The World Under Our Feet

From Luce Brothers Idea Center Page

Before Carl and I started this process, I had heard the horror stories about couples breaking up (or at least arguing vehemently) over the decisions necessary to building a house. I was not keen about doing anything that might jeopardize the hard-won peace we’ve worked for in our marriage since I have no intention of marrying again – and I would really prefer not to divorce again either. In May, I said to a couple of my colleagues, “There’s NO way we’re building! Are you nuts?”

My vehemence was not based on vague worries. Carl and I are both fairly decisive, and we have clear ideas about how to go about any process. Carl is a Paid Professional in this area, but I’m no slouch when it comes to decision-making either. And while we both tend to get to the same endpoint, regardless of the project, the problem is that we both have very different ideas about what the process looks like along the way. We have had arguments over when and how to deal with old glass milk bottles while trying to organize the basement together. We each try to be silent when the other is driving to and from church even though we each know that our way is much faster and easier. And we have learned that even just putting up a temporary fence together results in tension – and you should have seen what it did to our poor kid who was only trying to please us both at the same time.

So building a house together?  No way.

My, but my words taste better with a bit of ketchup.

In all honesty, making choices with Carl on this project is easier than I thought it would be. His expertise at narrowing down decisions helps tremendously, and neither of us is prone to get so rigid about our selections that we can’t see the other person’s point-of-view or preference with honest eyes. My next several blog entries will focus on some of the choices we have made over the last month.

The kitchen is the room with the most choices, I believe, but we decided to begin with the floors. We reasoned that we weren’t going to be able to decide on cabinets or appliance color (though we have always been heavily leaning toward black) without knowing what the floor in the kitchen would look like. And if we were picking out the kitchen floor, we might as well do the whole house.

We had already decided that we wanted hardwood floors everywhere except the bathroom. The original specs came with carpet in all the bedrooms and the living room, as well as tile in the bathrooms, mudroom, kitchen, and non-dining-room eating area. Initially, we thought we would keep carpet in the bedrooms, but I nixed carpet in the upstairs offices because we both use rolling chairs, and I am regularly raising my desk and pushing my chair out of the way to stand. Carl nixed carpet in the master bedroom because we intend to have several dogs, and any carpet is harder to maintain with dogs. At least area rugs can be replaced fairly easily.

We also didn’t want tile in the kitchen. In our floor plan, the kitchen and eating area are open to the great room, and we’d rather have the same flooring in both. So we decided to do all hardwood flooring, except for tile in the bathrooms and mudroom.

Mike’s flooring vendor is Luce Brothers in Marlborough. We went on Saturday, August 10th, and because it was a weekend, I honestly didn’t expect to make all our selections at that point. I thought we would look, find a few things to mull over, and need to come back another day to finish out the decision making when it wasn’t so busy. Nope. We did it all in a couple of hours, partly because it wasn’t so busy, but also because we handled the decision-making smoothly.

Forest Accents, Hickory, Natural
4" boards (bottom), 3 1/4" boards (top)

We began with the hardwood floors since that was the bigger decision. We asked about brands and quality, and Mr. Luce began by showing us some mid-grade flooring.  We talked about how we expected to have large dogs, so we wanted something durable. During the conversation he suggested samples for us to look at. Carl and I kept gravitating toward oak and hickory.

We decided on hickory for a couple of reasons. First, it’s pretty. It looks like wood and has an irregular grain, suggesting movement and bringing a bit of outside inside. Oak is more subtle and regular, and a bit less interesting. Second, it’s durable. It’s harder than oak, which means it should hold up to critter claws well. As an aside, Mr. Luce said that we’d better tell Mike that our stairs are going to be hickory, since they are heavier.

The brand we saw that we liked was Forest Accents. The “Lincoln Hickory” comes in two shades: Natural and Savannah, which is a darker richer stain. At this point, we’re planning on Natural, though that may change. We both like the lighter wood, though we have been warned that it might be a bit much if we do our kitchen cabinets in the same shade. I think one or the other will have to be stained, just for some contrast.

Even though tile will occupy less of our house, it actually took a bit longer. Part of the problem is sheer number of tile possibilities. There are only so many kinds of wood for flooring, but tile has an amazing range.

The only thing I knew when we started looking is that I didn’t want the standard white square tile that is in my current bathroom. I also wasn’t keen on marble, since I had had that in a bathroom before and found myself regularly slipping. I expected that I would like greens or browns, but I was surprised at how taken I was with the blues. Not bright blue, mind you. More subtle, almost gray blues.

Royalty Ceramic Collection, Paard Nobile,

Carl pretty much let me drive the master bathroom tile selection. He says that because he usually has his glasses off in the bathroom anyway, he can’t really see the room. That may be partially true, but I know he’s also recognizing that I like to soak in the bathtub and that the aesthetics matter more to me. We are both pretty good at recognizing when something matters more to one of us than the other.

Porcelain Tile and More, Anatolia - Portofino, Classico

Carl’s process expertise made the selection much easier. We’d look at a set of flats with tile attached to them. He’d ask me what I liked (and object if he really didn’t like it) and then pull the flat out and set it up. Once we got about three or four flats, he’s push me to choose the ones I liked best and then put back the ones that didn’t make the cut. Thus, we narrowed down the choices pretty quickly, selecting a tile called “Paard Nobile” from the Royalty Ceramic Collection, which I cannot find online (something I will need to follow up on). It has some blue, rust, gray, and brown with a mottled look. And it’s not slick!

We’re planning to use a similar, but less expensive, tile in the other two bathrooms: Anatolia Tile, Portofino Style, Classico color.

Crossville, Ecocycle Americana
Plymouth Rock is in the lower right corner.

We also found a recycled tile for the mudroom that we both really liked. I almost passed it by, mostly because I had looked at soooo many tile flats, but Carl had me go back and look at that one again. This one is from Crossville, called Ecocycle Americana. The color we like is called Plymouth Rock. Since this is going in a high-traffic area, we asked about its durability. Mr. Luce held up the flat, studying it for a moment. “Yeah,” he said, “I’d put this in the mall.” Ok. It’ll last.

At some point in the future, we will see about getting a sample of the flooring material and the cabinet and countertop materials and putting them up against one another – just to be sure. In the meantime, we have pretty much checked this decision off our list.