project DOMO [20]
july 27, 2007
amongst the other zillions of details i have to address, flooring is one of the major things i had to decide on in these past couple of months. early on (meaning: since the inception of DOMO), i had decided that i really wanted those rubber tiles for my staircase. you know...those rubber tiles with round circles on it that reminds you of lego blocks? you see them a lot in service elevators, ikea and other places.
since i also decided early on that there will be NO carpet in my house (allergy reasons of course), i had to think of some sort of staircase material that wasn't slippery. i could go with laminate flooring but that would probably send snowbie crashing down stairs every time she heard the doorbell. concrete would be too heavy. tiles...i can't even begin to imagine the labor costs in that. so i had my heart set on these rubber tiles and thus began my search.
i sourced this place online called "roppe" and asked for some samples. they literally sent me a huge box full of stuff for free. amongst the many many samples, we decided on the "blue" rubber stair tread. black and grey seemed too common and other colors were too weird and would clash with everything. the blue went nicely with the rice bowl and perfect pear colors imho.
but at this very moment that i'm writing this, i'm still not sure of the costs. i have to make a trip to one of the distributors and see how much the materials are in the end. who knows....if it's too much....i may have to resort to plan b...which is....*crickets chirping*.
i'll go in a couple weeks but keep your fingers crossed for me because this is the one thing i really hope to get installed in my house. it would look SO awesome!
also early on in the DOMO fantasy phase....i had wanted glazed concrete floors for my great room aka 1st floor. i also wanted it for both bathrooms as well. but with concrete costs being not too wallet friendly, i had to resort to other ideas. so my search for gray tiles to mimic concrete floors began in june.
i went to a ton of places looking for concrete looking porcelain tiles. but nearly all the places only had beiges and tans. and whites of course. i searched in those industrial areas where tile and flooring companies abound but i came up with nothing. i felt like the tile gods were laughing at me and my dreams of a gray concrete-like floor were dashed.
until i stopped into home depot one day to pick up something, i strolled over to the flooring department and i saw something that would totally work. it wasn't a perfect fit per se but it was close enough. the tiles were called "tahiti blue" but it was more like a distressed gray with some splotches of tan in it as well. i really loved the worn look to the tiles and at $1.69/sq. ft, it was a really good price. the only other place that had tiles that i wanted was $3.99/sq. ft! i immediately reserved a pallet of the tiles and had them set it aside for me.
i did however buy a box to bring home to "test" out the colors against the walls that i'm planning on using it against. and i was really pleased with the way they looked against the perfect pear, new wool and sweet potato.
i'm also planning on using gray grout so it would mimic concrete floors even more so and besides, i won't have to worry when the grout gets dirty. :p let's hope it turns out exactly the way i'm imagining it would look! :D
and what about the upstairs?
ugh, i haven't even begun to look for that yet but i'm sure it will be laminate wood. i just don't know which pattern or shade yet. i'm confident that one won't be as difficult to decide on as the gray tiles and the rubber stair treads. :p
currently listening to: si*se, mariposa en havana [this is SUCH a sexy song]
