Two good names....

I've been doing some research on countertops and flooring, and I've come up with two places that I really like, so if anyone out there is doing flooring or countertops....

Wilson art sells laminate for countertops. They will send you free samples, with free shipping. I've ordered just about one of everything. =) Their high definition laminate is extremely cool. We will definitely look into it further when we are ready for countertops. Who knows when that will be!

We drove into Portland today to check out the Simple Floors showroom for flooring. They sell excellent laminate, and hardwood over hardboard. Their prices are phenomenal....$1.37 a sqare foot with sound padding already attached to back. 25 year warranty, and it is on HDF board, instead of MDF board, plus it has an acrylic resin in it that makes it even more moisture resistent than pergo-like laminate. Their showroom is basically an office space with concrete walls and floors, and the wood samples are set up in a circle in the room. Pretty basic, but hey, low overhead saves me money. I liked the price of Costco's laminate, but I didn't like their color choices. Simple Floors has a lot of colors, and yes, they do have more expensive laminate, and the actual hardwood over fiberboard is in the $3 to $4 per foot range, but it appears to be pretty nice stuff. I figure heck, if I can get even 10 years out of my $1,400 dollars, let alone 25, that's pretty good. Way cheaper than carpet, that is for sure. So, now we wait until the nice tax man is done with our taxes, and find out what kind of profit we made this year, and hopefully I can get this done sometime in the next few months. Yay! Picking the color was the hardest part. There is way too much wood in our house, and it is very hard to find something that goes with all the different shades we have in each room. Plus it's really hard to tell when your looking at just a sample, or just a couple of boards. Hopefully we chose well!

Well, it's time to make dinner. I gave blood a couple hours ago, and while I felt fine when I was done, I'm realizing we haven't really ate since late this morning, and I'm starting to list to one side! But it was worth it. I was unable to donate what I wanted to to the Childrens Cancer Association this year, so I figured at least donating SOMETHING is worth it. Even if it's free for me, it will benefit someone.