We’ve made a decision: Cork.
It’s cheap enough that we can afford it (a big win).
The color blends well with the rest of the room
It’s not trying to be wood.

That was what I wrote last week when I started this post and was just SO confident in our decision. Too confident, you’ll soon learn.  

We looked into all of the options for moving forward on the floors. I can’t tell you the number of hours I’ve spent on the Google Machine researching and weighing all of our options. If we couldn’t have wood that extended seamlessly throughout the room, we needed something that made sense and looked like it was done on purpose. Cork was the best option, by far, and was so right for our kitchen I was embarrassed we didn’t plan for this in the first place.  

The space between the island and the wall cabinets is a high-traffic area. We have in that space the door to the deck and door to the basement so in addition to kitchen-use traffic we also had traffic from the outside and downstairs coming through. To keep something so precious and fragile as heart pine in the kitchen was just not going to be good for my future mental health, I can see myself now during a Zellerfest party yelling, “PLEASE use the rugs to wipe your feet!” I’d probably be one of those ladies who tell everyone how much the floors had cost, “YOU BREAK IT YOU BUY IT, BUSTER” – not a good look on me.

The decision was made and I was PUMPED. I then went to multiple flooring stores, picked out a handful of samples and found a color and texture that was beyond perfect. It matched, it didn’t look too “Corky” or too much like wood.

Placed my order, then set everything up with the contractor to be installed while we were out of town for my brother’s wedding this week. We even brought the cats with us on the road trip so there were zero worries.

Halfway to Ohio we got a call. The flooring was discontinued. Our floor store had been spending the last week withholding this information from me as they scoured the country trying to dig some up. No floors. After weeks of research and our kitchen on-hold, we’re back to where we started.

Oh and our cabinets come in next week.