Modern House Dallas

Walnut floors

The guys from Specialty Hardwoods hit the house today and started the floor installation.  The walnut strips are looking good, as is the prep that they have done (sanding, new subfloors in some areas, etc.)

Here are some cell phone pics (didn't have a real camera with me today)

master bedroom

hallway looking into master

detail at master threshold (new subfloor, vapor barrier, walnut)

living room, prepped

bedroom3/office getting prepped

bedroom 2 new subfloor

another view of the master

another view of the master

clos(er) up

Walkthrough

We close on Wednesday, and in preparation we did our walkthrough yesterday.   The tenants and almost all of their stuff is gone, so the place looks MUCH better.  I snapped some photos, primarily as visual notes for us to reference as we decide what we are going to do with the place.  I've posted the a link to the gallery in the sidebar, and will add captions when I find the time.

The dreams are in full effect and the lists keep getting longer.  We'll explore some "perfect world" fantasies, then whittle them back to realistic levels! 

If you have read the previous posts, you know that we are somewhat obsessed with the floors.  The walkthrough was interesting because we took the liberty of pulling up a corner of the carpet in each of the carpeted spaces to see what was underneath.   

What we found was a little bit perplexing.  Here is a rundown on the floors in each room:

Living/Dining (pictured above): parquet with scratched and bubbled finish.

Here is the hallway leading to the bedrooms.  Under the carpet, it has the same parquet as the living/dining room.  The first door on the left is a big walk-in closet.  It has plank hardwoods.  Why?  Who knows?

Bedroom #1: parquet in apparently good condition.  The closet in the room has plank hardwoods.  Why mix plank and parquet in the same room?!

Bedroom #2: plank hardwoods in apparently good condition.  Closet too.

Master bedroom: plywood subfloor only.  The closets in the master bedroom have plank hardwoods.  Does this mean that some one tore out the hardwoods in the room, but left them in the closets?!  Again, this is kind of weird.

Living room: under the carpet there is only a plywood subfloor....

The kitchen has yucky vinyl tile that is coming loose, the entry looks like a vinyl interpretation of tile inset with wood and the bathrooms have the original tile (I think gray in both cases) painted white.

Kitchens and floors

We went tile shopping again. 

Yesterday it was Ann Sacks.  While they obviously have some nice options, we refuse to buy from them based on our experiences there.  The staff at the showroom here is snotty and annoying in a very provincial, uninformed "Dallas" kind of way.   

Anyway, here are some of the highlights via horrible camera-phone photos:

This is a an interesting option for a backsplash or wall.  It has a nice 50's feel yet balances retro and contemporary.

Although it is hard to tell in this photo, it compliments nicely the carrera marble countertops, something for which the wife has a sudden interest.

Today, we went back to Horizon Tile, they are just around the corner from Ann Sacks, but might as well be worlds apart.  They are a pleasure to deal with and will likely be  getting our business.    We took another look at the Feel line from Caesar, and also at another dark porcelain (can't remember make right now).  It was used for the flooring in the Bulthaup showroom around the corner, so we poked our heads in there as well.

As a flagship brand for German design, it is no surprise to see the exquisite attention to detail, but it is refreshing nonetheless.  At the showroom, we were welcomed by Mason--a consummate host and excellent salesman.  My wife's parents are in the process of designing a new Bulthaup kitchen, but I doubt Bulthaup is in our immediate future.  The more likely scenario is a nice, but sub-six-figure face lift on the existing kitchen. 

We have toyed with the idea to moving the kitchen into the family room, but that is another post.   

More on flooring

We just got home from The Great Indoors.  Given our hectic schedules, it was actually the first time that my wife and I have actually gone somewhere together and looked at materials.  We have been to various places separately, and then talked about our likes and dislikes, but it was really nice to actually be somewhere together and be able to share some thoughts and ideas about what was in front of us!

We looked at the Duro-Design cork and bamboo, as well as a variety of hardwoods and tiles.  We talked to the sales rep about installation costs and practices, particularly sub-floor prep and underlayments for tile.

Bottom line:

We like the CORK but don't think it is right for us in this house right now.  Like the green aspect of it, the fact that it is resiliant and floor deflection would be a non-issue, but think that it will make the spaces feel a little more earthy and casual than we want.  Cost, at leat through TGI, is high.

Wife doesn't like the finish on the cork or the BAMBOO.  Feels like the urethane is too glossy and plasticy looking.  Thinks the Bamboo, even though it is solid plank, looks like cheap laminate because of the finish.  Not sure that I agree...

HARDWOODS--there were some that we liked.  (Hate the beveled and micro-beveled-edge hardwoods only slightly less than the "hand-scraped" planks.  YUCK!).   We didn't spend much time looking at the hardwoods, simply because to get the nicer woods that we liked, we are up to about the same cost or more as the nice Italian porcelain, and we would much rather have that.

So, we are left with our desire for the tile, but our concern about tiling an old pier-and-beam on Dallas soil...  We spoke with a tile contractor, who essentially said, "No worries, mate!"  He would lay two layers of hardiboard, thinset, and all would be fine.  We're still not so sure, yet. 

If our fears of deflection and foundation movement are alayed  then it looks like we will go with the tile.   If  not, then it is anyone's guess at this point!

Foundation and Floors

What kind of floors should we put in this place?
That is the $64,000 question. Well, hopefully not that much!

We are thinking about replacing the flooring in the whole house before we move in. Right now there is:

Some kind of parquet in the living/dining area. I think this is real wood, but have not looked at it closely. The finish is bubbling up or de-laminating in some areas and it extremely worn and scratched.

Funky, old tile in the kitchen. These are individual linoleum or aesbestos tiles, some of which have come unglued.

Dirty carpet in the living room.

Dirty carpet in the hall (check out that sweet baseboard lighting!)

And dirty carpet in the bedrooms.

The bathrooms both have tile, though the tile in the master bath has been painted white!

Under the carpet in the two smaller bedrooms there appears to be hardwoods (we just pulled up a corner of the carpet, so who know's what's really under there, or what condition it is in). There is just plywood subfloor in the master and the living room.

We found some very beautiful tile that we really like. It is an Italian porcelain called "Feel" made by Ceramiche Caesar. We are concerned about the cost of installation, and whether it would be a wise choice of materials, given that the foundation is pier and beam and the house appears to be moving a bit. We will have some foundation work done to stabalize it before we re-floor, but are still concerned about the possibility of cracking.

We could also do cork. We've been looking at the Duro Design solid cork tiles. This would be a much simpler installation, and we certianly would have to worry about any cracking from the foundation shifting, but the local distributor is quoting $9.09/sqft for the materials, and half that again for installation, so it is certainly not cheap either. It is a resillient flooring, so it would be soft on the feet, and Duro Design has a low VOC water-based urethane that is supposidly very durable. Cork was a popular material at the time the house was built (a la Eichler), so that is an added bonus.

They also have bamboo that we would consider, though we have been warned about it not responding well to our humidity.

Hardwoods are another obvious choice, but a little boring.

Whatever we choose it has to have low VOC emissions.

This is a new blog, and there aren't many readers yet, but we would love to hear some opinions. What would you do?