What's on your floor?

Something similar slayed me in my place. My building is of unknown date. Probably late 1800s, which makes it a youngster for the area I live in. Brilliantly nice details and plasterwork throughout the buildings and the apartments. My place had been done over so poorly on the cheap, though. Before I renovated the place, the bedroom had this bad tiling -- I can't even describe how cheap and horrible it was. We assumed there were hardwood floors underneath like there are in the living room (and they are beautiful), but couldn't know for sure. So when we renovated, we lifted the tiling and underneath someone had nailed a piece plywood as a backer. We lifted the plywood and underneath there were these beautiful hardwood floors that just need to sanded and refinished. Why anyone would have done that to floors like these was beyond comprehension. Some of the work I did required taking out bits of flooring in the living room and bedroom (to remove old radiators and caps), so we removed the hardwood from the closets, carpeted the insides of the closets and used the floors from the closets to refloor the areas we messed with. It worked out really well.

 

Cheap linoleum on the kitchen floor - needs to be replace. We will do it with ceramic tile.
Hardwood in entry foyer and two "formal" rooms up front. Kind of joke since both are cluttered storage rooms for now. Need to be refinished after 18 years.
Nice Berber carpet in family/sun room combo. We spend almost all our time there and put the most money into flooring there.

"Builder grade" carpet up steps, upper foyer and in four rooms up there. Will go as soon as I can afford it.

Hardwood in master bath - should have gone with ceramic tile. Tile in other bath, has held up pretty well.

 

I like the ceramic tile in my kitchen a lot. I was looking for something really specific because I remodeled the whole kitchen and everything was new and I was trying to match up cabinets to granite countertops to tile to paint color to steel appliances. I did this without a designer, just my sister giving me advice. I had a budget and had made up my mind to go really basic in the bathroom (which is small) and spend more on the kitchen.

I had a specific tile in mind that I saw in a magazine, but I couldn't find it anywhere. Home Depot in Manhattan (which is bigger and has more options than most HDs but is not officially an HD Expo) had something close, but it wasn't blowing me away. It was in my price range, though. It was special order and would have taken a few weeks, I think. I left there to think it over and was walking and saw a random tile store on the Upper East Side. I walked in and the guy had the perfect tile I was looking for, but it cost three times as much as the HD tile. So I was just blunt with the guy. I said I loved the tile, but it was out of my price range and there was something at HD a few blocks away that was close enough for a lot less $$. I told him his tile was nicer, but there was no way. The guy asked me the price of the HD tile, I told him, and he matched it on his tile. Next day, I drove over and loaded my trunk with tile. They were a bitch to carry upstairs!

Renovating an apartment taught me how much room there is for negotiation on a lot of things. That was one of those instances.

 

Hardwood throughout except in the kitchen/back door, bathroom and front entry way, where there's tile. Love the hardwoods.