As soon as we moved in, J wanted to rip up the flooring. The spiral design on the carpet and faux tiles on the linoleum made the house so old. One year after we moved in and several muddy paw-prints later, we had enough and decided that it was time to get some estimates.
This wound up being our 1 year wedding anniversary gift since it was so expensive and also it worked out that the year one gift is paper. We wound up calling LUNA since they advertise a lot in our area. The most ridiculous man came in to sell us. He kept pushing faux wood linoleum long sticky tiles that adhere to the concrete for $14,000 and only on MOST of the first floor and definitely not the stairs (which is the most expensive part of flooring a house). Yeah… not happening. After some research, we realized that LUNA is such a scam. Seriously, google it.
We quickly terminated any decisions/paperwork that LUNA drew up which was quite time consuming and very much a scam as no one returned our calls or would answer our emails and you only have three days to cancel after the salesman leaves.
On a whim, we went to a Lumber Liquidators showroom. Now, this showroom was not fancy. More like a small room attached to a warehouse. The staff was incredibly friendly and told us at the beginning that they do not take commission so they really don’t have a need to overcharge us or even sell us. They were such a wonderful team to work with. Friendly, always there to answer our questions, and very helpful. I must have called them 10 times during this whole project – several times for delivery/installation questions and some to add items to our order (transitions, more glue, etc.) and they were always there to help.
We found the perfect flooring for the entire house and it wound up costing us $14,000 for an engineered hardwood floating floor for THE ENTIRE HOUSE, beautiful wide bright white baseboards, transitional pieces, and of course the stairs!
Receiving the shipment of all of the materials. 3 full pallets, sub floor, floor board trim, etc.
The Stairs-
Oh the stairs, the most expensive part of this entire project. Because we have an exposed staircase, we needed special planks. Wall to wall planks were about $20 each, but we needed 11 special end capped planks for the exposed sides. These wound up costing $90 each (!!) which was much more expensive than we wanted, but it was worth it in the end. The nice part about this was that they actually stained them to match the floor. The final product was amazing.
Brief view of the stairs and how each end is exposed beyond the railing. Do you like the spiral patterned carpet and faux tiled linoleum floor?
We had a professional come out to measure the floor and we placed our order and received the shipment of within a week. It’s finally happening! We couldn’t be happier with the results. The crew that installed the floor worked diligently for 4 days and moved everything that touched the floor. That included everything: shoes in the closet, picture frames and candles on the end tables, lamps, etc. Basically anything that wasn’t nailed to the wall, they had to move. Our house was in shambles.
The most difficult part of this project for us was moving all of the wood inside to acclimate to room temperature. I did this by myself when J was on his way home from work one night, and it was a nightmare. Especially since I needed to move a whole pallet upstairs as well.
The before:
More flooring in the guest bedroom
Brought some flooring in!
Some ugly carpet stains
Great room view from above
During:
Living and dining room nearly done! Look at the disaster pile created by all our stuff that had to be moved. The dogs went crazy over the new floor. Less traction made for a little entertainment while they slid around.
Baseboards coming in!
What a mess.
And finally… the finished product…
The focal point of our house- the stairs. They turned out to be amazing.
Now that it is completely done, we cannot imagine our house without dark, wide planked, beautiful flooring. Not only is this wonderful for us to live in, but we are going to get all the money we spent on the floors back in home value.
Lastly, I want to mention that it was very difficult for me to trust the installers in my home with my dogs. I always feared that they would somehow get out of their kennels and run through the open doors. I made sure all of the workers knew that if they had to move the kennels, CALL ME! I left my phone numbers everywhere for them just in case. It worked out fine, they were very respectful of my pups.
What do you think about the renovation? Would you do the same in your house?
Life As A Suburban Housewife 