April 2015 - Preliminary Flooring Choices

CHOOSING FLOORING

 

Although final tile selection won't be completed until the roof tiles go on (in case options re discontinued) Fowler asked us to make preliminary flooring selections so that window frame heights can be adjusted for the correct flooring thickness.

 

DOWNSTAIRS - TIMBER Engineered Oak

Our tender includes 500 x 500 ceramic tiling, but we really want to use engineered 21mm thick engineered oak flooring for downstairs and most likely the stairwell as a high wear area (upstairs is carpeted). 21mm gives a 6mm oak veneer enabling up to 4-5 sand backs in its lifetime - that should be hardy enough to deal with 3 kids!

 

There were 2 colour treatments of the oak we liked and have not yet made a decision - grey limed (a darker mid brown with a grey tone) and white washed (lighter with white highlights and quite a modern French provincial look). The great thing about the 21mm thickness is that each individual plank is 220mm wide and 2200mm long - which will make the spaces feel wide open.

 

Suppliers we are considering:

1. Wonderful Floors - Grey Limed Supreme Oak (Floating Flooring Direct, Hornsby)

2. Preference Floors - Cannes (Floatign Floors Direct or independent layer)

3. Horimber French Oak - Bianco (Country Timber, Auburn) 

 

Left side is Wonderful Floors Grey Limed vs right side is Horimber Bianco

Wonderful floors - Grey Limed shown with Shitake kitchen stone sample

and Taubmans Martini wall paint sample

Preference Cannes shown with Shitake kitchen stone sample

and Taubmans Martini wall paint sample

 

 Horimber Bianco shown with our samples and laid in the showroom

 

ABRUZZO CERAMICS

 

WET AREAS 

Abruzzo is Fowler's tile supplier. Our included supply price is $33/m2. There is approximately an additional $18m2 to go to rectified tiling for additional laying costs - money well spent!

 

Our preferred rectified floor tile 300x300 in a discrete beige polished concrete look, shown with a gloss rectified 300 x 600 wall tile (the brighter white on left) and the sample of Caesarstone linen for the vanity stone bench tops (vanity doors will be white). This floor tile is an upgraded tile but the floor area is relatively small so a manageable upgrade cost.

Our preferred floor tile shown with our linen bench stone sample.

 

Above is our second choice of floor tile, within the included supply price,

still requires us to pay additional laying cost. Overall we felt this looked more 'fake' stone.

 Our first preference and second preferences next to each other

and shown against our linen bench tops.

 

ALFRESCO, PATIO, WALKWAY OUTDOOR TILES

 This is an upgraded outdoor rated tile in a beige polished concrete look in 500 x 500 size. It is an additional upgrade cost of about $50/m2 and is a rectified tile. We have had feedback that the 'gritty' outdoor tiles in the cheaper ranges (like the Santorini we had as our second choice) can be awful to clean, where this is a finer grade outdoor tile. We still need to see these against the Austral Metropolis Alabaster bricks.

 

UPSTAIRS - CARPETED by Carpet Call

Frontline Acrylic carprt in Sandy Point style and Oaklane colour from the included builders range at Carpet Call (selected in Studio Fowler).  Upgraded to a thick acoustic underlay (as well as acoustic batts in the ceilings) to block noise transfer between upstairs and downstairs.