A Difficult Decision + A Creative Solution - Our Flooring Saga Continued…
Upon buying our house last year (a dirt lot at the time) we knew we wanted hardwood floors throughout. We didn’t realize quite what a challenge it would be to make it happen, but, 11 months later we are getting ready to make the post-close-of-escrow swap from carpet to wood!
Here’s a summary of a difficult decision, a creative solution, and a “before look” at our carpeted floors.
Image: Guest Bedroom with Carpet
A little over three months now, back in May, I reached out to HomeSite Services to get a quote for this project started. I requested a quote for the cost of materials and labor to remove the carpet from our stairs, the third floor hallway, closets, and bedrooms, and replace with the same engineered hardwood installed throughout the rest of our house.
I’ll cover the full budget breakdown in a later post, but let me just say, the quote came back at over $30k. This was totally not an option for us so my next step was to reach out to other contractors and request pricing for labor only. If you remember, in my last post, I mentioned that having to go with one particular vendor for the hardwood material backed us into a corner…this is where it becomes relevant.
We couldn’t go to with Lowes or Home Depot, or like companies, because they require the purchase of material in order to get installation done. This narrowed the pool of sources I could go to. On top of that, because the house is in Richmond, I found it hard to find someone who was willing to come all the way out there to work on this project.
Last but not least, because of several factors including the influx of home renovations during this pandemic, the cost of labor has skyrocketed….so even if I could find another contractor, the pricing would have likely come back the same.
So we were back to square one and I thought…how could we bring the overall cost of this project down but still work with HomeSite Services on both the materials and labor?
Image: Primary Bedroom with Carpet
It was likely the stairs that were driving up the cost of our project, and given the fact that we had three floors of stairs, that made sense. So I thought, why don’t we just swap out the carpet for wood on our third floor (with all the bedrooms), and do the stairs later down the line?
Here’s why this made sense for us:
It brought the overall project cost down from $30k to $12k.
We have plans to convert one of the guest bedrooms into a gym/yoga studio and didn’t want to workout on carpet.
The hassle of moving all our furniture, clothes, and stuff out of the bedrooms to get this work done in a couple of years wasn’t something we wanted to worry about.
At first I wasn’t sure how this would look, but after a little nudge from some inspo (below), I figured - it’s almost like having a runner on the stairs! We confirmed this new direction with HomeSite Services in June and made a plan to get the work done after close of escrow. And….this work starts tomorrow.
Check back in at the end of this week to see the how everything turns out!
Image: West Of Main - The Oliver Project with EQ Homes
Image: West Of Main - The Oliver Project with EQ Homes
