When I started house-hunting four years ago, I had my must-haves: three bedrooms, hardwood floors, a screened porch, and a specific school district.
I got the school, which has been at least as good as advertised, and, well, nothing else on the list.
I quickly remedied the bedroom issue, converting the space the previous owners used as a great room into a
pretty sweet master bedroom by adding a frosted glass door and door frame (it helpfully had a bathroom and closet).
The screened porch seems unlikely to happen, but this year, I decided to finally tackle the floors and replace the taupe carpet with gorgeous hardwoods. This is a huge expense for me, and one I've been planning for since I bought the house, so I wanted to get it right.
What I did right
1. Research: I knew that because I have a concrete slab that I would most likely have to go with an engineered wood floor. I also felt that based on what I read and what the installers I interviewed said, gluing the floor would be a better option than floating it, though it costs quite a bit more.
2. Get lots of samples: I ordered about 15 each from Lumber Liquidators and BuildDirect.com (Build Direct offers 5 free samples and they let me place 3 separate orders, bless them; LL charges for samples, but still worth it to have them to consider in your home).
BuildDirect.com has some of the best values for engineered flooring -- high quality products at bargain prices -- and excellent return/exchange policies. Having lots of samples also makes it easy to compare quality -- you can see how thick the veneer layer is on each product (important if you want to be able to refinish the floor at any point) and you can try to scratch the finish to see how durable it is. Samples are key! (See below for more...)
3. Hire a good installer: I had a number of names recommended off of various local listservs I belong to, cross-referenced them with Angie's List, and picked the top-rated one. I got quotes from him and from Lumber Liquidators, which were similar enough (and reasonable enough) that I didn't feel I needed to get a bunch of other quotes.
Where I went wrong
I suffer from decision paralysis. I think I get overwhelmed with all the choices and then snap, making a bad decision even when I have plenty of information. In this case, when it came time to decide, I had something like 30 samples as well as photos from floors I had seen in local stores. Some of the samples I had were amazing -- 4 mm wear layers for $4.99 per square foot! (If you've never bought engineered wood, just believe me that that's unheard of quality.)
But, I couldn't find exactly the color I wanted, which was a light, beige-y tone with neutral undertones undertones. I had Pinned lots of images
like this. The only floor I had seen that fit the bill was this Mohawk reclaimed elm floor that was out of my price range (like nearly double).
So I set it aside and moved on. The day it came time to choose the floor, I was a bit panicked. Several of the samples I had were really great, like this
Smokey Champagne handscraped 7-in wide oak (it has a greenish/grayish undertone in person, but it's quite cool and phenomenal quality), this
Australian Cypress (love this, wish I'd gone with it), and this bargain-priced
Hevea Handscraped in Caramel (stunning, just darker than what I was going for). This
mixed-width hickory floor was another favorite, too dark for my home, but can't be beat if you want a really rich, been-around-for-centuries look (also comes in maple and walnut, all so pretty).
I brought the samples to work and stared at them all day. All were great but none quite fit the picture in my head. Then I remembered one other floor I'd seen in a store and pulled up the photo I had taken on my phone. It was a
white-washed hickory floor, a little different, but, I remembered, modern and cool, just a little pricier than I was planning to spend. I did a little internet searching and found I could get it for the same price as the others.
Feeling the pressure to choose a floor so my installer could get to work, I bit the bullet and bought. No sample, no holding it up to my walls and trim, no measuring the wear layer... nothing but a photo and a memory. All that research and I completely ignored everything and bought thousands of dollars of flooring on a whim.
I asked to have a sample sent to me, just for fun, and it arrived a few days ahead of the floor. When I opened the package, my heart sank. The sample looked nothing like what I had seen in the store. It looked thin, the wear layer was barely 2 mm and the color had a pinkish tone to it. I didn't actually cry, but that's how I felt. I had 1200 square feet of flooring on a truck to me and I hated it.
That was a Friday, and I spent the whole weekend fretting but I convinced myself it would all be OK when the floor arrived. The installers came and started pulling up carpets and leveling out the slab. Then the wood showed up in 39 boxes shrink wrapped on a huge pallet. It hit me at that point that this was not like my other internet purchases -- there would be no easy way to return this.
The installers unpacked the floor and started laying it out so I could see how it would look. I really had to fight back tears. Four years of saving, all this money, and I really felt I was going to hate it. Why hadn't I gone with one of the many lovely options from BuildDirect (no, they're not paying me to say any of this, I promise, I was just that impressed with them and their products).
I called
the store where I bought the wood and miraculously, they were willing to exchange it, even though it would mean shipping back the massive pallet and taking a hit on the wood they had special-ordered for me. (If I had just returned it, I would have been hit with a 30% restocking fee, but exchanges were OK, which is why I didn't just return and go with one of the BuildDirect floors.)
The catch? Aside from massively inconveniencing my installers and living with no floor for an extra week or two (and having to restack and rewrap 39 boxes, one of which I could barely lift on my own), the only floor I knew I wanted, the elm, was going to cost me nearly $5000
more with all the shipping factored in, or, to put it in perspective, more than a 30% increase in the cost of the whole project.
I promised the store and the installers a decision the next morning. I didn't sleep at all that night. At first I resolved to return the first floor and suck up the extra cost. I wanted the perfect floor. But after tossing and turning all night, I thought about all the other projects I wanted to do -- replace my stove and fridge, remodel my bathroom, replace the leaky windows and old roof. I could do at least one or two of those with all that money.
So after all that, I kept the hickory floor. Here's how's it's looking now, mid-install:
It's a little pinkier than I wanted (though not as bad as the sample as there is a lot of variety in the boards), and I am not always digging some of the "character", but the installers have done a great job of making the floor look nice and cutting out or hiding the pieces I like less. It's surely a HUGE improvement over the carpet and I think once it's all in and the furniture and rugs are replaced, I'll really like it. Given the cost difference, I feel keeping this floor was the right call.
Still, it will always be a reminder that I didn't make the best possible decision in an important (and expensive!) situation. Don't make the same mistake when it's your turn -- get tons of samples, compare them to each other and to your walls, and most important, take your time. It's better to delay the project a few days or weeks until you feel sure than to try to rush and possibly regret your choice.
I'll report back when it's all done. For now, I am pretty much confined to my bed, which is the only place to sit in the whole house. The kids and I call it my "bed island". See what the rest of the house looks like?
Happy flooring!
