We were not completely honest in our weekend round-up.  There was more to the weekend, but we didn’t want to talk about it.  Partly this is because it deserved its own separate entry, and partly because it took us several days to recover from the trauma.

This weekend, we picked out floors.

We made an appointment with the local building supply place’s design consultant.  We thought this would be fairly painless.  We knew what we wanted…pretty much.  We had a shared vision…pretty much.  We had highlighted some things that we liked in some Arts and Crafts books that were consistent…pretty much.  How bad could it be?

Oh.  Lordy.

We arrive bright and early Saturday morning, ready to go.  Design Consultant (DC for short, ’cause we’re hip like that) makes a joke about how she frequently has to serve as a marriage counselor.  Ha ha ha!  What silly people fight over things like floors?

DC: Okay, so what do you want to start with?
M: The wood floors.

DC: What kind of wood floors?

C: The wood kind.

M & DC: (*Disapproving looks.*)

M: I like White Oak.

C: What’s that look like? Ew.  That’s ugly.

M: What?  It’s traditional.

C: It’s gray!  It looks like a dead fish.

M: It’s wood!  How can wood look like dead fish?

C: When it’s got green and gray undertones.  I was hoping for something warmer.  More golden.

DC: How about Beech?

C: What’s that look like?

M: Too flat.  Not enough grain.

C: I kind of like it.  It’s better than the dead-fish White Oak.

M: Would you stop with the White Oak?

DC: Okay…There’s Douglas Fir?

C: What’s that look like?

And on…and on…and on…until we ended up with…White Oak.

No, seriously.  We did.  Cherie couldn’t believe it either.  But, we did go for the prefinished White Oak with a "Butterscotch" stain that makes it look less like dead fish and more like, you know, wood.

Like so:

Oakfloor

Then we moved on to tile for the upstairs bathroom.

C: So, I was thinking white and black mosaic for the floor, maybe with a border, with subway tile for the tub surround.

DC: Oh, that’s a very classic look.  You’ll never get tired of it!  I have black and white in my bathroom, and I love it.

C: Or maybe I want blue…

DC: Blue with the white?

C: Do you think white is too institutional?

M: What about green?

DC: (*sigh*)

So, yes, she hated us.  But, like a true professional, she got the job done.

We ended up with the black and white because that DC, she’s a smart woman.  Seeing no end to our endless debating she made this statement:

"Listen guys, here’s the deal.  You are on a limited budget.  If you had all the money in the world, I’d encourage you to put in lavender tiles if you wanted, because you could rip it out when you got tired of it.  But you don’t have all the money in the world, and you won’t be able to change it on a whim.  So, go with the black and white tile.  Paint your walls a color, then you can change it with a gallon of paint.  But you will never get tired of the black and white."

We shut up.

Here’s what we ended up with:

All white 1 inch hex tile for the main floor:

Hexwhite_2   

with a black-and-white border that looks like an abstract wave, though you will have to imagine it because darn if we can figure out the tile company’s website.

White subway tile for the shower enclosure with a black insert, something like this, only ours will only have one black stripe:

Subwaytile

(Photo mercilessly stolen from some poor schmo on Flickr because we couldn’t find a good example.  Sorry about that!)

So the lovely Design Consultant lady did not lead us astray.  In browsing blogs today, however, we discovered that we managed to come up with the exact same bathroom that every other bungalow owner has.  Ah, well.  We’ll stand out from the crowd with the fuchsia and purple paisley wallpaper that’ll go up.

DC: Say what?

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