relieve yourself.

I'm having a really hard time making decisions about house stuff. I think I mentioned yesterday the connection between that and my perfectionism, but for real, it's time to just pull the trigger already and decide. These are not life-altering choices; I'm talking about potties. So, Cathy, relieve yourself of the decision-making pressure and pick a new throne upon which to...relieve yourself.

source: www.lowes.com

And a vanity to accompany such a beauteous (and environmentally friendly) loo? PULL THE TRIGGER.


(Insert online-window-shopping time warp here)


...Okay, see? THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS! I went to upload a picture of a potential pedestal sink, and BAM - all of a sudden, I'm bombarded by images of bath vanities at lower prices, and 20 minutes of fixture-perusing ensues, and I'm back at square one: Do I want a pedestal sink or a vanity for my teeny-tiny first-floor bathroom? (Both of these options are also from Lowe's.)

Admittedly, pretty much anything will be better than our current situation:

Pretty, eh? Yeah. Pretty outdated. Obviously, space is tight (and I don't mean "tight" like "awesome," like our uber-tight pink toilet and sink) in our main floor bathroom, but it would be nice to have a little bit of storage in the form of the shaker-style vanity. Then again, it's probably not worth it if it makes the room feel even smaller. 


One thing I allllmost pulled an actual trigger on was flooring for the kitchen and bathroom. Right now, it's all the green-and-beige-square-patterned linoleum (at least, I think it's linoleum...how do you tell?!). It always looks dirty, it's chipped in spots, and it's probably original to the 1966 house. I thought this would look better with the soon-to-be white bath pieces and kitchen cabinets:

{ETA: This tile is now called Armstrong Terraza Patina Shale
Peel-and-Stick Stone Residential Vinyl Tile. Still available at Lowe's.}

It definitely would hide evidence of heavy traffic, which is important in any kitchen, but especially ours - our most-used entry door (from the garage) is in the kitchen, and it's the literal center of our house, and...well...it's a KITCHEN. Lots of stuff happens in it! At 99 cents a square foot (again at Lowe's...looks like the promotional emails I unknowingly subscribed to are workin'), you can't beat the price. We have over 200 square feet to re-floor, so whatever we get needs to be relatively affordable. Anyway, tile would be too cold on our feet in our already-chilly house (and probably too hard on any future toddler heads that might slip onto it), and hardwood just seems like a foolish choice for a kitchen (see: aforementioned heavy traffic). We have hardwood throughout the entire rest of the house, and I gotta say, I think it's overrated anyway. It scratches, it dents, it's cold, it's hard, it fades, and damn if it isn't awful to accidentally fall asleep on. Yes, I take frequent, unplanned naps. Sometimes on the floor (at least, I used to in our carpeted apartment).


Um, anyway. So I like the floor above: Armstrong Terraza Patina Shale Stone Residential Vinyl Tile (just rolls right off the tongue, no? NO), the peel-and-stick kind. Unfortunately, I've read that vinyl is the worst environmental choice (need to find a good online source for this, but I think I originally read it in Consumer Reports...which I was reading while curled up in bed one night. What? The 2011 kitchen edition was super sexy). Also, it got pretty good reviews, but not entirely.


I am totally avoiding making a decision by blabbering about it. So here I go. I'm going to buy the toilet and a sample of the flooring (not ready to figure out the vanity yet...want to view in person). Captain CBT says, "What's the worst that could happen?" The worst that could happen is that I don't like them and need to return them - which I can do for free at Lowe's. I'm having them delivered to the store for pick-up, so shipping is free, too. All right...here I go.



P.S. "Whiiiine, whiiiine, which new house updates should I get?" What up, first-world problems?
P.P.S. We won't mention the 15 minutes that were just lost to countertop searching. Sigh.