Well, at 8 months pregnant, we ripped out our crappy laminate flooring and found a great deal on high-quality laminate at
ifloor.com. They are an internet based company but have a warehouse in Tukwila, a Seattle suburb. The people were great to work with and with a sale ending that week, we were able to buy 600 square feet 10 mm, dark beautiful wide plank laminate. We ended up choosing a subfloor underlayment of cork. This is supposed to help with moisture absorption, sound and insulation. Since our basement is underneath, I think it is important to "insulate" as much as possible.
After ripping up the flooring, we installed plywood subfloor and then started installing the floor. I have to say I was pretty good at making the floor planks click together. 7 days after buying the floor, we "finished". We had to order the transitions but everything else is installed. I can't tell you how much I LOVE my flooring now.
The background:
In June, I gave a down-payment to a local small-business flooring company for an 8 mill handscraped oak flooring. I chose the flooring based on the strawberry blond hair of my dog and myself. I don't want dirt and dust to show right away. That was my deciding factor for the floor - beyond matching it with my cherry cabinets and making sure it would flow really well with the vinyl flooring we had installed in the bedroom area.
In September, I called Liz, the floor company owner and let her know we were ready to install the flooring. Liz told me that she had a larger sample of the floor that I chose and she didn't think it was what i originally told her I wanted. When she brought the sample, she showed me a sample that was grey with no strawberry coloring at all. It makes no sense to me that a large sample could vary that much from what I remembered choosing. She had brought a couple new options and based on those, I chose something. I didn't love it as much but I also was locked in on pricing and believed Liz that these were our best options.
It took her install guy 5 days. He didn't finish - needed to come back and do the transitions but I was going to be traveling for the next 6 weeks and Dr. M would be drywalling our bedroom - so the living room became our bedroom for a few weeks. Right after Dr. M moved the bed out here, we realized we had the same ant problem we had had in our bedroom and would need to seal each crack in the wood paneled ceiling and then paint the ceiling white. we covered the floor with paper and got to work on other projects.
6 weeks later, when I took the paper up, we noticed the floor was warped in several spaces and it even was "bouncing" by the fireplace - due to too much expansion and the floor guy not putting enough space around the edge of the house.
In December, the installer came back to the house and spent 5 days "fixing" the floor. 2 weeks later, over Christmas break, we found more bubbling and I "lost it". I started balling in frustration and told Dr. M that he had to call Liz and put his foot down about fixing the floor.
Liz told us that we would need to do a moisture test. The moisture test consisted of taping plastic on the floor all in different areas and waiting two weeks. We took pictures but moisture never showed up in the plastic. Liz filed a case with the floor company and she told me the floor guy would be out in 2 weeks. 2 weeks came and they were supposed to show up one Friday afternoon. Instead, I get a call that afternoon telling me that they'll just have the floor representative go to their warehouse and look at the warped boards that they had uninstalled the first time. This was all in the beginnning of January.
We waited weeks. Liz told us it would take 3 weeks from their claim being filed to get a response. We called on a regular basis, we complied with everything she had us do. We even left plastic on the floor for two months... Mind you, not having your flooring done in the main area of your house, holds everything up - toe kicks in the kitchen, base molding and door moldings... furniture being put in. After moving in this house in June - 7 months of waiting to "finish" our home took it's toll.
With a baby coming, we have a hard deadline of having our house completed and made into a home. In fact, with Dr. M's 40th birthday quickly coming in March, we set the deadline of having the main house done by his birthday. We let Liz know that at the end of January. Well, the end of February was approaching and we gave up on working with Liz.
When I talked with her, she implied that we would have to pay for install above what the product replacement was. Also, the product replacement would only be from the same flooring company. But after reading the manufacturer's install instructions and warranty info, we know that there were install errors along with manufacturer defects. Our trust for Liz, her installer and company was spent. We gave up. We let her know we were done waiting for her manufacturer to respond. I even called the manufacturer but never received a response (they are Canadian based). So, I bought the new flooring from ifloor - our overall costs were over $1000 cheaper than what Liz charged us and the product looks nicer, is higher quality and I LOVE IT! It's dark. it doesn't match my hair and shows footprints easily but I love it. It makes the kitchen shine even more...
Small Claims court is our next option with Liz. They never finished installing the floor either time and they gave us an inferior product. we have samples and have over 80 pictures documenting install and defect problems.
BACK TO OUR FUN NEW FLOOR:
As we finished packing my car with over 1500 pounds of laminate and underlayment, the ifloor.com guy let me know that there was a contest starting in 7 days and if we submitted our picture, we would have a high chance of winning (due to small numbers of submissions). Well we rushed to meet that deadline and at 2 AM Thursday night - 7 days later, we "completed" the floor. We staged an area of the room. Since the picture would be on Facebook and Pinterest, I decided elements beyond the floor needed to be in it - so Charlie, our Golden Retriever is front and center and my DIY knock-off Pottery Barn painting of Santa is in the picture with our leather couch (hiding that we didn't have the baseboards installed yet). I knew DIY needed to be in the picture to hopefully get more Pins on Pinterest - to help it go viral.
Well, the contest started and our picture wasn't there! I emailed the ifloor people and there was some sort of glitch. I don't understand it but the long story short is we are in the contest. Our picture is online and we are in stiff competition with about 3 other posters. There are a total of 35 pictures but 3 other people that are getting lots of votes.
We will continue to fight for our friends (or guilt them) into voting. I have lots of friends spreading the word to family and spouses. We are winning on pinterest with 48 votes. The most someone else has on Pinterest is 10. We are behind on votes on Facebook but not by much. I posted on a listserv that gets votes and that might be our saving grace. I'm trying everything I can to get votes and maybe am a little too obsessed with winning but oh well... it's nice to have a chance.
The contest ends March 31st. If we win, we will get $750. It's worth the money in return - especially since we had to pay for this room to get flooring twice.
I am not paid to be an ifloor endorser but I am an ifloor endorser. I am in love with some cork flooring they had that would be awesome in our sunroom and basement... and it was .99 cents a square foot... someday we'll do that.
Okay - long saga explained.
Going to bed and hoping this baby inside me lets us sleep.
Links to contest pictures:
Pinterest and
Facebook
