Some big changes are coming to our house. If you read this post about dark floors and white walls, you might have an idea of the kinds of changes we plan on taking on.
First up, we decided to replace all the tile in our house. The tile in the house is cracked throughout and kind of bland .It’s about 1500 square feet of flooring, so it is a big job. We will have to move everything out of the house and into a POD, except for the bedrooms, which already have new wood floors.
So, with so many floor options out there, how did we decide on dark floors?
I have been in love with the look of dark wood floors and white walls for a while now, but with as many animals as we have running around here, we could not put wood in the house. They would ruin it in a matter of weeks. Not to mention that we constantly have wet people coming in and out from the pool and the volleyball court. Wood + Sand + Water = Major Issues.
We looked into installing large scale marble looking porcelain tile, but we completely crossed it off the list of options because it didn’t go with the rest of the house. It seemed too dressy for our comfy house. I mean, it’s okay in our bathroom, but the whole house would be a little much.
Enter Pinterest… I was perusing dark floors/white wall pins and saw a few that had wood looking tile. I started shopping for tiles that were similar to the floors in our bedrooms, which is a beautiful dark hickory. Nothing matched exactly. They were either too dark, too light, too narrow, too wide, or looked like the old cheap laminate with flat, painted looking wood grain.
Then I found this one at Home Depot. It’s made by Marazzi and it’s beautiful!
It has a matte finish, not shiny and fake looking. It also has texture to it, making it look like real wood. Each box contains a bunch of different patterns, so it won’t look like the same two tiles repeating over and over. And the color is very similar to what’s in the bedrooms.
Because it’s not an exact match, I was afraid it would look weird butting up next to the wood in the bedrooms. Since I love how the herringbone pattern is so timeless, we decided to have it laid in that pattern.
That way, it won’t look like we are trying to have it match exactly and failing.
My only worry is that since we have the herringbone pattern on our patios and the pool deck, would it be too much herringbone going on in one house?
Changing the floor tile and having to remove everything from the main part of the house made us think that this would be the best time to upgrade/update our kitchen. I know I just recently painted the cabinets, but they really need to be replaced. They are cheap and flimsy, and some of the drawers are coming apart. the layout is missing a few things, namely pull out cabinets and a double oven. LOL! We figured that it would be much easier for us to do it all at once. We knew the floor plan was going to change, and didn’t want to have to make corrections to the floor later. Annnddd… since Ikea is conveniently having their kitchen sale right now, we decided to take advantage of saving 20%.
Ikea has a really cool kitchen planner online, where you can make a 3D plan of your kitchen and pick the options and see what your kitchen will look like. We think we have one side of the kitchen set up pretty well…
But the other side is a mess. I could use some help making sense of it. We would love to have one of their kitchen planners come to the house, but we live 2 streets away from the border of where they will go to. What a bummer. 🙁
Hopefully, we’ll figure it out this week and order them this weekend. They said it will take at least two weeks until they can deliver the kitchen to us, so it gives us plenty of time to get the other things done, like clearing the house out, taking out the old tile and purging the house of all the stuff we don’t need (bonus!).
I know it will be a ton of work, but I’m looking forward to getting started.
If you want to check out my Pinterest boards for the floors and kitchen, here are the links.
So tell me – what kitchen planning tips can you give me?
Thanks for stopping by!
Eliesa
P.S. We are doing a mini makeover of the guest bathroom too since it has the same tile running through it – stay tuned for more info on that too! 🙂
myprettyjunk says
I think since floors and kitchen is a major cost and element to a home I would consider hiring someone if your not at all sure of what your doing… It’s just not something you want to have messed up. But I love the look what i see in these pics and I have seen them tiles being used a lot now. But over all I would take my time and go slow if you must do it alone… you know they old saying measure twice cut once LOL
A Pinterest Addict says
We are hiring other people to install the floor and the kitchen cabinets, we are just doing the demo. We know when to admit being WAY over our heads 🙂 The only thing I would love additional help on is the design. We tried to hire someone that would come out and come up with a kitchen layout/plan, but they won’t come out to our zip code. (Even though we are two streets away from where they will go!) if we don’t have a plan we love, we aren’t going to purchase anything.
kirbycarespodi says
I am lousy at kitchens–we are trying to figure out what we’ll do with ours. I’d love to get a kitchen planner, but I’m afraid they won’t honor the history of the house. I have seen that tile that looks like wood, and it is awesome!
A Pinterest Addict says
I’m feeling overwhelmed by the whole kitchen planning thing – you get it wrong, and you have to look at that mistake for a looooonnnggg time. I’m sure there is a kitchen planner in your area that is just as passionate about keeping with the history of the house as you are. Problem is, the chances of finding the person are pretty small. Good luck! xo