From the Ground Up

Close to the top of our list of things to get done in the new house first was flooring.  We didn't want to put furniture in, then move it all out to do floors and move it BACK in.  Yuck.  So, pre-move-in was our best option.

The living room was covered in clean, but stained, carpet:

The dining room and kitchen have in-good-condition, but ugly, linoleum:

So we set out to Lowe's, Home Depot, AND Lumber Liquidators in search of the perfect wood flooring.  There are SO many choices from real hardwood (softer, but can be refinished, but more expensive) to laminate (harder, but can't be refinished, but cheaper) to cork (soft and quirky) and bamboo (love it, but pricey).  I mean, your head really just explodes trying to decide, and even taking and buying samples of the wood to look at in your house still makes it hard.

So. Many. Choices.

After collecting all of THOSE samples, we found even more stores in the DC/NOVA area to hit up.  Which, of course, led to more samples.

Avery gets into the testing phase

We narrowed it down to a few, and, viewing them in different lights and getting advice from my friend, Andrea, we decided we really liked one in particular from a store called Rick's near us.

It's the lightest of the three large samples pictures above.  We were rolling with the middle color (not too dark, not too light, just Goldilocks enough for us) but Andrea pointed out how that one looked in evening light, and it just looked a little cheaper than the nice tone it gave off in the bright light.  Since our house isn't well-lit to begin with, we didn't want to stare at cheapy looking floors all the time.  the lighter color was the same brand, and although lighter than what we originally were looking floor, didn't change much in different lights.  We also enjoyed the rustic looking vibe of the lighter color, which showed the "knots" in the "wood" off.  Home Depot has a similar (and cheaper!) style and color called Highland Hickory, but, of course, all the samples were gone at both Home Depots near us. 

In all honesty, it was exhausting and quickly became no fun when trying to decide.  But eventually, my rationale was "Something you buy a house with wood floors, and you just go with it and tailor your house around them, so just get something you like and go with it!"  After reiterating this mantra and making some eliminations, we decided to go with the Highland Hickory from Home Depot. 

Pergo makes this, and we chose it for several reasons.  Not just for color, which is how I pick my football teams.

Pros to this flooring:  Super durable and cheaper than hardwood flooring, and it looks great!

Cons to this flooring:  We can't refinish it, like you can hardwood.

So, little by little, Jon was able to start cutting and clicking in our new floor!

We didn't have the time to put the new laminate in the kitchen before move-in date, so that's still on our list.  BUT, we are SOOO happy to have the floors so close to being done in the living room.  They look amazing, really open up the space, and feel great!  With just a little bit of the trim and stuff left to go, we should be done in no time!