Flooring

And now we come to flooring.... This has definitely been the most difficult part for us thus far. Just being in California and trying to pick flooring options in Virginia is hard enough, add to the fact that we weren't overly thrilled with the choices, and flooring was a bit frustrating. I'd read many blogs were people were shocked about the prices of the floors and disappointed by the lack of choices and I have to say I fell in that category as well. I'll start off by saying our rep at Rite Rug has been great, very responsive to our many email questions, very willing to accommodate us with a FaceTime meeting and very willing to assist us with design choices.

We were initially sent a powerpoint form Rite Rug with a basic explanation of the types and levels of flooring along with some pics of samples. We were also sent a spreadsheet listing the websites and options for tile, carpet, wood and vinyl floors. It was honestly very overwhelming to look at the many choices online and actually try to pick and coordinate colors. But before I get to that I'll give you a run down of how the process works. 

Carpet and vinyl flooring is included in the base price of the house, A level carpet and A level vinyl that is. This means a 6lb carpet pad, bottom of the barrel carpet without any stain treatment, and with the shortest warranty and limited choices. Same with the A level vinyl, basically the lowest quality they offer with very limited choices is included in the base price. You can go up from there to level B, C, etc. As you increase your level you increase your choices and obviously your pricing as well. But...the choices are still surprisingly limited. 

We were pretty sure we didn't want to do hardwood. While we love the look, we have a dog, are considering a second dog and have little kiddos so it just doesn't seem practical. We didn't want to spent a ton of money on wood floors just to feel like we had to cover every inch of them with rugs or watch them get scratched and ruined.  So that leaves vinyl or tile in the areas we weren't going to carpet. Here's where it gets a bit weird...Ryan Homes has some pretty strict rules about what types of flooring you can put where. For example in the dining room it's hardwood or carpet...that's it. No tile or vinyl is even considered. Our rep from Rite Rug said we can do a Non Standard Request but they gouge you on price. So the plan for the living and dining room looks like it's going to be carpet. The family room will also be carpet as well as the whole upstairs (excluding the laundry room). That was the easy part, we chose a level B carpet with an 8lb carpet pad. The carpet is from the Graystone collection and the color is Seattle Mist.

Graystone - Seattle Mist

And then we got stuck...tile vs vinyl in the foyer, hallway, kitchen, powder room, mud room and morning room. One of our incentives was a hardwood foyer but we decided that since we weren't doing hardwood anywhere else we'd do away with that and make the foyer and the front hall the same. Bottom line is we aren't crazy about the vinyl. In the house we are currently in the foyer has tile as does the kitchen and we really like it. We've become very interested in the wood looking ties. There are some gorgeous options out there and that seemed to be what we liked best. Guess what?! Ryan doesn't offer any of those options. Soooo what to do now? For a while we considered just laying the A carpet and A vinyl in those areas then ripping it up as soon as we move in and having the tiling done independent of Ryan. We could do this but it's not ideal as we will be moving in with a 2yo and a brand new baby, and having the house torn up as soon as we move in would be a hassle. So after a lot of up, down, back and forth we came to a decision we are comfortable with. We decided to tile the foyer, front hall, mudroom and powder room with a porcelain tile. It's from the Fidenza family and the color is Bianco. 

Fidenza Bianco

We ended up going with an upgraded vinyl in the kitchen and morning room. Our thinking is this...it's not a love match but it's great with kids and pets. Easy to clean, can take a beating, softer to cushion those inevitable falls and affordable. Our plan will be to change it eventually, but for now we are pretty satisfied with it. We ended up choosing a wood looking vinyl which we think gives the room some nice warmth and complements our countertops and cabinets very nicely. It's called Windsor Walnut Fireside by Armstrong.

Windsor Walnut Fireside

We went with an upgraded vinyl in the laundry room. That one is Station Square Pinnacle Peak Crystal, also by Armstrong.

Station Square Pinnacle Peak Crystal

Last but not least are the second floor bathrooms. We decided to do the same thing in both bathrooms for sake of consistency, especially considering we have the same cabinets and granite in each one. So the floor and wall tiles will be from the Brixton family in the color Bone with an accent piece, or listello, from the Marvel Collection - Wonder MV28.

Brixton - Bone

Marvel - Wonder MV28 (the symbols are not as predominant in person)

Everything was all fine and dandy until the sales rep brought up the closet under the stairs... You may not think a small storage closet would cause and issue, but for some reason Ryan Homes is really weird about that closet. The ONLY thing you are allowed to do is vinyl in the closet! Huh?? The closet is off the front hallway so the logical thing by our thinking was to tile it so it flows with the rest of the places off the hallway (mudroom, powder room). We were told this would be a NSR which we just don't get. RR recommended using the same vinyl that we will be choosing in the kitchen but we just didn't feel it would work since the storage closet is not directly attached to the kitchen. So we decided to use the same vinyl that we planned to use in the laundry room thinking that it was at least a tile look. Then we went home and our OCD kicked in and it started to drive us nuts! Why couldn't we just tile it so it flowed well off the hallway? We felt that it would look weird to have one random section of this vinyl on the first floor that wasn't found anywhere else. So we contacted our flooring rep and said we'd like to have an estimate for the tile in the closet. It's $300 for the NSR to tile that closet. It's a tiny space that will probably cost them $20 and 15mins to tile, but since it's an NSR they get you. So you may think we are crazy for going through with it however we're paying a lot of money to build a house and choose specific things we want, we feel it would be crazy to have this tiny section bother us so we are going with the NSR.