If you google best free home design software, several options come up.
We have hardwood throughout our house with the exception of a rec room where we had water damage last year. We had to replace the floors and our contractor recommended the LVP because itâs waterproof. We went to the showroom and were surprised because it doesnât look like fake wood. Happy to post a photo.
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For basements or potentially damp areas, LVP is often a good choice.
Our custom home IMHO has to have as much value as possible when we do want to sell. I watch for new construction and current house prices in our area. It really goes to supply/demand at that time and if there are buyers in your houseâs price range. As time goes on, I plan to keep âtweakingâ things and may have an architect draw up a 4-season room addition and a carport addition â have a working relationship with this architect (our original architect passed away). Have a good working relationship with our General Contractor. I donât see labor or materials prices going anywhere but up, and as long as what I do stays current/desirable. I have kept money available if we had over-runs with upgrading from insurance damage areas, and that work is almost complete.
Please do! We are confused as to which way to go, and while at Loweâs for something else we breezed thru flooring and saw some LVP that had texture like wood, not fake looking.
Weâre also considering engineered hardwood but worry about high installation costs if nailing is required. Too many choices!
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If you have a Floor & Decor store, you might want to look at what they have and get suggestions from them. They will match other places on pricing.
With our flooring for formal living/dining, it was most cost effective for us to purchase our flooring material - contractor told us how much material (including 10% for waste) and also that we needed two 78" matching hardwood transition mold (which they had) - for room to room and for around the marble fireplace tiles on the floor. I brought a sample piece of the red oak smooth solid hardwood home ($5 cost), and it looked great/good match for our other wood flooring on same level. We will have a transition piece between kitchen and formal dining (have a swinging door in-between) - and the small variation in wood floor to wood floor will be fine (just like our current kitchen to family room wood floor transition) - flooring done at different times, 1998 and 2013. We needed 342 square feet of wood floor, which was 17 boxes; our wood floor cost was $4.39 a square foot plus tax - came to $1,725. We received a credit from contractor on our carpeting ($2,100) - we have very highly rated carpet. We got the boxes of flooring home ourselves (two Highlanders, each loaded with half, loaded by store employee) so no delivery charge. Contractor charged additional $845 to install hardwood flooring. The subfloor has to be level, and they do need to smooth out a few areas, but most of our subfloor is level. The panel display of our hardwood flooring was actually darker, and the sales guy said it was an old display.
Lots of considerations.
One has additional cost with furnishing, installing and painting quarter round in a room that had formerly had carpeting (and now has wood floor). This charge for our two rooms was $300.
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I would look around for various contractors that work with insurance claims. We were fortunate to have had a contractor from a 2013 insurance claim, so with our current claim was able to go to them and things have been working out great. The contractor can price out to âcome to agreementâ with what insurance is providing.
Then your kids decide on upgrades and budgeting for them. The contractor can have some suggestions for kitchen design services that might go with any cabinetry/new layout.
In just looking at quartz countertop, I saw the one place that had its cabinetry by a particular source (it was a locally owned store). These places that do stone fabrication have the equipment (CNC driven machinery and waterjet cutting).
It also depends how good the current cabinets are. For example, our house had custom cabinets - and our bathroom vanity needed repair with our insurance claim. We decided to upgrade our vanity to be double sink and with quartz counter. The vanity length is about 6â, but has a triangle corner coming into the room (for proper entry space) - so not a full 6â rectangle vanity. The master bath was generally plumbed for two sinks but we initially had a sink and a sit down make up area; changing to double sink. The additional charge to modify existing bathroom vanity for double sink, furnish two new doors (for under 2nd sink), stain new doors (they actually re-stained entire cabinet for cohesive look), total of $680. We will furnish new hardware (picked it out - had to pick out 3" pulls as the holes drilled for prior pulls was this size). The vanity was alder wood-stained cherry. We originally had a Formica top (which had a nice texture to it). When our vanity gets re-installed on Monday, the quartz fabricator will take the measurements for a template, and then they will bring our quartz countertop with two undermounted sinks. So we will see how great a job they do. The additional charge to furnish and install the quartz counter top is $1,466, but I actually have a credit of a few hundred dollars as I found a âremnantâ piece to work and it was a cost savings on that material.
Once that gets done (and the fabricator does a great job), I am going to have them measure out (template ready) our kitchen countertops, which are also Formica, and I will also get quartz. We have really liked the Formica, but for resale need to have the quartz. Kitchen has 26 linear feet of counter (3 smaller pieces, and 3 bowl kitchen sink at an angle between two counter areas). Will report on this thread when that gets done.
As soon as our dining room furniture returns (next Thursday) I plan to empty out our kitchen and counter areas, so I can pick out the quartz and get the fabricator going on our kitchen counters.
Our kitchen flooring is hardwood, and I believe your kids may be able to match wood flooring pretty well with rest of adjacent rooms. See my other comments about wood flooring and transition mold (hardwood special piece that goes between two roomâs wood flooring).
With any upgrading of a room, I would look to do the things that will be there a long time and things you want to have done well.
Our hometown house (owned by DH and his brothers) - once someone decides to live in it, will be investing in kitchen layout and upgrading. The flooring is already updated (tile) - and the main layout is good but needs improvements like a dishwasher and better cabinetry. My BIL (my sisterâs H) is a kitchen designer and has an Amish cabinet shop that can do the matching oak that is in the rest of the houseâs woodworking (this kitchen had old cabinets refaced with 1970âs Formica type material). They can get beautiful work done, but it is also what one wants to invest. For what we are all using it for, we donât need to spend the money. But for someone living there, they will want the kitchen done and get a dishwasher.
@SOSConcern they are learning the hard part of being homeowners. My daughter said if we were renting the landlord would have to deal with all.
They are still working with the mold remediation contractor. The insurance company is suggesting they save the faces and drawers and just get the boxes remade. These are old wood cabinets and no one is going to want to make bases. Itâs all steps that they have to go through. Lots of uncertainty still. The insurance company hasnât yet sent out anyone to inspect
The structural beam under the floor. Nor sent out a contractor to give a bid to put everything back together.
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Some insurances are actually âsuggestingâ stuff that is IMHO ridiculous.
Our contractor (who we used before) was my guiding help. It took me a bit to process how everything was going to proceed - but insurance did âkick inâ when it came to needing the rooms emptied for the mold remediation (tear out), and they paid on the remediation stuff and the pack/store fine.
The problem your DD/SIL will have is about making sure what their policy actually will cover and have the insurance pay properly.
I would suggest they find new cabinets that will be available for a while (so when they replace the rest of the kitchen to âmatchâ when they can afford to).
Insurance is only working off of pictures?
Have them get their adjustorâs phone number and call the adjustor. With the company we have (USAA) their adjustors have to return calls in 48 hours. USAA also has a claims communication center, and I enter things in there - a documentation trail.
Years ago, our homeownerâs insurance (State Farm) had lists of approved local contractors/companies, and State Farm actually paid them directly. But now, I guess due to problems with that process, homeowners in our state (AL) have to get the insurance payments and pay the various contractors and firms doing the work.
They will need to find stuff on their own probably. The mold remediation contractor might have some recommendations for them. DD/SIL need to be proactive - ask around.
Have them take a lot of pictures and get lots of local advice!
Insurance should not be making ârecommendationsâ w/o proper inspection IMHO.
DD/SIL need to take ownership and the lead in this.
We had a mold limitation of $10,000. We actually had two claims, which saved us because of that limitation (roof problem due to hail having water flow down next to a vent pipe, and plumber punching a hole in our vanity sink drainpipe in the wall, both about the same time).
They need to get policy details/confirmation from their insurance adjustor.
The insurance will pay to replace what is currently there. So our contractor priced out and got approved for insurance payment, and then we paid change order to upgrade/replace what we wanted.
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We got a surprise in that our wood flooring, in order to go with the same grain of the wood flooring from next room, would need to have additional floor support (under) as the below framing is one way and the way we want the flooring would be perpendicular to that. $2400 cost - will be done in our crawl space (the other âsolutionâ was not acceptable, which would be raising the flooring) this support will take care of weight on the floor and eliminate any moving/buckling of the installed wood flooring. Found out way late - when the guys were starting to lay the flooring the other way. I said I wanted the floor to be laid the way it would look correct, and still feel that way even with the extra cost. Supervisor didnât even check our crawl space until after started and I told them I wanted the floor to go the finished look correct.
Thankfully insurance paid for something that they might not have paid for if we didnât have such a strong policy. IDK on resale if anyone would pick up on this detail, but it is a big detail to me.
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Thank you!
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Looks very nice!
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Since there are only two of us living in our home, have not gotten âdisruption fatigueâ until as we are getting to the finish line.
I had to tell our contractor lead how unhappy I have been now with two times of surprises - with information way late. I had early on and repeatedly communicated with him the importance of having things moving and me understanding my part in this process.
I showed lead contractor the direction I wanted the wood floor laid, and I talked about it with him several times. Yet on the morning that they started laying the floor, they were doing it the perpendicular way - and I had to stop them and call lead contractor. So I made the decision at that point (with DHâs approval) that whatever needed to be done in the crawl space/reinforcement of the floor, that was what would need to be done.
After he (contractor lead) looked at our crawl space, and went back to the office, I found out via phone about the $2,400 cost - and DH knows building and he agreed that the cost was acceptable. I signed the change order and paid â first letting him know to carefully review our initial change order and make sure all debits and credits are on this 2nd change order, and they were.
The first lack of communication and contractor lead delay was when he summarized some things waiting until 10/2, which made me have to scramble/drop everything. 1) finding the wood floor which previously they had provided it on an earlier job (and at that time told me the quantity needed) â I needed to know that a lot sooner, but thankfully one local supplier had what matched for me in stock; 2) place of quartz fabricator (which did have a quartz piece that worked for the bathroom vanity) - I had made an appointment for 10/5 at another place where I would have needed to purchase a full slab of quartz; 3) places for seeing new vanity pulls (the quartz fabricator/cabinet place actually had something on display - it didnât work out as that chosen pull was not a 3" pull and would not cover other cabinet pull holes, but I then got a link and informed contractor of my choice, and he coordinated to have the correct number of 3" pulls ordered through them that I needed). Contractor had the vanity taken away for the re-work being done and at their office/supply area (and back and forth from where their subcontractor refinished the vanity) - so it was easy for him to coordinate having the cabinet finished and have the pulls put on. On my birthday 10/3, I was running around town with the check list (instead of a week earlier being informed and had less stress put on me at the last minute), and actually the quartz place was close to where I could stop and choose/purchase the Delta faucets for the vanity. The quartz has the built in undercabinet sinks (included with the fabrication cost), so that was a cost saver (I also didnât need to pick out sinks). I needed to have the pulls and the faucets âcoordinateâ and they did with the brushed gold finish. The faucet place is where we had gotten all our bath fixtures when we built the house in 1992, and I actually know a showroom salesperson (her desk was right next to the gal that works with our contractor). DH and I picked up the wood flooring on 10/4. Our contractor lead let days slip w/o informing me of things (part of it is his âinexperienceâ as a contract lead) - I had more time the prior week, and would have had more assurance of all being available to not slow down our project.
Lead contractor had more days used up from when he said vanity would be in, wood floor would be done, etc. Crew is finishing the wood floor today (Saturday). Vanity is getting delivered Monday, and fabricator will come to get measurements for template. I donât know if the quartz will get put in Wednesday or Thursday. Our furnishings and boxes are coming on Thursday (I left a number of days between when the work was to be done) - and there may still be overlap with the last of the vanity work being done at our home with the quartz installed; then the plumber needs to return to put in the faucets. DH leaves for out of state trip on Friday.
Lead contractor did apologize to me when I was presented with the change order and paid the costs. He had no excuses, and it was appropriate for him to apologize, which he did. He is learning. He tried to put in on me - about documenting via text messages â but I pointed right at the wood floor between our kitchen and our family room and said âdo you not remember me talking about this wood floor and how it matches from room to roomâ - and I spoke about it more than one occasion. His inexperience. The subs doing this job are doing good work - I showed them how all the wood flooring goes the specific direction and apologized to them for having to do the extra work (they already had a few rows laid when I peeked in and was horrified and had them stop). They understood what I wanted.
I guess technically this really isnât home improvement, but weâve needed new furniture and I think weâve finally ordered the last piece today. It was pricey but thereâs a sale now and I always wanted it.
Today we moved some pieces around that had stayed at the house, trying some different configurations. I think we have it figured out. I hope so because H said thereâs no way weâre moving the piano again!
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It is a beautiful piece. IMO, updating furniture and its placement is home improvement. 
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Our goal is really minimizing the âstuffâ we have. Much of it is âearly atticâ which we were certainly grateful for but isnât our taste. We have an auction house picking up numerous items so Iâm hopeful someone else will enjoy them!
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Our spinet piano is on a set of small wheels, but we donât trust those small metal wheels to not damage our new wood floor, so we have thin wood material that is under these piano wheels as it gets rolled. Once they are finished with the room totally, DH is going to have the piano wheels sit on some of this thin wood material.
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Highly recommend felt moving pads for heavy objects and hardwood floors.
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I agree on the felt moving pads and then piano caster cups or similar when the piano is in place on wood floor for long term.
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One of the most affordable and useful inventions ever!
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