We flooded! Practical decorating opinions when you have a DH, a DS and a clumsy dog.

[ChristyMarie]

Thursday both our sump pumps went out and we had a fairly decent flood in our basement.  Huge mess.  They had to rip out all the carpet, padding and baseboards.  So far drywall is ok but we'll know on Tuesday if it dried out enough or needs to be cut out as well.

That's the background, now on to the fun decorating stuff.  ;)

FLOORING:  There was carpet down there.*  I hate carpet.  I want to put tile down.  Currently we're thinking a porcelain that resembles stone.  Done in a pattern with different sized tiles.  Beige/cream/brown tones.  I want slate.  DH wants slate.  We both realize this is a very bad idea for an area we walk barefoot in and is DS's main play area.  But it is soooooo pretty.

*The bathroom is white ceramic and the bar area is oak.  Bathroom is fine, oak is still drying.  We should know on Tuesday if it survived or needs to come out. 

Thoughts? 

WALLS: Currently builder beige.  Boring!  We're probably painting a warm, creamy, golden yellow.  This color will eventually be carried throughout the main rooms of the house (foyer, hallways, family room) since we have a very open floor plan.

Thoughts?

STAIRS:  Ok, here is where I really need some opinions because I really just don't know what direction we want to go in.

Current set up:  In the foyer are 2 staircases.  One to second floor, one to basement.  Very open.  Currently there's a beige (BORING) runner on the upper stairs which is impossible to clean. DH spills stuff, DS spills stuff and the dog...well the dog is a dog.   HATE IT.  Basement stairs are wall to wall beige berber (what was in the basement) but they are paying to replace.  The bottom 5 stairs are oak with the carpet continuing as a runner.  Does that make sense?  There's a wall on one side of the upper portion but the last 5 stairs are open to the basement with the ends of the treads showing and a railing/spindles.

I wanted to do all wood stairs in the house.  Love the look.  DH vetoed it and he has some very good points:

1.  Too slippery in socks.  We all wear socks and home and DH fell down the wood stairs at our old house wearing socks.  Now with DS running around I'd hate to risk it.

2.  The dog.  Oh the dog.  Sam is a 75 pound lab who doesn't really walk down the stairs, it is more of a controlled fall buffeted by the current carpet.  We're afraid he'd fall straight down, scratching up the stairs and possibly breaking a leg.  We're not being overly dramatic, the dog is a complete clod.

What we've thought of doing is a dark red, Oriental-style runner on both sets of stairs off the foyer.  The dark color and pattern would help with the dirt from all the traffic.  But, it would need to be wall to wall on the upper portion of the basement stairs as it is now because we really don't think we want the expense of adding wood treads to just cover them with a runner except for a few inches on each side.

Issues I can see with this:

1.  Rest of the flooring in the house is oak or beige carpet so this would stick out.

2.  However, eventually it will all be ripped out and replaced with dark wood.

3.  Currently in the foyer is a dark red, Oriental style area rug so the runner would tie in with that.

4.  At the top of the second floor stairs it transitions to beige carpet so we'd have a dark runner leading up to that.  Could make for an awkward transition.

5.  Don't think we can afford to do the back stairs right now which means that if the same runner is not available when we do, we may have a different runner on those.  You cannot see the two sets of stairs at the same time so maybe this is not an issue?

For anyone who has read this entire thing, thank you!  Any thoughts?

[thriftyqueen]

I am right here with you.  We have been experiencing flooding in our town and we have had water in our basement since April 22.  We didn't have sump pumps because there haven't been water issues previously.  My DH has had to dig 2 sump pump holes to try to eliminate some of the water in the basement.  We have about an inch of standing water in most of the basement and more in other areas.  I have been dreaming of things to do once the water is gone. 

Could you find a runner that has multiple colors?  Maybe mainly the red, but with some beige, greens, etc.  Maybe then it would tie together okay with the beige carpet transition.  I don't think I would do a different pattern of carpet on the other steps if you can't do them right now.  Might get to be too patterny.  If you can afford it, get it all now.  Maybe you could find a deal where is wouldn't cost anymore to get it all at once. 

We are going to work room by room in our basement since the water is not covered by insurance and we will have to pay out of pocket for everything.  We don't want to take out a loan so will just work on it as money allows.  Frustrating, but I would rather do that than have to take out a loan to do the work.  Ugh!

[ChristyMarie]

(((Hugs)))

Sounds like you are dealing with much more of a nightmare than I am.  SO sorry!

If it helps, our ceramic came though just fine.  No issues at all.  The tile stores all tell me porcelain will perform even better.  And that epoxy grout will be better than regular.

FYI...if you have now installed 2 sumps and one has a battery backup you should notify your insurance.  Then in the future this should be covered.  We're covered because we had a back up.

I think a multi-colored runner is what we need.  I think you are right, it needs beige in it.  And the rug in our foyer already does so that will all tie in together.

Gosh, I hope you can get yours cleared out!  So so sorry.  :(

[sunnysandiegan]

I agree with the multi-colored runner and I'd try to buy all three at the same time (both staircases off foyer and the other one in the house).

I dislike tile flooring because of how hard it is. Our DD's only trip to the ER was due to falling from standing (not running or misbehaving in any way) on our then tile kitchen floor. (I was mopping on my hands and knees and she didn't see me under the table and I didn't see her come in the room in order to warn her.) She had a concussion and was displaying very erratic and unusual behavior.

Anyway, we had a major flood two years ago and we opted to do the entire main floor (ground level) in cork. We LOVE it!!! Just throwing out ideas...

Paint-wise, we went with a light creamy color on all the main walls in our house. Then we went with color in all the rooms with a door. The creamy color is "Innocence" by Behr, which can be found at Home Depot, but we used a Frazee brand of paint (they color-matched the sample I brought in) for most of the house. (I like Behr for other uses.) Anyway, this color seems boring at first, but once it was on the wall in my test spots, it came alive! It has more depth than meets the eye at first and it compliments our light and dark furnishings equally well and it looks good with white trim. I happen to like white trim and DH wanted a boring beige through most of the house (Swiss Coffee a la early 90s "boring builder color" was fine with him...BLECH); this met both of our needs beautifully. He was pushed a little and discovered he likes a little more color than he thought we would. I like how it is light and brightens everything up more than the cooler tones of Swiss Coffee did. Even if you go darker in the main part of your house, you may want to consider a lighter hue for the basement if it is underground and/or lacks natural light.

Insurance can be tricky. I had to be firm (nicely at first and only proceed as needed) and do my own research in many cases in order to get what we were due. AFAIC, insurance is a racket! The system is whacked and you might benefit from getting a few quotes on jobs and then evaluating contracting versus doing it yourself. We did a mix and made money off the deal. I won't lie, though, it was a full-time job for nine long weeks...actually it was more than a full-time job at 14 hour days for me + 5-8 hour days for my dad (retired) + 2-3 hour evenings for DH (who also works full-time out of the house).

Good luck with everything!

[ellairiesmom]

I didn't get to read everything yet but wanted to mention that we did the concrete floors like Whole Foods has in our basement but also had them carve out stone shapes in the concrete before it dried & we are really happy with it.  We are selling our house right now but if we could take the floor down there with us, we would!  Moisture of any sort (even flooding) will never cause an issue since it's just concrete that is "painted" with a glaze to make it look marbled.  There are eco-friendly glazes and you can even do it yourself once you get the concrete down.  For us, it also served as the required encapsulation of the old b/w asbestos flooring that was under the carpet.  You can use cheap area rugs to warm it up a little or make it "play" friendly.  No grout, just straight poured concrete with a glaze...so simple.  The cost was comparable to tile options.