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Hi all,
I need some advice. We are buying new construction in Florida and we are torn on what to do.
We are getting a 2360sq ft 2 story home and it has tile in kitchen/bathrooms/laundry room and carpet throughout the rest of the home. We really want solid floors throughout eventually. Tile plus either hardwood, manufactured wood, or wood laminate. We have two options right now:
A.) Do tile throughout first floor ending at the stairs (this is quite common in Florida homes) and then when we have the money, eventually do the stairs and the entire upstairs bedrooms and hallway in the wood.
B.) Get the carpet the way it is now, and when we can afford it, rip out all carpet and do the wood downstairs, on the stairs, and upstairs rooms and hallway.
They are charging us $2300 to upgrade from carpet to tile on the lower level. I would want to do it now so all my tile matches. I think carpet will drive me insane downstairs if I have to live with it for a few years... I really want easier cleaning and I was leaning toward tile because we can still do area rugs. (But if I want to change to wood later, ripping up tile will be prohibitively expensive I think?)
We have an open kitchen / living room floor plan so the carapet/tile or wood/tile combo does break it up more, but I think I could still make it look right with the use of area rugs and stuff.... Not too sure.
I am looking up pricing to do the stairs and it is really scaring me. It is making me question if we can afford to do almost our entire home in wood or if it is smarter to do our home in tile / wood.
Save $2300 now and add that to what we can spend on wood flooring downstairs later, or just do all tile now and if/when we finally have the money, do the stairs and upstairs all wood?
This is a 200k home in a nice humble little middle class neighborhood and all the neighborhood homes have the standard new construction carpet / tile or vinyl for flooring, formica countertops (we upgraded to granite), etc. We want to do wood flooring for ourselves and I honestly don't expect these upgrades to bring us in much more money later someday when we try to sell. I don't want to over upgrade for the neighborhood...but these upgrades are really just for us and our happiness in the home as we will be hopefully living there for at least the next 10-15 years while raising our family.
Any opinions on what would be best? It could take us a few years to raise enough cash to do wood and leaving carpet downstairs means the cost for wood later will obviously be higher... Does anyone know how much wood floors cost to install? I am expecting a very hefty price tag in the thousands to do just the stairs and upstairs, not even counting downstairs. (And can wood laminate be put on stairs... or manufactured wood?)
Tile now. I suspect that the quality of carpet that's standard in the home is the sort that will start to look horrible in 2-3 years. And the carpet will constantly trap sand, grit, pine pollen, you name it.
Tile now. I suspect that the quality of carpet that's standard in the home is the sort that will start to look horrible in 2-3 years. And the carpet will constantly trap sand, grit, pine pollen, you name it.
Totally agree!
I still get creeped out when I think of what was under the carpet when we pulled it up in this house, yikes!
It is MUCH easier to do it now and $2300 is pretty reasonable for tiling an entire level. You could probably negotiate with them and get your stairs, etc. done too. Personally I would HATE tile in a bedroom but I live in MN, not Florida and the cold floors in the morning .
If you don't tile now, think 4 years down the road when you do tile and moving all your furniture, the MESS and putting all your furniture back. It is MUCH easier to do it now.
We tore out 1000 square feet of carpet this summer to put in hardwoods, and I'll concur that having to deal with effectively moving out of half or most of your house for the flooring guys to come in for a couple of days is indeed a nightmare.
Thanks!
As far as the carpet goes, it is green label... low VOC. Quality, I don't know, but I am very happy that my builder is putting in low VOC carpeting as the standard.
I think we will be going with all tile downstairs and getting the wood floors done when we can afford it. I will be back then asking for advice since I will have a child and a boxer at that point and I don't know the best type of wood for that
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