Updating Our Home: How To Decide On Flooring

Today we’re sharing how we decided on the flooring for our home. With help from Mohawk Flooring, this sponsored post features tips on what to consider when making flooring decisions.

Updating Our Home How To Decide On Flooring

As the little miss gets closer and closer to crawling, one thing is on our minds: flooring. When we moved into our new home a year ago we knew we wanted to change things up and update the existing flooring but we wanted to wait a bit to get a feel for exactly what we wanted. Now that we’ve lived in the home for a while we know exactly what we want and are saving up to create the home of our dreams, flooring and all.

We’ve gone to check out flooring quite a few times and have finally decided on what we’ll be doing. Since we have to do this in stages, we’ll focus on the downstairs first.My big change will be to take out the carpet in the living and family rooms as well as the hallway to the bedrooms. Then I want to update the carpeting in the downstairs bedrooms, the stairs, and the upstairs rooms to SmartStrand Forever Clean carpet. After our experience with our SmartStrand bound carpets, we know that this product is perfect for our family. Luckily, Mohawk is having a sale!

Updating Our Home How To Decide On Flooring - consider pets and children

How To Decide On Flooring

  1. What Room Are You Updating? – Consider the room the flooring will be in and what you’re using it for. Also consider who will be walking on it. Since we have a dog and small kids, that factors into our decision making. In high traffic areas like our hallways and living/family rooms, we need something that’s durable and easy to clean. In the bedrooms we prefer to have the soft, plush feel of carpet to step on when we wake up. 
  2. What Type Of Flooring Is Best? – Now that you’ve decided what type of flooring you want in your room (carpet, hardwood, etc) you can now narrow down what’s best for that room. Just like the factors you took into consideration when choosing what would go best in the room, you’ll also consider those same things when deciding the specific flooring you get. Also consider the warrenty on the flooring you choose as well as the expected life of the flooring so you know when you’ll need to replace it. 
  3. What Other Colors Are In The Room? – Once you have the type of flooring picked out, now it’s the fun part! Deciding on color/pattern. The biggest deciding factor for me with color is looking at the color palette of the room it’s going in and determining what color would look best. But don’t just go by a small sample square. Most flooring stores will have someone come out with a few large samples so you can see what the color will look like better than those small squares. 

Updating Our Home How To Decide On Flooring - consider colorscape of the room

You can follow Mohawk on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google+ for more flooring inspiration.

Where will you install your new flooring if you win?

4 Tips for a Smart Home: Creating an Energy Efficient Home

Tips for a Smart Home: Creating an Energy Efficient Home

Ever since my husband first moved into our current home – a house built in the 1960s – we’ve been in a constant battle to create a smart home that was more energy efficient. And we’ve found that creating an energy efficient home isn’t as hard as we thought. It just takes a little time… and sometimes a little money.

But the outcome of creating a smart home has actually allowed us to save money each month on our energy bill and gives us a little satisfaction knowing we aren’t wasting precious resources.

Below are a few great tips to help create an energy efficient smart home of your own. Some tips are easy, inexpensive fixes, and others take a little more time and money.
home energy efficiency tips smart strip

4 Tips for a Smart Home: Creating an Energy Efficient Home

1. Unplug –

You’d think something as little as unplugging appliances and electronics you’re using would be common knowledge but even I had devices plugged in that I hadn’t used in weeks (like the charger to the camera).

Now I’m more aware of what is plugged in and I consciously unplug devices I’m not continually using. And for the devices that I have plugged in all the time, like my computer and printer, I use a nifty smart strip to help conserve energy.

Creating an Energy Efficient Home with smart appliances

2. Buy Energy Efficient Appliances

This one was a no-brainer for our family but it took a while for us to actually switch everything over. And we still haven’t purchased an energy efficient washer and dryer. But we’ve come to find some great rebates out there for energy efficient appliances.

When our old dishwasher finally bit the dust and my husband was unable to fix it so we jumped in and purchased an energy efficient one. Luckily there was a great sale at Sears Outlet AND there was a rebate through the energy company. Win win!

Another great big purchase is energy efficient windows and insulating the house. We had old, single pane windows in our home and I could feel the hot or cold air coming in and out of our home through the windows and the walls.

home energy efficiency tips weather stripping

3. Seal the Gaps

I’ve come to find that sometimes the simplest of solutions can be the cheapest. By using weather stripping on windows and doors, switching out lights, and purchasing a programmable thermostat for the home.

By sealing the gaps, and making sure that the temperature inside the house is regulated, you can make sure that the energy you are using isn’t wasted.

solar solutions

 

4. Go Solar

A great way to become more energy efficient is to create our own energy. Since we live in Southern California we have a surplus of sunny days. And recently we had someone come out and talk about our solar options.

We realized that it isn’t as much as we thought to add solar to our home and there quite a few options available to us. Plus there are great rebates that help reduce the cost of the solar panels even more. Check with your city or county to see if they’re offering these great rebates.

How do you create an energy efficient home?

Rain Barrel Rebate Program in San Diego

rain barrel rebate program drought san diego

With our city in an ever constant drought, we’ve taken quite a few steps over the years to reduce the amount of water we use in our home. But with the addition of two children in our lives, it’s been hard to stick with the conservation efforts we’ve made.

So when we heard about the rain barrel rebate program through the City of San Diego we knew we needed to investigate further. And we were so glad we did.

Then we found out that Dixieline was running a sale on 60 gallon rain barrels for $90. So our $75 rebate and $90 sale price meant that we were paying $15 out of pocket for each barrel. Now that rocks! We picked up two for our home and are considering going back to get two more (limit of 4). [Read more…]



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