actually had a lot.  Like, "do we HAVE to stick to the Ryan selections, or can we go custom?"  I'd really like to explore a more environmentally friendly flooring option, like bamboo, but I didn't feel like I could ask about it because the dude was in such a rush.  Oh, and it was a bazillion degrees out, and the flooring place's air conditioner had blown.  So, he was hot, irritated AND in a rush.  Not the time to ask about custom options.

They had one mistake on the order form - we are putting vinyl in the downstairs "office" to turn it into a cat-mudroom.  They had it listed as standard carpet.  No biggie, but I wonder how things get lost in translation so easily.

The cat-mudroom is the only area in the downstairs that will have anything but hardwood.  So, the biggest decision was really, what wood color are we getting?

We didn't ask about any upgrades, or the wider planks, and now I wish we had.  I'm sure it would have been too expensive, but it would have been nice to price it out.

So, we picked the base level hardwood.  At the model house, we had liked the "gunstock" color, but the showroom had a bigger sample of it, and we didn't like it as much.  We ended up going for cherry.  I'm a bit skeptical of the cherry, but I'm sure any color will look nice (that's what I'm going to repeat to myself over and over and over, at any rate).  Our cabinets (until we change our minds) are the maple cognac (?) ones.  So, here is what it will look like:

The floor looks a little less red in the picture, and its a wider plank than we would have, but you get the idea.  The hardest thing for me was figuring out how the wood would look with the cabinets.  That's a LOT of wood in one place.

Once we had the hardwood picked out, it went really fast.  BF deferred to me on most things (not worth the discussion?) but we did debate the carpet quite a bit.  I like a light carpet.  He likes a darker one.  I think we compromised:

The color looks different in the picture, but you get the idea.  Its beige.  One of the 200 different colors of beige they had for us to choose from (just like the siding!).  In case you are super curious, here is the back of the carpet sample:

Its a Shaw.  Color is "custard".  Upgrade C.  Some sort of warranty; don't remember what.  Note the significant difference in footwear between me modeling the carpet, and the carpet model.  :)  I think this means the carpet will last a long, long time....

Now back to vinyl.  There were only 5 or 6 types of basic vinyl to choose from, so that was quite easy.  We choose one with a large tile look for the cat-mudroom, and one with a smaller tile look for the upstairs bathroom and laundry.

And finally, the bath.  They had 9 variations on upgrade C to choose from.  I don't even know how we arrived at that particular level of upgrade, but so be it.  That's what we got, and here's what we choose:

I have no idea what its called.  I definitely like it, but wonder already how I'm going to clean those little tiles.  You can't tell from the picture, but they vary in their depth.  Its probably a soap scum nightmare waiting to happen.  But its pretty, at any rate.

BF is thinking that he likes the darker cabinets now, so we may have to go back to the model and re-think.  I want him to LOVE the kitchen cabinets, so that he will want to spend lots of time in the kitchen he picked out, cooking up gourmet meals for his woman.  :)

Its starting to get more and more real....