Actually I have seriously considered building a home of light clay and may do so someday. Ideally we should not be building with materials that will not, when we are done with them, be able to return to components that existed in the environment before we intervened. Stone, wood, metal, even ceramic or concrete can eventually break down to ancestor substances. Many plastics will not. The ones I personally object to most vigorously are the vinyls and the styrofoam-related ones. On the other hand, plastics can do wonderful things that other materials simply cannot match. My personal code is that they should be used only when they are the best material, and not when they are merely the cheapest. But I do not make decisions for others, or even want to. You will note that I said what I would do, not what Larimie should do. (In fact, it is just now that I am noticing what an old thread this is. By now the decision has long since been made.) As always, each person must make his or her own decision. It is a wide world, and there is room for difference of opinion. Rosefolly

Well, thanks for the clarification of what I thought about the crediting thing. Sounds like it's a better deal for the buyer than it is for the seller, unless the seller's getting a big enough profit that the amount of the credit isn't going to hurt much, or there's room to raise the total price to balance out the amount of the credit. This is basically a semi-starter tract-type house (it may be 4br/2.5ba but it's small with small rooms, doesn't have a big yard or a family room, so it's pretty different from most of the other 4/2.5s around)... it's the kind of cookie-cutter generic vinyl siding, vinyl flooring, oak cabinets, Formica counters, fiberglass baths type house that was built in vast quantities in the 1980s and early 1990s (this one in 1994, but we joke that the builder was cheap and bought all the 1980s style stuff no one else wanted because it looked like it should have been built in 1986). It looks like it should be in a subdivision but it's not. Yeah, it's got a spiffy - if rather idiosyncratic - master bathroom we put in when we were expecting to stay here another 15+ years, but trying to bring the rest of the house up to par with that would run us easily $50k+. I had picked out a neutral speckly laminate (Wilsonart Milano Brown), not one of the expensive high-def laminates, but not something cheesy either. Because of the cabinet layout we wouldn't even be able to use the stock postform counters, which I know some people think of as being "cheap". Granite or solid surfacing would be inappropriate for the rest of the house - not to mention being yowza expensive, because there's a lot of counter for the kitchen size. , but it's handy; at this point there's a different stove and hood, different lighting and hardware, the floor's in boxes stacked in the laundry room... :-) Turnkey houses and "handyman specials" (the two ends of the spectrum) seem to be selling the fastest, but of course the serious fixer-uppers are selling for commensurately low prices. Our realtor did send us off to look at the competition/comparables, and we've gone to some OHs, few of which really seemed to be really close - similarly priced houses were either nice looking and smaller/fewer BR/BA, or comparable in BR/BA/SF and needing a lot of work. We had planned on asking a sensible price from the start, allowing for imperfections (we're not blind to the property's failings!), without completely screwing ourselves. But MY thought is that if people are thinking "gotta fix this, gotta fix that" every time they turn around instead of "hey, I can just move right in" when they're viewing the place, I expect they'd be likely to drop their offers even lower (which is exactly what I would do, and exactly what we did when we bought the house!). I'm trying to minimize the "worn" look particularly in the kitchen and baths, and get it closer to looking just move-in-ready rather than trying to make it look like new construction, which would be lame because it's not. For instance the once-shiny brass-plated plastic on the "OMG how 80s" contractor's-caselot lighting fixtures was peeling; I spent a few hundred dollars on new ceiling fans and light fixtures and the difference was overwhelming. As for hurryup-timing the listing, can anyone do something about the weather? :-) We've got at least two, probably three solid weekends' worth of outdoor work that can't even be tackled until the weather improves a good bit. We'd be lucky if DH can get that stuff even started next weekend - gotta love this spring weather, it's been snowing/sleeting/icing for the second dadratted weekend in a row! The property looks absolutely wretched outside - curb appeal? What's that? Don't make me laugh! Our deadline for listing is 5/25, being ready 2 weeks before that would be great but there is no way we can be ready much before that unless miracles happen right darn quick. And since Murphy's Law has gone into effect with an absolute vengeance in the last couple of months, I really cannot foresee any miracles. :-(

Don't be so dismissive of cheap and easy! There are many times when it makes time to arrest a problem (in this case, the water infiltration and spreading rot), insure basic structural integrity (replacing the rot with a material strong enough to support the frame and whatever other function it does), and let go of the rest. A homeowner facing multiple costly issues can't go to the mat with every one. The "right" thing to do would obviously be to replace the door, which in the end would be 4-5000. But it couldn't match the other four - which I don't like anyway. Until I'm ready to replace all of them, I just want to buy time with this one. The question is, do I cut the vinyl as if it were wood and replace the section with wood? Or do I inject foam, concrete, or stuff wood filler inside the vinyl, teasing it back to its original shape like a car dent? Should I just cover it with a piece of metal? Or is replacing the jamb (if Andersen even stocks it for this door) less of an ordeal than I think? Thanks for any positive advice to address this so I can focus on bigger problems -- leaking roof, broken drains, and saturated slab :)

jakkom, I am also choosing Mannington Adura, but having a tough time with the color options! I want a color that will stand the test of time (not trendy), warm, light to medium brown and I would say my decor leans towards tropical/Hawaiian. A lot of the vinyl colors are trying too hard and end up very busy and stripey, The Oak looks really good in this regard, but then Oak is, well, Oak and I was hoping for something a little different. I'm wondering which Essex Oak you went with...is it "Natural" or "Honeytone"? It seems the Natural looks less grainy but also a little less warm looking and in some lights falls a little flat and goes a hair pink. The Honeytone is warmer but more grainy. I definitely don't want an orangey Oak, does yours go orangey at all? The other color I was considering for its plainness and non-oakyness was Canadian Maple, but can that be combined with a warm tropical vibe? And it seems like it would show every little speck of dirt if I don't clean all the time. To the other extreme I was looking at Burma Teak Butternut. The coloring is tropical but I fear it will be too stripey busy and scream "look at me". Thoughts? Also your vinyl stair treads look fabulous, the installers did a great job cutting them to butt flush against the wall without adding fussy trim pieces. Do you know how they did that? My installer doesn't want to do the vinyl stair caps because he said there are often not perfect straight edges on either side of stair treads at the wall and wood is easier to cut and sand to get that exact fit so you don't see thin gap lines at the side wall edges. Also, do you think a carpet runner down the center could be put down on top of the vinyl or if that is my plan should I go with wood for all the stapling that would happen and it would put holes in the vinyl? Do you have any pictures you could post of a full length of your stairs and the room with the Essex Oak with furniture in it now? I'm hoping to hear from jakkom but any one else please chime in as well! FYI, I am also having my installer do the glue down method. I have looked at other brands including Modin (which can be special ordered to do glue down, but the color choices just aren't right unfortunately... they look so different online vs in person samples). Many thanks! Lisa B