Live and Learn #4 - The Entry

I wrote a little bit about the flooring dilemma in our entry and how the Alex and I worked together to try to figure out a solution for it.  Well...I mentioned that conversation to Travis (from the tile, carpet, flooring company) when he was tiling our bathroom.  He made a suggestion that I thought about for awhile. I liked the way it sounded so I went down and talked to the designer and sales rep that we've been working with.  She agreed that it would probably look better in the space if we made the changes that Travis suggested.

This is how the entry looked after the hardwood floors were first laid.  The large black rectangle was left for the tile  (the reflective tape that you see, is what Travis and I put down as we discussed his idea).  I left it there so Susan could go up and take a look at it too before the decision was finalized.

The large tiled area kept throwing me off because there was no true center.  I probably should have either tiled the whole entry or had the hardwood run through the whole area.  It was too late (and way too expensive) to make that change though so the solution was to create a tile runner centered off the door.

I  really wanted to have tile in the entry because we have so many months of winter here, so that is why I didn't go with hardwood there.

This is how the entry looked after Alex finished reworking the hardwood floors.  I don't know how he feels about the change.  He was leaving just as I arrived to take this picture and he did not want to talk to me.

This is how the entry looked after Travis and Brennan came up and tiled it.  I like it so much better.  The bathroom wall was throwing us off.  We had it pushed out to make room for the washer and dryer, which created a cute little coat and bench nook by the front door, but that threw off the symmetry of the floor area.

 

Here is a view from the front door.

In the background you can see the big box from Restoration Hardware.  Well, that was a process to get here too.  We ordered it way back in June, but the first light that came was bent so we sent it back.  We didn't hear anything from RH for over a month, so I called to check on it and they said it was back-ordered and we would get it the last week of September.  I was a little surprised, but thought we wouldn't really need it till then anyway.  So, it got to be Monday of the last week of September and Rob was getting nervous because it hadn't arrived yet.  He kept saying, "Call them"

As it turns out it was a good thing I did or we would never, never, never have received it.  I was on the phone with a very nice person who very kindly told me that the light was back-ordered and we would receive it mid-October.  I said that was unacceptable and we went around and around for a little while.  She was very polite, gave me the sales price on it and promised expedited shipping, but wouldn't send the light earlier...even though when I looked online it said if I placed an order "TODAY" it would arrive BY October 9th.  So, I asked for a supervisor.  We went around and around and around until I finally said something that clicked with her.  I said something about they'd had my money since early June and how could all the orders between June and September be back-ordered and all arrive at the same time in mid-October, or were people who had ordered lights after me been receiving them before me, even though they'd had my money longer.  So, she went back and actually dug into my record (thank goodness for computers).  Somehow it had been marked incorrectly so even though it showed that they had received the bent light they had it marked as "in transit" (or something like that)...so every time I called it just put me into a loop where they thought they needed to wait for my light to arrive so I was "back-ordered"....or something like that.  It totally doesn't make sense to me any more as I type it out.  BUT, once this gal understood the problem she deleted the original and created a new order for us and agreed to pay for the expedited shipping (and gave us the sales price).  So we had the light 2 business days later!  I should have have asked more questions back in July when I was told it was back-ordered.  I just assumed that the demand was higher than the availability.

Of course, we missed the electrician's window of availability so the box has been sitting there for several weeks now.  At one point I came up and found that workers were using it as a garbage box.  Ugh.

It will be up soon.  It has to be, we are supposed to close next week.