Beach Condo Bedroom- Part 2, Vol 2

This spring the time had come...

We had to replace the old blue carpet in the beach house bedroom because it was way past usable prime. And unlike with Joan Rivers, no amount of tightening or more steam cleaning was going to work on this old bag. Worn, lumpy, stained and painted- the carpet was everything a carpet shouldn't be. So we got right to work with ripping the carpet out the minute the bathroom of the beach house was finished.

What material to put back was a big question that we debated on for a long time prior to use starting the tear out. Carpet was eliminated from the running right away. Despite its cheaper price tag (if we shopped around for a good deal) and potential for DIY installation we passed due to the frequency of which it might have to be replaced. More money in the long run adding up and more lbs of carpet trash in landfills. No thanks! Also, for the rental factor and my clumsiness factor, I'd like to have something that I can sweep/wipe clean and is durable to a high traffic rental season.

Laminate flooring was the next option. We were leaning toward a nice faux wood look to match what is downstairs. Although the downstairs isn't wearing as great as we thought, we're still quite happy with it. We found a laminate product that fit our needs and was going to cost us about $900-ish. I could be off on my estimate because it has been awhile...

Tile was the final option. We both liked how durable tile would be, and how it had the potential to never have to re-do the floor ever again during our ownership. Plus, on hot summer days a cool tile floor feels heavenly. Add in that our friend who manages a stone store had a great deal on commercial grade marble floor tile... Even with the cost of the tiles, grout, cement board and additional plywood we had to put down everything was still going to come in hundreds cheaper than laminate.

When I can take money off the bottom line of the beach house improvements without sacrificing the the, I'm completely down with it. Although this time I think the dollars saved weren't quite worth the extra effort we had to put forth for the tile. I had my doubts about the time and effort it is going to take to for installation from the beginning. I can tell you that in this case, listening to my gut and paying a little bit more might have been worth it to save myself frustration and time.

I'm going to skip a whole lot of talking (err typing) here and sum everything up as fast as I can. It was a HELLACIOUS effort to get the tiles installed and while now I do really like them, I'm still not entirely sure if it was all worth it. Due to the location of the condo on the third floor of a building with no elevator meant a lot of effort to get the tile, plywood and cement board up. A spiral staircase inside the condo meant that the bedroom couldn't be cleared out completely because there was no room downstairs to store anything, and we couldn't get everything out of the window without help. We had to constantly shift the big bedroom items around to work, and it slowed us down considerably. Installation of the times and grouting, once we got to that point, was a freaking breeze.

Pictures of the results coming soon...