Ok then, brick?

Remember the fuck tile post? Right. I was not a happy camper. So here’s the newest idea:

Brick floors are very common in rural New Mexico. They have a casual, warm, authentic feel. Here’s an example from the house we are currently renting:

Although even brick comes in too many choices! Different colors, sizes, and levels of hardness.

Some brick are proportional (the width is half the length) so you can do fancy patterns like herringbone or basket weave. Others are not proportional and will only work for the regular “running bond” style like in our rental.

We have a subfloor issue though. You remember the non-value-added (useless) general contractor we had?  We asked him to raise the living room floor to the same height as the rest of the floors (it was a one-step-down living room, a dumb idea that was popular in the 1980’s). So he built a wood subfloor, but totally messed up one side of it. It’s not level enough to lay tile, brick, hardwood, or anything on it.

Our brick guy (Sam) says he needs to take it out and completely redo it. Apparently Sam told our general contractor this awhile back, but our contractor ignored him. Grrr.

Sam is going to take out the new (useless) living room subfloor and pour cement rather than build another wood subfloor. That way, the entire downstairs will be on a cement slab.

The total now for overt mistakes (not to mention minor wish-we’d-done-it-differently), but things that simply need redone, is $1,500 (in materials only) for non-matching tile, $3,000 for chocolate colored exterior paint, $2,000 for new interior doors that look identical to the old ones, and now another $1,000 for a living room floor redo.