Time to Make a Choice

Once we made the commitment to have Dan do the work, things started to move quickly. Dan was thinking about getting started the end of the following week so we had to made some decisions about what we wanted things to look like.

On Saturday, March 21 we met Dan at Interiors Plus, which is a flooring and countertop store a few miles from the house. It's owned by a man named Brian and his wife. The store is open Monday through Friday, but by appointment only on Saturday so we had the whole place to ourselves. After giving us a brief tour of where everything was and which things were more expensive than others, Brian left us along to browse while he and Dan talked.

Jason and I were a little worried that we might not be able to make a decision. Up to this point, neither of us could agree on anything, since we both have different taste. We knew we couldn't spend all day here.

As much as I like granite countertops, I knew it was way out of our price range, so we were settling on laminate instead. We started looking through the WilsonArt samples and it wasn't five minutes before we found one that we both liked. Of course, it was in the section that was the most expensive. That would prove to be a recurring theme throughout this whole process.

Once the decision on countertops was made, we moved over to the flooring. After viewing many, many samples, we both agreed on a wood pattern that was less rustic and more contemporary than the others we'd seen. The wood was maple with a hint of red tones to it. Of course, it too was more expensive than we'd originally budgeted. We just didn't find anything else that jumped out at us, so we decided to go with it. It didn't seem unreasonable to go with a good quality floor that would last for many years. It went well with the countertop and the paint color we had chosen. The only variable was the cabinets. We didn't know exactly how they would turn out after being sanded and stained. This floor would only work if the cabinets ended up being much darker than they currently are, without even a hint of yellow in the stain.

With the kitchen decisions out of the way, we moved on to the flooring for the bathroom. Since this is the bathroom that Jason uses, the choice was left to him, although I was happy to give my input. After going through all the samples again and not finding anything he liked, he noticed the flooring on the cover of the Armstrong brochure. We both thought it would look great with the brown vanity and blue walls. There just didn't seem to be a sample on the racks and he was reluctant to base his decision on a picture. Fortunately, he happened to see a stack of samples on a nearby table and there it was. It looked a little different in real life, but we both still liked it. And of course, it too was a premium choice and it only came in 12' lenghths. Fortunately, there will be enough left over for me to use in my bathroom at some distant time in the future when I'm able to get my bathroom redone.

Decisions made, we set a time for Brian to come out the following Monday and take measurements. We also brought the samples home with us to see how they looked in our house, with our lighting.

Even though we were both pleased with our choices, we ended up making one more trip back to the showroom, just to be sure. Brian's wife Pam helped us, pulling out possible samples for us to look at. In the end, we stayed with our original choice for the kitchen, but changed the bathroom selection. It's still the same pattern, it just has lighter shades of brown than the original selection.