Wood and Carpet and Tile Oh My!

We took a trip down to Dalton, GA at our builder's recommendation. Apparently it is the flooring capital of the US and there are miles and miles of every flooring store you could want. Both our builder and another local friend recommended the same flooring store, so off we went.

We looked at Pergo. We looked at hardwood. We looked at laminate. We looked at tile. We looked at carpet. We looked and looked and looked. We were able to make a choice within an hour or so for the flooring that will be in most of the home. Great room, kitchen, dining room, and loft will all be in the same wood-look flooring. Tile in the bathroom of course. And carpet in all 3 bedrooms.

We actually picked out the flooring we wanted in the first 10 minutes. We loved the variation in board width, variation in color, a nice cool brown base color and within budget. All to find out that it was a cheap laminate floor. Glue and sawdust. We wanted something that would be long lasting and will withstand spills, pets, and our steam mop. We told him we didn't need something as high end as hardwood, but something that looks nice with good abrasion and moisture resistance (there are multiple scratches in our apartment flooring already). 

He pointed us towards this beautiful flooring choice. Southwind Hard Surface Flooring in Woodland. It is an engineered wood flooring that has a built in pad and will be super easy to install. Oh, it's also water-proof. Win-win. We will save some $$ on the install (and hopefully do most of it ourselves) and it is going to look gorgeous.

Then was on to carpet. We wanted something that was pretty neutral to help with our many decor changes and wouldn't show a lot of cat hair and dirt. And of course something that will feel good between the toes like carpet should.

The salesmen directed us to PureSoft Carpet in a variety of colors. It is super soft and comes with a lifetime carpet pad.

You can see Liz pointing to the color we selected with our wood flooring selection next to it. They are lovely warm compliments to each other and are neutral enough to look great with any decor and furniture choices down the road. Also, this flooring sample and the entire carpet board came home with us for future color matches. 

Last, we talked tile. Liz isn't completely sold yet (it may just need to grow on her a bit), but for now we have picked out this Ava Terina tile in 12x12 squares. 

We originally got this quoted as flooring for the utility room and all bathrooms, including the walk-in shower in the master bath. We have picked out some more fun decorative tile for the utility room and will share that later.

We will also get some of the smaller 4x4 tiles and do a decorative border like this one somewhere in the master shower to add some interest.

So things are coming along! We are excited to make more decisions and see more happening on the property. 

Toodles!

Liz and Mike

Scrapbook Layouts are Easy. Floor Plan Layouts are Hard.

Our builder directed us to a couple of websites with great floor plans. All we knew we wanted for sure was 3 bedrooms, 2baths, and a loft overlooking a vaulted ceiling great room. It was easy to filter this criteria out but none of the floor plans were really speaking to us. So, we took inspiration from a couple of elements that we liked in a few different plans and came up with our dream home floor plan ourselves.

Features that we love:

• Very open floor plan when you first come in our home.
• The great room with a overlooking loft.
• Stacked stone fireplace as a focal point for the great room.
• Curved Staircase just adds some additional charm.
• Master on the first floor and separate from the other bedrooms.
• Walk-in pantry in the corner of the kitchen and a large island.
• Large walk-in shower in the master bath
• Master walk-in closet accessible from the master bath

Features that we love:

• Loft/Study area is open to below giving the feel of a very large area for Liz to work from home.
• Additional storage area that can be finished and turned into another bedroom or 2, or a home theater down the road.

Then, because Mike and Liz are both visual people, we took our floor plan (at least the first floor), into Google Sketchup to get an idea of the proportions of the spaces to each other and how well furniture and other items would fit around in the space.

We considered adding a third garage bay for a while and Liz's Uncle Bill had a brilliant idea - just extend the two-car garage and make it longer instead of having to pay for a third door! Perfect. We really wanted the extra space since our garage will pull triple duty of being a home gym, car storage, and Mike's workshop area.... at least until our budget allows for a separate workshop building.

Half of this back deck will be a covered deck (from the middle bedroom upstairs). So it will be easy to turn into a screened porch area right off our master (and a perfect place for a hot tub according to Aunt Dawn) and still have open outdoor space for grilling.

Tell us what you think of the plan - we are still making changes and tweaks based on things we see (mostly on Pinterest) and feedback from friends and family.

Would you angle the island?
Do you like the idea of having outside entry in the master?
Anything you would add or subtract (and save us money)?

Toodles!
Liz and Mike