How Snowballs Are Formed

Early July, 2018.  With much glee, I eagerly heard the words I’d been dying to hear for a few years issue forth from the usually sarcastic mouth of The Hubs- “Let’s replace the flooring upstairs.” I tried, without much success, not to appear overly excited, but this change was desperately needed. The carpet was 12 years old and looked more like it was 80. It was way past time. Only, I wasn’t going to select more carpet that would suffer the same fate as the existing pile of synthetic garbage. Nope. I wanted hardwood floors. Pretty, easy to keep clean, rustic looking and non-dust generating, hardwood floors. No laminate, no vinyl plank, but good, solid, durable, engineered hardwood flooring. Floors that would help us breathe easier by not creating as much in the way of environmental pollutants. Floors that would help me breathe better by being easier to clean.

Once you tell me I have the go ahead, I dive into a project head-first. Pretty sure that’s why The Hubs sat on this as long as he did. He had to be ready to move forward as I clearly was waiting for the go signal. I mean, my Pinterest boards were overflowing with ideas. One Saturday, not too long after The Hubs fired the starting gun, we visited a few flooring stores.  We found one where the staff seemed more interested in making us love our home than making a sale. That was a win in my book. I described the desired outcome, we selected a few samples and went home. With my best Joanna Gaines eye, we laid every sample next to our furniture and built in cabinets upstairs. With a little help from Spoiled Dog 1, we decided on the one that complimented them all. No small feat, I might add. I had to remind SD1 that there would be no marking on this flooring. The Mr. Winkie/chip clip threat was still in full effect. Spoiled Dog 2 could care less because she spends her life sleeping on double-stacked pillows. As long as it’s not burning lava under it, she’s amenable to whatever.

“While we’re at it…” The Hubs started out.  His suggestion- maybe we should replace the hated linoleum in the upstairs bathrooms with tile. Uh oh. The snowball was forming.  We had the flooring company come out and measure the entire upstairs. As the rep was measuring our Master Bathroom, The Hubs posed this question quite out of the blue, “What would it take to do a frameless shower in here? Would it be a good idea to do that now while we’re doing the floors? I’ve hated that shower from day one.” I’ve known he’s hated that builder-grade, aluminum-framed shower for quite some time. I hate it, too. But, I had no idea his brain had been pondering the concept of doing it along with the rest of the flooring.  Normally he talks to me about these things before we go public. Of course, now would be the ideal time to do replace that shower. And the snowball started to move. Now we needed to select tile for two bathrooms, plus a shower surround. Off we went, back to select more samples to consider.

Then it happened. The inevitable Snowball of Home Improvement projects began its roll downhill, picking up speed. This happened the night that The Hubs suggested we talk about the downstairs flooring. “Because,” his reasoning went, “if we are doing the upstairs, we may as well think about doing the downstairs.”

For some background, the downstairs is currently 80% tile, 20% carpet. The tile selection I made for downstairs when we built the home turned out to be a disaster. I admit it. I made a huge mistake.  It’s difficult to clean, impossible to keep clean, and just not suitable for our life with dogs. It sure looked pretty at the design center and in the model home of our floorplan. By the light of every day practicality, it’s not so attractive. I’ve hated it for several years.  Tile is not usually a flooring choice you cavalierly change. I curbed my tongue and tried to ignore the fact that it made me look like a worse housekeeper than I am. Now The Hubs was genuinely suggesting that we rip it out? Yes, I did a very unflattering happy dance.

After not near as much conversation as I thought there’d be, we decided to investigate a polished cement floor.  We scheduled a home visit with a company recommended to us by some friends. Great group, really. They tried to talk us out of doing it. It would be messy, there may be some patterns left by the tile after removal, it won’t be uniform. On the positive side, it’s more durable than any other flooring surface. It’s easier to clean, and because it’s not uniform it has character.  Did I mention that it’s easier to clean? Huge selling point for me. The only thing that will damage the finish is a jackhammer or tape. I think I can manage to keep tape away from the floor. Last time I checked, Central Texas wasn’t prone to being overrun by hordes of marauding jackhammers. I was sold. Now we just needed pricing.

Ah, pricing. That’s the fun part. What you think you should pay and what you are quoted tend to be a little bit farther apart on the spectrum than imagined. For us, it came down to how many more years do we want to work before retiring?

The quote for the downstairs was immediate. We received the written version the following week. Then came the quote for the upstairs. That was a little more than I had expected, but I had to remind myself that we had added tile in two bathrooms and a shower. The total amount gave me a bit of sticker shock. I was in a daze. But it was a daze through which I could see new floors and happiness.

We pulled the trigger. Contracts were signed, and we were off.