Fuck tile

When I started this blog, I was going to keep it light and happy, but I’ve decided that authenticity is a stronger value of mine.

To recap briefly: John and I spent an enormous amount of time trying to choose tile to replace the carpet downstairs. He wanted dark, I wanted light, and we had just about given up, when we discovered a store that carried our existing tile! So we gleefully ordered more of our existing tile, waited a couple of weeks for it to arrive, waited a couple of more weeks for our tile guy to have time to install, when we then discovered the dye lot was vastly different and it was a complete mismatch.

So we had him take back up the part he had just installed. The remainder of the tile was not readily returnable, so we ordered MORE of it, with the intention of eventually installing it in one of the rentals. So we’re now out a couple thousand dollars for tile that we don’t really like or need. Half of it is in the storage unit, the other half will be coming in soon, and will need moved to the storage unit. Have you ever moved tile? It’s like 50 lbs per box and there’s dozens of boxes.

So then we had to choose a different kind of tile (again). This consisted of us running around to every tile store in Albuquerque (again), except this time I just trailed behind John like a teenager saying, “Whatever. It’s fine. You choose. That one’s fine too. Yes! It’s fine! Can we go now?”

So we chose one. And ordered it. It was due in today. You see where this is going. No tile. Maybe in 2 weeks? Maybe not ever?

They do have it in 20 x 20 squares.

But John wants rectangles.

Meanwhile, we finally found a wood floor guy. Not the one who was allegedly run out of the county by the police when he was supposed to be measuring our floors for a quote. The one we went with is the one who tried to give our time slot away, even though we had accepted his bid immediately. Maybe I didn’t tell you about that. At any rate, we have our time slot back, for now at least. It’s a jungle out there! (As my grandpa used to say.)

So this morning it dawned on me that we could just do downstairs in wood. Our original tile is still intact in the kitchen, laundry and bathroom. The tile guy had been told to pull up all the old tile, but he hasn’t yet. So I quickly called him and told him, “Don’t do anything! We don’t know what we’re doing yet!”

I’m afraid John isn’t going to want to do downstairs in wood. He’ll worry about durability. Dogs. Entryways. Water stains. But I don’t mind dinged up, scratched and stained hardwood. It’s all about character!

In addition to dogs, we have houseplants. The only time I’ve ever damaged a hardwood floor had to do with a house-sitter overwatering the houseplants which were set on plastic since we were just moving in, and the water got under the plastic, unnoticed, and was trapped there for awhile. But that was an unusual situation, a very long time ago. Typically, my houseplants are up on plant stands.

I have dozens of houseplants, many of which are quite large.

This bird of paradise used to be on the front courtyard in California. It seems happy inside, it bloomed over the winter.

 

And anyway, there’s no way they would all fit downstairs. Even if there was tile down there, half of them would still have to be on the wood floors upstairs.

I’d do the kitchen in wood too, but I know John won’t go for that. Actually, it would look so much better to do the kitchen in wood too, because it’s just a little walk-thru kitchen with the living/dining area on one side, and the family room on the other. And there’s a long, slightly crooked threshold between the kitchen and the family room. So tile in the kitchen, with wood on both sides of it, would disrupt the flow of the house.

PLEASE can we put hardwood downstairs, including the kitchen? I’ve had wood in kitchens before and it’s fine. All you have to do is not start the dishwasher immediately before leaving for a 2-week vacation (that’s how the wood was ruined by the previous owners of a rental we used to own). Of all the times for the dishwasher to fail, it was immediately after they left for vacation. But what are the odds of that happening? Particularly now we learned from their mistake and know not to do it.

But even if we did somehow manage to ruin the wood in the kitchen (which is not going to happen) but if we did, we could just replace it with a few boards we saved in our garage. Or if it’s a catastrophically large area (really not going to happen) but if it did, we would just replace it with tile at that point. And we’d be no worse off. Plu-ee-ee-eees??