I could feel your sense of panic in your post! I would try to break it down to small manageable pieces. Create a spreadsheet of everything you want to do. Then prioritize the tasks with 5 tasks per level. Then create a high level breakdown of how you want to allocate costs between tasks. You'll go over on some and under on others, but at least you'll have an idea of the total ball park.

Then once this is done figure out what you can do yourself in a reasonable timeframe, and what you cannot and thus need to hire out. For tasks you need to hire out, break this down further into tasks for a handyman versus a licensed pro. You can also reshuffle your priority list if you are hiring someone to do a high priority task, you can have them do some lower priority tasks while they are there.

Once you see everything on paper, you'll probably start feeling better.

live_wire_oak - I don't have a $100,000 redo budget for 3 1/2 bathrooms, just want to get rid of the carpet and put down some tile for starters. The toilets, tubs, showers, and sinks are perfectly adequate, and I only paid $260,000 for the house, so it's not worth putting that kind of money into it, and I don't have it, anyway. We just need to get rid of the carpet, pray that it's all ok underneath, and do whatever it takes to lay down ceramic tile. This is definitely going to be a baby-steps rehab.

Elaine Ricci - I wish I knew what was underneath. I can't pull anything up until we close, and I can hardly wait! Thanks for the compliments on the living room - I like those things, too. After I get rid of the carpeted bathrooms, my next priority, before I do anything else, is to get an estimate on de-popcorn ceiling-ing the whole place. We don't have to move in right away, and I'd love, love, love to have that whole mess out of the way before we actually try to live there.

Bonnie, I think you are on the right track. In general: fix anything that's dangerous or a health risk, then anything that's broken and would make it difficult to function in the house. After that you can move on to things that you dislike and that annoy you, and to things you really, really want.

H L - My sense of panic - wow, are you right! Thank you so much - that is an absolutely GENIUS plan! We're not closing for a few weeks, but the agent let us go in and do some measuring today - I'll be visiting the tile store as soon as possible. I feel completely bogged down with the big and small details, but I sure can't wait to get started. We are pretty handy, so we can save some money by doing things like stripping all that wallpaper and painting anything we can reach without a scaffold, tiling bathroom floors, and other simple, but labor-intensive things. We'll leave the big, complicated stuff like wiring and plumbing, and an eventual kitchen re-do to the pros. But setting up a prioritized, budgeted spreadsheet is such an incredibly good idea.

Paul NY 5b-6a - I was speaking to some of my neighbors-to-be today, and it sounds like the house was built in the mid-80s, and the family came a couple times a year from another country. They built it, decorated it, and it's not been updated since it was built. It certainly looks like a 1980s time capsule! I think the carpet is original to when the house was built, so it's probably just subflooring underneath - argh!

Strip the wallpaper in the bathroom and put in floor tile, turn that weird space into a closet. The kitchen is fine. Maybe get the carpets professionally cleaned and eventually replaced with wood floors. It looks like a great house.

Nelly Bluth - Thank you. You definitely understand. I dream about stripping wall paper. I once had a house that was built in the 1920s, one owner until I bought in 70 years later (it was her wedding gift from her parents). It was full of ancient wall paper, and I reveled in pulling it down. It was real paper, and it stripped off like butter!

Looking forward to seeing your orogress

Time for an update on our Texas nightmare/dream house. Thanks, COVID-19, we still haven't closed. The owners had problems getting their ducks in a row, because they live in a another country, and because embassies have been closed, they hadn't been able to do whatever it was they needed to do. We are now paying to have the mortgage rate lock extended because it expired (it's REALLY low, so worth a few hundred a week but still hurts), Just got word two days ago that the sellers finally figured out their end, and it's all been pushed to the title company so they can schedule closing. Of course, we haven't been able to sell our current home, money we were depending on for a decent redo, so we are going to have to live with much more of the '80s decor than our original plan. BUT, the carpet in the bathrooms is still first on my list. The rest, although not terribly attractive, is livable, and not unsanitary. I'm thinking, since this is looking more and more do-it-yourself, that I may try this in one bathroom and see how it looks. I really don't want to do tile on the second floor bathroom - it's big, and tile's heavy. I have no idea of the load-bearing capabilities of this house. Thought? Anyone know anything about this product. I can't seem to find it locally to even see a sample, but I like the tile look of it.. https://www.elleganthomedesign.com/vinyl-flooring/planks/adura-max-apex-deluxe-trellis-collection-by-mannington-vinyl-plank-16x48-iron?gclid=CjwKCAjwp-X0BRAFEiwAheRui1xy72iVVsIF4_M0UreX1ONTvJ4nDgjPZzGIcSiwMQwiHECcKd1U5xoClPwQAvD_BwE

The above-linked flooring looks like this - Mannington Adura Max Apex.

What about vinyl plank flooring? Reasonably priced, good for DIY, and no weight problems. You can go for a wood or a stone look.

Great minds think alike. The flooring is vinyl plank! Just looks like tile instead of wood or stone. Here's another one that I'd like maybe for the smaller bathrooms - the house has 4 bathrooms.

Sorry, I started writing in response to your original tile query and before you posted your most recent post with the link. Got sidetracked by a phone call.

I would use a vinyl plank product you can find easily locally. I'd also choose something very simple and neutral that works with the existing look of all the bathrooms, since it may be some time, between financial and pandemic reasons, that you're able to complete the rooms as you want to.

Bonnie, please update us on your intended use of this house. Is it a second home/rental now, or are you moving in? You mention selling your house, that's why I ask.

Vinyl flooring for a rental bathroom is a great choice: easy to clean, relatively cheap to replace, if needed. Renters will find a way to destroy nearly anything, so let that guide your choices. It makes it very tough, because you want nice, but you don't want to be ill when renters crack your tiles, burn your countertop or stain your carpet.

Don’t pick a floor that is so busy and trendy. In a bad way. It‘s too much for that house. The contrast will make everything else look wrong, when it’s really the floor that’s wrong for the house. You need simple and natural looking. Slate, or another stone, or wood. Or a quality facsimile. Quiet. Natural.

I just read through your thread. The vinyl flooring is an excellent choice. Good luck with your remodel!

LVP, as suggested ProSourceM; quiet/natural look

latifolia - this is our primary residence as of 2 years ago. We still have a home in California, too, that I love, but for many reasons, we need to be in Texas from early October until as soon as I can get out of here in May. I'd NEVER rent out my house in California! I love that house and it's beautiful and nicely furnished.

Because this new-to-us home is in Texas Hill Country, we plan to rent it out in "tourist" season which is pretty much Memorial Day weekend through September. We currently own a smaller condo within a mile of our 1980s fixer. - rent it out in tourist season and have it furnished according! When we bought it, we went through IKEA and completely furnished the place in what's essentially attractive but disposable furniture.

With a bigger, 4-bathroom house, 4-bedroom house, we can be more comfortable and get bigger rents. I'm planning to furnish much of it in whatever I can find slightly used but good. I already have some really nice side/coffee/entry tables lined up, and a few other things like that. I'll continue with IKEA soft furniture, the ones that have removable, washable slip covers, unless I find something fabulous and barely used on FB Marketplace..

The big thing is that for starters, we have to get rid of the bathroom carpet. Right now, no one is renting vacation homes in our area - there are a lot of them, and this has been a constant topic of conversation in our Nextdoor group. So, if we close soon (hopefully next week), we're not going to have much time to do anything other than getting rid of those nasty bathroom carpets. We have two contractors lined up to give us a estimates to get rid of all the popcorn as soon as we get the keys and before we move in. That would be fabulous, but I honestly have no idea what it'll cost or when they could do it.

All I really want to do at this point is close and get the keys. This waiting has gone on too long!

I would get estimates on both removing the popcorn and just going over everything with 1/4" sheet rock. Removing popcorn can mean having to skim coat and sand the entire ceiling and that can be more labor intensive than just adding new sheet rock.

ProSource Memphis -I'm pretty opposed to fake wood and fake stone flooring, and I honestly don't even like any vinyl. The fake ceramic tile is bad enough, but it's what I can afford right now and what I can do myself, and I can tolerate it because I think it's at least pretty. I know, there's no accounting for taste, but it is what it is. I'm not ever doing vinyl wood or vinyl stone.

It's inexpensive enough that if I hate it, a few years down the road, when I finally sell my condo and have more money, I can rip it up and put in something both real and better. We've had two offers fall through on our condo (it's a mile from this house) because of COVID. We have no mortgage on the condo, so it'll be money in our pockets when it sells, but who knows when it'll all happen. Until then, I guess I'll probably put in my trendy floor. I just sent for samples. So far, I like it and so does my husband, so that's another real bonus for that floor. Besides, I like bathrooms with pizazz. I once wallpapered one with pink elephants and palm trees. I loved that bathroom!

Most of my current two houses (little condo in Texas and 3000+ sq. footer in CA) are pretty much basic beige with some spots of color, so if I go a little crazy on bathrooms, I can always shut the doors. But there will be no vinyl wood or vinyl stone.

katinparadise - Thank you! I will definitely ask the contractors about those options. One suggested scraping and spraying a very light texture as a money-saving way to do it, but if I had my choice, I'd go with drywall. It's a 1980s house, so there's always a risk of asbestos in that popcorn.

I got a recommendation on one contractor from a friend, and the other one, I was walking the dogs, saw a drywall/plaster business truck going down the street, they pulled into a driveway, and it turns out they live a block from me. I like to keep things local, and I'm hoping for decent prices and good options from them. We thought about doing the scraping ourselves, but we'd have to use scaffolding, and that's not going to happen!

Thanks again for some really good thoughts.

Well, if it tests positive for asbestos (fingers crossed it doesn't), that's a whole different story as I'm sure you well know. Then, drywall is definitely your best option.

I love your flooring choices. Like you said, if you change it down the road, you haven't spent a ton to do it in that pattern now. You'll certainly never be able to rent it with carpet in the bathrooms, and sometimes you have to do what's economically feasible at the time.

Are you doing sheet vinyl or vinyl planks? Like you, I'm not keen on fake wood or stone.

I'd get a quote on hiring someone to remove the carpet and lay down a good quality sheet vinyl. If you go DIY, how will you dispose of the old carpet?

Talk to some of your neighbors who rent out larger homes. They can attract a different type of guest, and groups, particularly, can be quite the challenge!

latifolia - The ceramic tile-look flooring is waterproof, rigid vinyl planks with built-in underlayment to minimize that nasty "click, click, click" when you walk on it. For now, we're just going to do the bathrooms, and since we're slow and pokey, we can probably just throw the carpet in our trash pick-up. If not, we have a free place in our little town for disposing of things like that.

We have a rental agent who has rented out our condo through a national rental service. For 20% of the charges, they clean between rentals, stock basics, and will do things like change light bulbs and remote batteries. We've not had any problems. We have two dogs, so we're willing to rent to people with pets, and our rental agent says that they're usually more responsible renters than non-pet people, and those are the rentals that go fast.. We haven't had any problems so far. People have to pay a hefty pet deposit, we have IKEA furniture and porcelain ceramic tile floors throughout our condo, so there's nothing they could hurt that the deposit wouldn't cover. The new-to-us house is kind of a dump (but in a stellar neighborhood!), so for now, we're going to be willing to do pet rentals. I'd love to rip out every inch of carpet and do all porcelain tile in this house, too. It's so easy to take care of, and I love that I can change things up with a change of area rugs.

Get out of buying this at all. Renting anything short term isn’t going to happen for quite a while. If you’re depending on that income for the purchase economics, you’re going to be in a world of hurt.

And if you can swing 3 mortgages for the next year without any rental income coming in, dont pick that fake cement tile look. It’s not a good choice in those baths. At all. Too much pattern. In a different bath? Maybe. Plain dark gray to black, or even terra cotta looking is what needs to happen. That floor just screams cheap update. The rest of the materials are a much nicer quality level.

We are also in the midst of trying to remodel a place that has never been touched and is just a couple years older than yours. I just asked our contractor about the most cost effective way to fix popcorn ceilings (we also have a vaulted beamed ceiling in the living room)--scrape and re-do or re-sheetrock. He says scraping off is cheapest and that ceilings would need to be scraped first to make them flat even if they are to be re-sheetrocked.

We're DIYers and who have installed ceramic tile backsplash, showers, and ceramic bathroom floors. Floors are actually quite easy. Just don't choose tiles that are large format. Buy an inexpensive tile saw, and you can do it. You need to figure out how you are going to make the transition from the bathroom floor to the carpet in the adjoining bedrooms.

Honestly, for a vacation rental, I'd do LVP in a traditional, non-trendy wood look and just use it throughout the upstairs-- bedrooms and baths. I know the difference between real wood and the fake duplicates and am kind of a snob too. But, for our second home we are going with the LVP. The higher end lines truly are realistic looking, they are easy maintenance, supposedly they are

DIY-friendly, and your vacation renters aren't going to know the difference when they first shop for a rental online. And, they aren't going to care once they arrive and find a nice house.

We've probably done around a hundred vacation rentals (houses and apartments) all across the world. We are big travelers, but we know that for us those days are over. This might be the new reality for lots of the populace, and it's something I'd take into consideration since you are buying this specifically as a vacation rental. Times might be very tough for a rental owner for quite some time. (I am quite familiar with the Hill Country since our son lives there; just last night he was telling us how much money his next door neighbors who own a B&B have lost thus far in cancelled and/or never-booked reservations.)

As far as the strange place under the stairs, since this is a large rental and would probably attract families with kids, I'd buy a cute kids table and chairs at IKEA and put that there as a play place for kids.

Finally, I agree with what someone says up thread. We used to rent a lake place where we'd take our kids and grandkids. That owner would only rent to families, not guys on fishing trips and not females who wanted a party weekend. She said the women doing bachelorette parties were the worst as far as leaving a mess. The Hill Country is a prime location for bachelorette parties.

julieste - We actually live in Texas 7 months a year. We're not here in the summer when it's vacay season. We've rented our condo out in the summers, and it's nice to have a little extra pocket change, but it's not a necessity in our financial lives. My California house, where we live the other 5 months of the year, I would never, ever rent out. It's my I-love-you-so-much house, and the Texas house is just a house, a means to an end, and a place to hang my hat because I have to.

I'm awaiting samples of the vinyl, tile-look flooring that I like from the online pictures, so the jury is still out. I've done wall tile in the past and own a decent tile cutter, so that's still under consideration. Transitions - I need to see what's going on underneath the carpet, and also the condition of the carpet, so that's a figure-it-out-later kind of thing. I'm itching to close and solve some of the mysteries.

I just can't do the fake wood. I've looked and looked. If I hate the fake tile samples that are coming, I'm not sure what plan B will be. We'll eventually replace all the carpet with something decent, probably porcelain/ceramic tile. We had porcelain tile installed in our condo, and it always looks good, has never chipped, and is easy to maintain. I'll probably change out the bathrooms to match when that happens, but nothing that $$$$ is going to happen until we sell the condo. We paid cash for it, so we'll have a big pot to play with when it sells. So whatever I put in will be temporary, and since I have to live with it for over half the year, I may as well have some fun unless it's really nasty looking.

I have hardwood and travertine in my CA house. I'm not a fan of the travertine, but it was in the house when we bought it, and it's not horrible, so I live with it, but neither hardwood nor travertine is as easy to maintain as porcelain tile, so that's my preference for our Texas house. It's also pet-friendly, an important factor in our lives and rentals.

The IKEA kids' table - I have one, and putting it under the stairs is a wonderful, Harry Potter-esque idea. We have 2 young grandkids in Texas, so it was a right-away purchase when we trolled through IKEA to furnish the condo. IKEA is perfect, sort of throw-away furniture, for a rental, and I always stop first at what I joking call the "Nobody Loves Me" room. I've found some great and useful bargains in their last-resort room.

We use a service called iTrip to rent out our condo when we're not here, and we have been really happy with it. Our rental contract is pretty specific about what is and isn't allowed. I can attest to the messiness of bachelorette parties, having attended quite a few in my younger days, and our rental agent really does weed out the rental requests to avoid these sorts of situations. Our Texas house is in Horseshoe Bay, we seem to attract the golfing/boating crowd, and we're willing to rent to people with pets. Fortunately, we've not had any party-hearty people.

Before we bought, we'd rent in Texas for a few months every year, but the time we needed to spend in Texas increased, so buying here became the smart thing to do. Places we rented were an assortment of adventures, some hot, and some not, and it didn't always depend on the price. We have two dogs, which limited our rental options, another reason why we bought in Texas.

Thanks for all your thoughtful, helpful input.

Take a look at Karndean floors. That's what we are going with--specifically French Oak in the Rigid Core. I looked and looked and looked and looked. This is what I came up with. It's not installed yet.

http://harrisfloors.co.uk/portfolio-items/wooden-floor/

https://floorcritics.com/karndean-vinyl-plank-review/

We have a dog, and yes, it certainly limits rental options.

The white, and pattern, in your potential choice does not play well with all of the beige earth tones. Something that is more abstract of a stone or wood look, but not trying to be totally realistic, would blend better.

https://shawfloors.com/flooring/resilient/details/casa-plus-503sa/latte

The living room has nice bones: high ceilings, fireplace, wood beams on floor. The exterior is lovely with nice big trees.

I completely agree with the recommendation to prioritize the list of changes you want to make to the home. Make a plan up front so that you don't spend money only to redo more completely in the future.

You can get popcorn ceilings tested for asbestos as part of your due diligence. The cost to remove asbestos is dramatically higher than the cost to scrap non-asbestos ceilings. The space has to be properly contained and the asbestos has to be disposed of as a hazardous material. Either way, you'll need to re-surface the ceilings either to smooth or minimal texture. I'd recommend doing this before you even think about moving in because it's going to be a mess.

If you're handy, laying floor tile is pretty straight forward. Do your research ahead of time and be meticulous in the installation and you'll probably come out with a lovely new bathroom floor. I highly recommend using Schluter Ditra uncoupling membrane for bathroom floor installation.

For the odd space under the stairs, how about enclosing it with framing and drywall and making it a storage closet?

pricklypearcactus - Thank you on saying nice things about my house, and for making great suggestions. Another nice thing about the house is that it appraised for $100,000 more than we're paying for it. Hooray for instant equity. We had it inspected by a pro, and then by a contractor friend, and they both gave it the nod when we made our offer. My bathroom floors are going to probably be the only temporary fix that we do, because we want to get rid of all the flooring in the entire house once we sell our all-paid-for condo and have the $$$. But with covid, no one's buying, at least not where we are, and carpet in the bathrooms makes me shudder.

I agree on the cost of asbestos removal. It would probably be less expensive to drywall over it if that's an option and if there's asbestos. That's the first project we'll probably have done. We'll need to weigh our options after talking with a couple contractors. I've thought about enclosing that space under the stairs and using shutters instead of doors, since there are shutters in the upper wall of the living room. I'll have to see what the 4 & 6 year old grandsons think of that "Harry Potter" space. I "talked" to someone who has a tiling forum and a tiling group on Facebook. He's a tiling pro and uses Schluter Ditra. He raves about their products. I just don't want to do real tile since I'll probably take it up in 2-3 years.

The Cook's Kitchen - the tile looking plastic that I like (I'm just not going to do the plastic wood or stone-look) also comes in a different color. I'm going to send for a sample of it in this color way. If I don't like the fake cement tile, I'll figure out something else. I've passed on houses that had plastic wood and plastic stone when we were looking to buy. We considered one that had a lot, and when I put my foot down and said "the plastic wood is coming out before we move in", my husband finally stopped arguing with me. My other house, in California, had nearly new carpet in the living room when we looked at it. I only agreed to that one when husband agreed it would come out and hardwood, the kind that comes in real boards and is sanded and finished, would be installed. I'm not a brat about a lot of things, but this, absolutely! The bathrooms all have travertine, which I also dislike, but it's a bathroom, where I only spend a few minutes a day, so I don't care about ripping that out, at least not yet :-)

Unless I’m mistaken, that still has a white background. I think that will be an issue if so. It a bit less busy because of lesser contrast in the colors, but I think the faux cement tile look isn’t a good choice, no matter the colors. It’s still too busy to mesh with what is there.

What’s there, other than the carpet and Hollywood lights, has a great design vibe! Even the cultured marble counter is a great color way, and works.

I have to ask. What is the difference in your mind between a vinyl fake cement tile, and one that mimics stone or wood? None are real! But all can make a great choice as a supportive background to a room.

The Cook's Kitchen - I'm not thrilled with any of the three options, but to me the fake cement tile is the least objectionable, and the carpet in the bathrooms absolutely has to go. If the samples look terrible, I'll probably suck it up and get fake wood or fake stone. I don't want anything permanent, because we're going to rip up all the flooring as soon as we sell the condo. We paid cash for it, so a lot of our money's tied up in it. $20,000 isn't going to go far, and that's about what we have to budget on this place until we sell the condo.

This has been a nightmare, although admittedly a first-world nightmare. We signed an offer to buy the house before Covid had become an issue, and then, before we had closing, the embassies were closed, and the sellers, who live in another country, couldn't complete their end of closing, so we agreed to extend and extend. And we've had two offers on our condo that have fallen through because of buyers' Covid-related issues. On Thursday we were told that the sellers twisted some arms and have their paperwork in order. We're now waiting on the title company to schedule closing, so we're hoping it'll happen this week..

Removing the popcorn is probably going to eat up most of our temporary budget. We're leaving Texas in a month and a half to go back to California until October, and if there's a chance I can rent this place out to summer Hill Country visitors, I need those bathrooms to not have carpet. It's a temporary fix to a truly unsanitary issue. And there are no guarantees that the housing market sales are going to pick up any time soon.

Miracles do happen. We have finally closed, and the house is ours!!! We closed on Friday, got the keys at about 3 pm, and had a price on popcorn removal in the entire house, and a fresh coat of basic paint in the entire house (Sherwin Williams Gauzy White) by the end of the day. Next day, our small-job contractor friend came and talked me out of laminate in the bathrooms. I've ripped up most of the bathroom carpet - prying tack strips out of a concrete subfloor is not fun. I'm doing the unskilled labor part of the job and he's going to put in tile. I'd like porcelain, so now I'm on the hunt for that, and tile stores are still closed. I looked at Home Depot and Lowe's - their stuff is strictly from hunger, and I honestly didn't see a thing I'd even consider at either place. Why am I so picky?

Our 1980s kitchen, complete with mauve Formica counters, old appliances (they all work), and the world's crappiest cabinets is going to have to stay as is until we sell our current home. We paid cash for it two years ago, so that's where our money's tied up, and now is just not the time to sell investment money. I need to start planning the kitchen, hoping our condo sells by the fall so I can throw out the 80s. I think I'll be stuck pretty much keeping the same footprint of the kitchen, but believe me, anything's going to be better than the coil-burner electric stove, and the 33" refrigerator. I love to cook! There's no gas in our area, and I really need to investigate whether or not induction is what I'll want. I need to figure out how to get help with how to make this kitchen work better - bigger refrigerator, and if I can figure out how/where to put it, a bigger stove. I've done complete kitchen redos in the past, and I did those designs with the help of a wonderful guy who even made me new woodwork from scratch.

What else - this house is twice the size of our current place, a little condo, so being on a budget, I'm watching Facebook Marketplace and Nextdoor like a hawk. For now, we just need to fill some space. Saturday, I bought a dark green leather sofa and loveseat - super nice leather, and you can tell it's really good furniture and in spectacularly good condition, and it's soooo comfortable - got is from Nextdoor's marketplace. It's not what I'd have picked, but husband loves it, and the price was so right!

Today, the popcorn starts coming down. ONWARD!

De-popcorning continues, and the light texture they're putting on the ceilings looks terrific. It's getting primed and painted in basic, bright ceiling white, and the walls will be a medium cream - about the color of evaporated milk from a can. We need to blank-slate the place so we can move in and worry about the rest later.

We looked at tile, and looked, and looked - the tile stores are open by appointment. The samples of the click-lock flooring I'd been considering finally came. They are hideous, so I'm glad our contractor talked us out of it! They're bathrooms - so boring - so we picked different patterned tile for each of the bathrooms. These are two of the ones we picked - the other two are of the same genre. The colorful one is going in a bathroom off the game room, and the black and white is going in a bathroom with a 12' long vanity room and a separate toilet/tub room. We'll rent this house to Hill Country, TX, tourists in the summer and we'll live in it 7 months a year. We want it to be fun! In truth, if it doesn't match the vanities, etc., I don't care - they'll be gone when we sell our other house and have all the cash and the time to change them out. Baby steps.

This is the LVP I picked for my kitchen. I wanted to lay tile at first but the labor is more expensive as well as the tile. So when looking for LVP I didn't want it to compete with the wood flooring surrounding my kitchen. Most of LVP is a wood or stone look, the stone look looked boring. Then I found this! I'm still looking, but this is my first choice.

Your pic didn't post.

@katinparadise Oh, that was for the OP on the tile she posted right above mine. I believe this is Mannington Trellis.

Time for an update - we had all the popcorn removed and all the walls repainted except for the bathrooms. We've moved in and are waiting, waiting, waiting for the tile people to come and do the bathroom floors. Our condo hasn't sold, although we have yet another offer. This is the 4th one - they keep falling through, mostly related to Covid issues, and it's incredibly stressful.

Because of budgetary constraints - we paid cash for the condo 2 years ago and need some of that money to really do what needs to be done at the new house - I resorted to Facebook Marketplace and Nextdoor Market for furnishings, since this house is twice the size of our little condo. The house has ivory carpet on the main level, so since we're renting it out this summer to Texas Hill Country tourists, we've bought runners for all over the place. The house looks pretty good, and as soon as those bathroom floors get the tile they deserve, we're outa here and back to California for the summer. I can hardly wait. The pictures I posted in the original listing were from the real estate listing - none of that furniture was mine - it's gone.

I'm going to get some graph paper, map out the current kitchen, take pictures, and figure out what to do with it once we sell our condo. I can cook in it (I can cook over an open fire if needed), but it's pretty ugly. The kitchen is straight out of the 1980s, and it's in desperate need of everything. The cabinets are truly awful, and it's got mauve formica counters. The appliances are old, like original to the 1980s, although they work just fine, but a 31" refrigerator is way too small for someone who loves to cook.

My husband and I struggle over what to get for flooring. Once the kitchen goes, the carpet in the main living area is going to go, too. The kitchen floor is ceramic tile - it's chipped in a few spots and it'll go. There's an attached, carpeted dining area that's adjacent to the living room with continuous carpet. Not only do i not understand bathroom carpet, I do not understand carpet in a dining area, especially ivory carpet. If it was up to me, I'd get ceramic/porcelain tile on the whole thing - kitchen, dining, living, entryway. He doesn't like tile - says it's too cold on his little tootsies. He talks about wood, but we have hardwood in our other home and I know it scratches. We have white oak floors there - the kind you lay down the piece, sand, stain, and finish. It there any kind of pre-finished wood flooring that's more durable, and doesn't have sort of rounded edges? I don't like those little grooves between the boards. We're not getting vinyl plank - I thought about it for the bathrooms, and on seeing real samples just couldn't do it.

Sounds like you're making progress but the COVID-19 situation is keeping things from moving at the pace you'd like.

Tile can be tough in rentals. People drop things and they can crack, although porcelain tile is tougher than ceramic.

Have you looked at engineered wood as an option? I don't think you have to get beveled edges. Or at least you could get microbeveled edges, which I did on my laminate.

Thanks, Katinparadise! I did get all porcelain tile for the bathrooms, and I'm impatiently awaiting word from the installer on scheduling. I will have to look at engineered wood - as long as it doesn't have those grooves where two boards come together, I'll be good with it. My understanding is that the finish is harder than what they put on real hardwood. We have the kind you have finished in our other house (family needs force us to live in two places or I wouldn't do it!), We had the hardest, most durable finish put on it, and it still has some scratches and wear in areas.

Yes, the whole COVID-19 disaster has really added to our difficulties. It's like a national nightmare that doesn't seem to end.

I recommend tile and ultra-comfortable slippers for your husband's cold feet.

https://nymag.com/strategist/article/best-wool-slippers-to-give.html

Thanks, partim - I like those slippers, and since I'm a knitter, I should make him some. Felting is really easy, and I'm sure I could find some sole material.

Tiling of the bathrooms has begun. Do I go with dark grout or light grout.

I'm late to this post, but as far as grout color, since the tile has black and white, I would recommend a grout color in the grey family. It's hard to say if it should be light grey or medium grey, but I don't think it should be dark grey. If you do a dark grout, the grid lines will dominate and take away from the pretty pattern of the tile. And if you do white, the white colored grout will cut through the black pattern and create a white grid line. You probably have a couple of extra tiles, so you can get sample sticks and place them on the floor between your left over tile, stand back and see what looks good to you. IMO, a grout that fades into the background is best because the tile itself is very pretty, so you don't want to compete with that.

Thanks, AJCN! The tile masters pulled out their grout sticks when I wasn't happy with their choice of light gray grout for EVERY BATHROOM!!! I had extra tiles, and you're right! We're going with a darker-than-their-choice gray. We have 3 other bathrooms that are works-in-progress, and we managed to pick grout colors for all of them after he pulled out the grout stick samples. We bought all the tile from a local flooring store (not a chain), and it never occurred to me to think about grout.

This is a house we live in part of the year and rent to summer vacationers the rest, so we decided we needed to have fun with the tile. I have terrazzo in my other house - it came that way. I don't like it and it's boring, but I'll live with it. These are what we're in the midst of having installed in the other bathrooms. This is a hallway half bath - the dark part of the tile is a dark blue, so we're doing with a dark blue grout.

This is a bathroom off the game room, and we're going with a white that's like the white in the tiles.

And this will be in the master, also is blue (hard to tell in a photo), and we're going with dark blue grout in it, as well.

I'm going to have to be sure the game room's light-colored grout is really well sealed, since we rent this place 5 months a year, and I don't want it to get dirty looking. Again, THANK YOU!!!

You have some fabulous tile going in! I hope you'll show us pics when it's all finished.