floored

So... this has been hanging around in our house since Saturday morning: 

 That's what 700 sq. feet of cork flooring looks like, all boxed up. We finally made the jump to update our floors after living with our increasingly gross parquet/rental-grade carpet for well over a year. The parquet is original to the house and its age is showing. It might not be so bad if there weren't huge sections of water damage, where the tiles lift up and apart. We affectionately call them our jenga tiles. It's less funny when Hayden realized he could pick them up and started playing with them... 

Nice, huh? 

In addition to the less-than-stellar wood floors, the house was re-carpeted right before we moved in by the bank that owned it. They chose probably the cheapest carpet out there. It's a tan-ish white that is no stain master. If you even think about walking on it with a touch of dirt on your shoes, a dark spot appears and doesn't go away. (Despite a professional carpet cleaning and multiple spot treatments.)  Henry doesn't help matters, as he has scratched the transition from carpet to the parquet: 

 So, it was clear to us that we needed to figure out some new flooring for our downstairs. (We haven't figured out if what we want to do upstairs yet, and that carpet is in much better shape so we're holding off on that decision for now.) We looked at hardwood, bamboo, tile, and cork. Our favorite was cork, which we loved for it's eco-friendliness and uniqueness. Also, we like that it has a little more give to it than hardwood, is easy to install (so they say), and it takes on the temperature of the room, so it won't be cold to walk on in the winter. We chose this  cork from Lumber Liquidators and we bought it a couple weeks ago when it was on sale for $3.19/ sq. ft. We have to let it acclimate to our house for at least 48 hours. So our plan is to start and finish the install next weekend... We'll keep you updated on our progress!