A date, floors, and a kitchen table.

On January 8th we had to go out to Martinsburg, WVA to meet with the flooring company to make our flooring selections for the new house. That was really a lot of fun, but it was kind of really hard at the same time. The samples are SO small that it is hard to determine what they will really look like when they are covering your kitchen, or bathroom, or bedroom, or whatever. We went with somewhat neutral colors throughout the house so that we don’t have a hard time picking out things like furniture or decorations for any specific room. I will say that flooring is not as expensive (or scary) as I thought it was. On our way Steve and I had discussed that we probably would not be upgrading much of anything with the exception of the tile in our bathroom because we probably couldn’t afford it.

We got there a little early so we just looked around at the different selections they offered. There are a LOT. Some of them are UGLY. I’m actually surprised that people would want some of that stuff in our home. But then again, those people might think what we picked is ugly so whatever. While we were looking we kind of had a hard time picking a floor in the “non-upgrade” category. I thought I was going to faint at the idea of upgrading everything in the house. How much would that cost!? Steve didn’t seem to care as much as I did, but that didn’t surprise me at all. We kind of make some selections but really wanted to hear how much it would cost before we really decided.

We upgraded everything but our kitchen floor. Mostly because the one we really liked was a non-upgraded floor selection and we didn’t really like the other ones. I was ok with not upgrading the kitchen/sunroom because that actually was kind of expensive. I really like how our kitchen floor, while being a laminate, looks like it is tile and since we will be having a darker cherry cabinet with a dark granite-looking (but not actually granite) countertops and black appliances we figured that a beige-ish tile would help to offset all the dark, and let’s face it a dark floor with all those other dark pieces in the room would make the room look dark and small and it’s a rather large room so I want it to look that way.

We went with an upgrade 1 for the carpet throughout the house. We will have carpet in the living room, both sets of stairs, and the entire upstairs. While we could have picked a different carpet for all of that we stuck with one color – beige – so that it would all flow together. Plus, we intend to put hardwood in the living room upstairs (and also the kitchen and sunroom another reason for free floor!). We thought about putting a non-upgrade in the living room since we’re going to replace it but since we don’t really know when we will be replacing it and the fact that I could not have two different colors in the same room (the stairs would have gotten upgrade and the living room not and we couldn’t match the colors well enough for my taste). That and the non-upgrade felt kind of scratchy and I don’t want scratchy carpet in case we don’t put in hardwood before we have babies crawling on the floor.

We did upgrade the tile in the master bathroom. One of the reasons was because it was the ONLY one we liked (without knowing it was an upgrade – we missed the big ass sticker on the board that said upgrade ha!). I’m really excited to see how the bathroom turns out because we got one of those decorative borders in the shower and around the tub and I’m so in love! (I really never thought I would say that about tile).

We had a hard time with the laminate in the other two bathrooms. We just didn’t see one we liked. That and I think we were both really stuck on the one they show in the model because we really, really liked that and it was going to be what we picked for those bathrooms we just couldn’t find it. We were telling the guy that and he just wrote down same as in model so we’ll get the floor we want!

Picking out floors took a lot longer than we thought. I mean I guess I knew it would take a while, but since we got there early and Steve and the guy chatted like they had known each other forever and kept slowing me down it seemed to take fooooooooorever. And not forever in a fun way. Forever in a hurry up I’ve lost interest and want food kind of way.

After leaving the floor place we headed to Cracker Barrel for date night (#1 – date with the husband)! That was another reason I was so impatient. I had seen a sign on the way in and decided that was dinner and it was kind of all I could think about. I had yummy chicken and dumplins – which is not my usual order but I had been thinking about them all week and they were sooooo good. Just what I wanted. And their portions are so huge that I brought some home for lunch later in the weekend! Steve tried the fried catfish and that actually turned out to be much better than I had expected. I probably won’t get it because I’ve already tried it and I will probably return to my usual order of French toast. I cannot tell you how excited I am to have a Cracker Barrel in Winchester (and also in Martinsburg). I love that place. It was also Nana’s favorite and I was really glad we went there because it was almost like she was there with us celebrating the fact that we had awesome floors for our new house.

Saturday afternoon we had to head back to Winchester to sign some papers at the model and pick up our kitchen table. We ordered one on Christmas because Roomstore was having a fantastic sale and we found an awesome table. It was convenient that we had to pick it up out there, but I wish we had planned our trip better so that we could have done the floor and the table and the model all on the same day, but such is life.