A little Polyvore board going on up in here today. I sometimes create those with Picasa or Polvore but then don’t share. Shrugs shoulders.
I was thrilled with the price of the marble tile (55 sqft for $580…although there’s a story here you read about at the end of this post) but then we got an even better deal on the engineered hardwood. Ah-mazing I tell you! I was ready to gush about this hexagon tile then the wood flooring floored me. Ha.
Greg and I didn’t plan on figuring out the floor predicament for awhile. We were even considering keeping the beige carpet since we’d like to put the house on the market in about a year and are trying to avoid unnecessary spending. There’s a plan in place to fix up the house for about a third of what we originally thought it would take. Now to find time and fit it in the budget. *Update: received the flooring and more than half cannot be used nor can we return the opened boxes and we are in charge of shipping it back on top of restocking fees so we’re left with all of it and out all that money. Floorstoyourhome.com is a horrible company. Be warned!*
Since taxes went back up, that debt we worked really hard to pay off recently, working hard to meet our goal to free up another $130/month by throwing ALL the money we could at it for years while living on a slim budget? Yeah, that went out the window because what do you know, $100 is gone from Greg’s paycheck now. Whoopie $30. That seems to happen when we get some debt paid down- something out of our immediate control increases. So, we’re nearly in the same situation. Like millions of others not able to make enough progress to help. It makes getting this house finished a bigger priority than before which means less furniture refinishing more updating the house. We’d like to start a family someday and I think being able to afford health insurance is a big help and necessary (understatement) but we can’t. There’s my rather small-compared-to-my-emotions-on-this-topic spiel.
With the carpet being newer (minus potty training 2 puppies) but ugly (hate carpet) it will work. We’ve all seen worse.
Then we found the exact flooring I talked about on here a few months ago for $2.24/sq ft when everywhere else was between $4.50 and $4.89/sq ft. Sold and no wasted time resolving that issue for less than $1400. Not the one from Home Depot because I just couldn’t take the plunge with it like I could with the wide walnut planks in the Mohawk Brookedale collection. We did decide to keep the carpet in the 2 bedrooms upstairs and re-use the living room carpet for the bedroom downstairs. A little give, a little get.
So, 500 sq ft for the living and dining rooms, hallway and kitchen with 100 extra sq ft (total of 600) as recommended (20% more). It’s “factory seconds/cabin grade” which neither of us have an issue with and it will still be much farther down the line when we get to actually put it in.
Of course, I wouldn’t be getting all of this unless we got some impressive deals (like I said, no budget progress with the tax increase…a big middle finger). Free shipping, discounts, sales, promo codes, a gift card. Checked all of those boxes. We’re also kind of lucky that our house is on the small side because that allows for a mix of high and low material without the higher end items wiping out the budget. Carrara marble and walnut flooring with Ikea and less expensive brand items.
We’re looking at a pretty big bath remodel for $2,500. Infact, we’re going to try to come out hundreds less. We still have items to gather which was the plan since we don’t have a definite timeline on this bath reno. The tub needs refinished which will take 3 days to cure alone and we’re keeping the toilet (finding a round, smaller scale, affordable toilet has proven difficult). Needs some help though. I cringe when I think about it. Then we have to find time to build the vanity. Those suckers are expensive and we have to fit our small sink perfectly with just the right amount of storage which means make it ourselves. We have to tear out a wall to gain storage which means we lose the teensy closet in the small second bedroom and the bathroom doorway must be made bigger.
While this renovating happens we’ll be forced to use the basement shower stall and you wouldn’t believe me if you saw it. Besides being the cheapest kit you can get at the store, it’s surrounded by cobwebs, the ceiling is missing, there’s exposed pipe and electrical, and we tore out the tile when we gutted the basement last winter and let (ahem Greg did) things get nasty while stirring drywall mud and whatnot, slopping it all over (ahem Greg). Not that it was a gem before. It was used for renters, student renters. Not the pickiest lot.
Lots to do for prep.
The story with the tile goes a little somethin’ like this. Ordered it from the Tile Shop (as I told you about last week), had to cancel when they didn’t have it and claimed to be in contact with me but hadn’t, ordered from another company on Amazon, a week later (last Friday) they emailed to say they didn’t have it and I would have to cancel or get the bigger, polished version (not my 1″ honed), tried to contact them to cancel then tried to cancel it on Amazon (finally received an email that it was), ordered it from another Amazon seller ($30 more but still the cheapest I could find and a good deal), they shipped it and I still await its arrival. 3 companies. At least I didn’t need it right away.
I’ll show you the dresser we finished over the weekend later. The one I kept talking about that was a really big undertaking. I’ve already shared it on our facebook page and my personal facebook page and people couldn’t believe it was the same one.
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