Tile floors in South Florida do make sense, but there is the reality of grout lines that get dirty to downright nasty the longer you have them in and the higher the traffic area. We also have a small amount of Berber carpet on the stairs and up into the little loft area that leads into the upstairs bedrooms/bath. We’ve debated for some time about having the tiles cleaned and resealed, which if we’d done that two years ago, they wouldn’t look so bad, and a few of the tiles in the kitchen have cracked from what was probably improper installation. Wood flooring is the other option and that opens an array of choices. Two different friends have gone from tile to bamboo and that seemed to fit our lifestyle.

Off we went to Lumber Liquidators (not an endorsement since had we shopped around more other places might have been just as good) to look at samples and my, what a lot of choices they had. We didn’t want to go dark, reddish, or too light, so that cut out about a third of the samples. I like the concept of hand scraped, but it also frequently gives somewhat of a “ripple” effect and I set that aside. The price of bamboo has come down considerably since it was first introduced and with 1,000+ square feet and the stairs to do, we did want to stay within a certain budget. The Acacia and Brazilian woods were lovely, as were several others. We then homed in on the bamboo as the young man who was quite knowledgeable told us the three we’d narrowed it down to were all on sale for another few days. That did help with the decision and then it was mostly width of the plank and thickness. He gave us samples and we brought them home where I laid them down side-by-side. It was a toss-up for a while and we waited a day or two before we decided on the wider plank that was slightly thinner. The order is in and we do have a spot cleared to place 50+ boxes of flooring when it comes it. An important factor you have to take into account with bamboo is that you need 2-3 weeks of having it in the place where it is to be installed in order for it to acclimate prior to installation.

We had originally planned to look for new cabinets and granite, then go for the flooring, but with the sale on, the color that we chose is within the palette we like and there shouldn’t be an issue with coordinating the other. I’ll keep you posted on our progress.