Once you're settled on the layout the inside can be broken into the following major decisions:
1) Flooring
2) Cabinets
3) Lighting
4) Paint
5) Extras!
I'll bring you up to speed on these topics one at a time and provide more insight as time goes on. I'm still not 100% settled on everything.
1) Flooring
The flooring allowance of my house was originally $4k. This is enough to get you carpet, vinyl, and some relatively cheap laminate. I had mine immediately bumped up to $7k (at the advise of Bill). To me, spending an extra $3K on flooring is a much wiser investment than spending $3k extra on siding. If I walked into a house in a nice neighborhood, looking to buy a $185K home, I probably wouldn't buy the same house at $182K with all carpet.
My choice based on personal preference was hardwood in the living room/hallways, ceramic in the porch/kitchen/bathroom and laminate in the bedrooms. I think ceramic and hardwood is the way to go in a nice house. The only reason I am putting laminate in the bedrooms is that they are low traffic areas, with 75% covered by furniture. It's a quick cost savings and doesn't look bad at all.
I shopped around at a few flooring places and I found that the big chain stores were way too impersonal. They also wanted cash up front which I cannot do [Aside: When you are contracting a house the various contractors don't get paid until the mortgage closes and the bank releases the cash]. I went to a few other places but was either unimpressed with their prices or scared away by their typical salesperson demeanor and lack of credible reputation. I finally stumbled upon a place called "Hardwood Depot" in Mount Pearl. They installed floors for a friend of mine recently and did a quality job.
Hardwood Depot is a pretty friendly place overall. I still haven't figured out the relationship of the people working there but it seems like some of them are related somehow. I found their selection of flooring excellent and the pricing was competitive. When I first went there I still hadn't made up my mind about the stairs. Hardwood vs. carpet. Expensive vs. cheap! When I first went to Hardwood Depot I was sold on hardwood stairs. When most places install hardwood stairs for you they'll build them step by step on top of your existing stairs (in a similar manner to laying carpet over top of the temporary stairs built by the construction crew. Hardwood Depot builds the full set of stairs in their shop and physically removes the existing stairs from your house. The work they do is very detailed and given a lot of attention. Despite the cost I was sold as soon as I saw a full staircase.
Floor selection was another story. I looked long and hard for the 'right' floor. The process is really dependent on what you care the most about. If you care about your kitchen the most then you should pick cabinet colors and flooring simultaneously. If you care about the living room the most you should pick paint and flooring and then work the kitchen around that. I decided on a certain style kitchen and based my floor selections around that. I knew my kitchen concept would require a dark floor so I thought the living room should be somewhat light to add a little contrast. Whoa. I'm getting a little worried about myself now...
Anyways, I decided to put in a light, natural looking wood. I found a nice maple at the Hardwood Depot and got a great price on it (significantly less than $4/sq ft). For those of you who aren't so familiar, a naturally stained maple hardwood looks like this:
As mentioned earlier the kitchen floor is a fairly dark gray ceramic. I'm going with the same tile for the porch due to the open concept and visibility of both tiles from one location. I don't have any pictures but once the floor goes down, you'll see. The laminate in the bedrooms is a darker brown than the main hardwood and should look really sharp. The bathroom floor is totally different tile but I'm going to cover that in a different post because I have a full entry's worth of thoughts on the bathroom.
Some notes about flooring:
- Ceramic tile is relatively cheap in general. Typical tile will run you $2.50/sq ft. However in order to lay ceramic tile you need a second layer of plywood to allow for greater support and less impact from shifting. The labor is also more expensive (typically clocks in about about an extra dollar per square foot).
- Hardwood is very sensitive to moisture. If hardwood is installed in a moist environment it will start to cup. Once my basement is poured I'm going to install my own dehumidifier to go around the clock in an attempt to dry the shit out of that place. The basement is currently still a snowbank so it will take some work!
- Carpet seems to be a dying trend. Not only do you have to own a vacuum cleaner but as people move into a new home they're inheriting the former owners dirt. If you've ever hauled up carpet you know how dirty it really gets. My house will be much cleaner on the whole.
- Some laminates are actually more expensive than my hardwood! I think they're meant for well off people's cabins!
- Hardwood stairs add about $2K to your bottom line. Yikes!
No comments:
Post a Comment