Happily (?) Shopping Together

The prospect of buying an 18 year old house has brought forth lots of decision making! Bob and I headed off to a wood flooring showroom just to check out possibilities. Oh my! There are so many choices that our heads started spinning, figuratively anyway. Do you ever think that we just have way too many choices available to us here in consumer-driven America??! Sheesh!

Flooring samples

First off the samples on the wall are about 18" tall. Duh! How can you tell how that would look in an entire room? This takes a ton of imagination!

Bob shopping

Next, you do not want to go out without a camera phone or pocket camera. This saves a ton of time on note taking and you can more easily compare choices in the comfort of home, i.e. in your jammies!

Gorgeous wood

You also have to soon realize it is not just about what you love. It's mostly about what will work! I think this wood is stunning but a whole room of it? Not for us.....we don't want the wood to be the whole center of interest but more the background of the room. This might be great in an entryway or some small area or maybe even as a border around a less patterned wood.

It quickly......

....became apparent....

...that you could double the price of your house!!

As you can see the cost per square foot can add up pretty fast! And this does not include things like a moisture and sound deadening barrier, baseboards and or shoe mold and the cost of installation. It's like taking a fancy car or maybe a chunk of college education and spreading it around to walk on.

Take note of that square of product code on the left of the label in the last photo. If you have a smart phone you NEED the app to scan these things. It is awesome. You can look up stuff right there on your phone or even better just email it to yourself and it will be there waiting when you get home. Fantastic....and fun too. I may never tire of this just like I _still_ like to check myself out in the self-serve line at the commissary (grocery for you civilian folks).

Most helpful

Far and away, seeing it in a chunk down on the floor was most helpful of all. Pictures of rooms with it installed helped too but I suspect nothing will match seeing it on site in the actual light of the home.

Best, and maybe most amazing, we did find some things we agreed on and we didn't even get into an argument, mostly because we were both trying super hard to make this be a positive experience. We want our retirement home to be a haven, not a military zone!! 8^)

Blessings,
gk

PS-A few asked about the St. Patrick's Day shirts. We got them about two years ago at the NEX (Navy Exchange store) in Norfolk, VA. We went back a week later for more and they were all gone! They are likely out at Navy venues every year but grab 'em when you see 'em!