It's Mohawk Anniversary Month

One of our biggest sales of the year is now in progress----Mohawk Anniversary Month.  Almost every Mohawk carpet, hardwood, laminate and tile floor is on sale, plus 24 month Interest Free financing is available.  And there are rebates up to $500 on Mohawk ArmorMax hardwood floors and SmartStrand Silk carpets.  If you want new floors before the holidays, now is the time to buy!

And to make it easier for you to decide exactly what Mohawk product is best for your budget, we thought it was time for one of our most popular features:

How Much Does It Cost?

 ~A kitchen in Atlanta now has brand new Mohawk porcelain tile in the popular 20" x 20" size, installed on the diagonal, with stain resistant grout, all for only $1400. 

~~These Mohawk oak hardwood floors in the color "Cherry" were installed in the family room, living room, dining room, office, hall, bath, and foyer (848 sq ft) of a Smyrna home for $5700.  Nothing updates and upgrades your home like new hardwood floors.

  

~A medium quality Mohawk "cut and loop" carpet with the upgraded SmartCushion padding was installed in a large (1150 sq ft) basement area of a North Cobb home for $4200.

  

~Thinking about updating your bathroom? We recently tore out the old shower in a Roswell home and replaced it with a new larger shower surround of Mohawk tile with an accent border and a large niche for $3900.

~Need new carpet for your family room?  A Mohawk SmartStrand carpet was recently installed with premium SmartCushion pad for a little over $1000.  SmartStrand carpets are durable and stain resistant----perfect for a heavily used room like the family room.

~A client in Woodstock selected a Mohawk tile for three bathrooms.  The old "builders grade" vinyl was removed and this classic tile installed in all three bathrooms for $2700.

~This midgrade Mohawk plush carpet was chosen for 4 bedrooms and 2 staircases. Binding was included on one of the staircases and our client upgraded to a "pet proof" pad with a liner, and this was fully installed for $3000.

  

~We just installed easy-to-care-for Mohawk laminate flooring in a bonus room and hallway (583 sq ft) for $3700.

~Another client selected a top quality Mohawk "pindot" carpet for the family room, living room, hall and stairs.  The staircase included binding and these large areas (713 sq ft) were fully installed for $2900.  You may be wondering exactly what binding is.  This is a special way of finishing the edge of the carpet on a staircase with a fabric edge.  This is a more formal look, one that really dresses up the look of your staircase.

 ~The mudroom and laundry room of an East Cobb home had Mohawk luxury vinyl tile fully installed for $1200.  Luxury vinyl is perfect for wet areas---totally moisture resistant but not as cold and hard as ceramic tile.

~A client in East Cobb selected a Mohawk Silk textured carpet for her family room, dining room, living room, and 2 staircases. The turnkey price was $3500 for 972 sq ft.

~QuickStep laminates are also included in the Mohawk Anniversary Sale, because QuickStep is part of the Mohawk family of brands.  A tile-look QuickStep laminate was selected for the large kitchen, breakfast area, and hall (388 sq ft) of an East Cobb home.  Because our client has back problems, we removed the existing ceramic tile and added upgraded padding under the laminate to give her a more comfortable floor.  This was not an inexpensive project, about $4400, but her legs and back are already feeling better!

~Rectified porcelain tile was chosen for the bathroom of a Kennesaw home. Stain resistant grout and new baseboards were included in the $1100 price. (What is rectified tile?  This is a tile that has been mechanically cut to be very square and true so that a minimal grout joint can be used.)

~A patterned Mohawk Silk Berber carpet was installed with an upgraded pad with liner in 4 bedrooms of a North Cobb home. Almost 1000 sq ft for $4900.  This super-soft Silk carpet is perfect for bare feet and bedrooms. 

  

The great thing is that all of these floors are on sale!  And don't forget that 24 month (2 full years!) zero interest financing is also available on all of these beautiful Mohawk products now during our big Mohawk Anniversary Month sale. 

Projects To Avoid

If you plan putting your home on the market in the next few years, there are some home improvement choices that will probably hinder the sales potential.  Robby Monk with Exovations writes that when it comes to home improvement, every homeowner wants their home to look good, function well and add value.  If just one of the three listed isn't accomplished, then you could be left with a home improvement project that fails to live up to the intended result.  Below are five home improvement projects you may want to reconsider.

~~Turning your garage into a family room. We have all seen it.  A buyer walks into a beautiful home and everything inside the home meets their specific need - except for not having a garage.  One of the biggest mistakes homeowners make is turning their garage into a family room.  Garages are often expected.  If you remove the garage, then your pool of buyers drops significantly.  Even if you aren't looking to sell anytime soon, the time will come and you will be left with a great deal of regret from having made this costly decision.

~~Excessive landscaping. Curb appeal is important.  A well landscaped yard can often lead to greater interest in a home that is on the market than a similar home with no landscaping.  However it is important to remember that "less is often times, more".  Excessive landscaping to potential buyers can look like too much maintenance. Although landscaping is important, it just as important to know when to stop and maintain what you have.

~~Converting a bedroom. Unlike landscaping, when it comes to bedrooms, "more is more".  Understandably there are times when a bedroom can be turned into either a home office or even a closet, but when a homeowner is looking to sell, the best thing they can do is turn the bedroom back into its intended use - a bedroom.  Buyers don't want to envision too much.  They want to see a home for what it was intended for.  Be aware that the bedroom must have a closet for it to be considered a bedroom by the appraiser.

~~Adding a swimming pool. Swimming pools can be fun.  They can also require a ton of cost and maintenance.  Swimming pools are considered more of a liability than an asset for buyers.

~~Being too personal. Extreme design tastes, although pleasing for certain individuals, don't always translate to buyers.  It is perfectly acceptable to turn your home into a theme of your choice, but know that when your home is on the market and prospective buyers are looking, they don't want to necessarily see your infatuation with Morocco and the marble tile you have put down throughout the home.  Instead, invest in making your home more neutral.  Prospective buyers don't like surprises and want to visualize how their furniture will fit into the home.  If they can't get past your extreme design flair, then they buyer may be thinking about the next home before they even leave yours.

Is Thanksgiving Dinner At Your House This Year!
If you have decided that this is the year you will finally remodel your kitchen, and you want it done before the holidays, you need to be well into the planning and estimating process.  Most kitchen remodels take about three months to complete from the time the cabinets are ordered.  You should be making your final decisions and getting your installation scheduled now to have any certainty of having a brand new kitchen in time for the holidays.



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Enhance Floors & More is.  We have recently added a lot of pictures to our Albums.  Please check them out next time you are on Facebook.

10 Tips For Choosing The Right Paint Color

We found these tips on a great blog, Myra Hope's MyBlessedLife.net.  Knowing how to choose the right paint color is so much easier on your budget, your neck, your marriage, etc., when you get it right the first time! Myra Hope advises:

1. For the love of all things beautiful, DO NOT go straight to your local home improvement store, choose a color under those horrific lights, buy two gallons and tote it home. Please.  Your walls thank you in advance. Trust me.

2. What looks good in my house might look awful in yours. And vice versa. This actually happened to me a few months ago. I loved the look of Sherwin William's Comfort Gray in several rooms that I had seen online. Without doing much research I painted my dining room and it was wayyy too blue. Not what I was going for at all. I should have followed my own advice and gotten a few sample pots.

3. Find your inspiration piece. Your inspiration may be something you already have - a piece of fabric, a chair, a pillow, a piece of art. Go old school and look through magazines or use Pinterest. Either way, decide what colors you are drawn to.

4. Take advantage of paint sample strips.Again, trust me. If you can get your hands on a paint deck (shows all colors) that would be even better. If you don't have a paint deck and you don't know anyone who does, you can usually get them on loan from your local paint store. If these aren't options, then take home lots of individual paint samples so you can go on to the next step.

5. Look for color undertones and compare samples. It is very helpful to compare paint samples to white. It is the easiest way to determine what undertone a color has. Each paint sample strip has an undertone - green, blue, red, yellow.

6. Tape the paint samples to the wall and look at them during different times of day.It is very important that you look at the paint samples in different light {both natural and manmade}. Give the samples a good stare  - morning, noon and night - and you'll be well on your way to step #7.

7. Use process of elimination. Also...squint.As you look at the paint samples color undertones and see them in different lighting, you will begin to determine which ones you love and which ones you don't.  This is the beautiful process of elimination. It rocks. If a color makes you hesitate, scratch it. You might think that squinting sounds funny, but if you squint your eyes, often colors are easier to figure out.

8. Get sample pots of a few paint samples that you like best. Please do not skip this step. Especially if you are painting a large area. Get sample pots of 2-3 and paint them on the wall in a few different places. I like using el cheapo foam brushes that I can just throw away when I'm done. This is the final step in the paint sample elimination process. Either you love a color or you don't.

9. It will end up darker than you think. I realize that when looking at a paint strip of colors from light to dark, it's very tempting to be all dramatic and go super dark. Once a color is on all four walls, it's going to be more dramatic {dark or need-your-sunglasses-bright} than it looks on that innocent little paint strip.

10. Less saturation is more. I just touched on this point, but a slightly grayed paint color is going to be more subtle and classic than a color that requires sunglasses. My recommendation is to go for less saturation rather than more. I can't tell you how many times a client has tried to find that perfect yellow color and unfortunately it looks like "The Man With The Yellow Hat" came for a visit. A soft, buttery yellow is much more pleasing, even though it looks more pale on a paint strip.

Keep The Rain From Damaging Your Home

It is quite possible that we will set a new record for the amount of rainfall in Atlanta this year. And with all the rain comes moisture problems. This is a quick checklist of things to monitor to protect your home:

~~Check the weather stripping and seals around all of your exterior doors. Make sure water is not getting on or under your floors.

~~Look at your landscaping immediately after it has rained. Is water puddling near your foundation? Your yard needs to be sloped so that water drains away from your home.

~~If you have a crawl space, please check it after every rain. There should not be any water in your crawl space and the humidity should be under control (50% or less humidity) or serious damage can occur to your home.

~~Clear your gutters of leaves and debris. Clogged gutters cause rainwater to pool, and if you've got an older roof, that rain will find its way into your house. Check the down pipes as well. Make sure the output has somewhere to go, to avoid pools near your foundation.

~~Get your roof inspected. Granules or roof debris in the gutters are not a good sign.

~~Keep large trees around your home trimmed and inspect for dead and dying branches that could come down in a storm.

~~Caulk cracks around windows and doors to prevent water from seeping inside. Check old caulk every year for chips and cracks, which indicates the caulk has dried out and needs replacement.  ~~If water damage occurs, get help right away. It only takes a few hours for bacteria growth, mold, and mildew to start.

~~entire bathroom walls covered in tile

Tile Style

Tile is one of the oldest flooring options; in fact it has been used for centuries.  You might think for this reason tile is not very fashionable.  We find that tile can be just as trendy as skirt lengths!  Some of the fashion forward tile designs we are seeing, and loving, include:
~~tile backsplashes going all the way to the ceiling

~~rectangular tile installed horizontally

~~texture, especially in wall tile

~~large format tile size (we used to think 20" x 20" was big!)

~~tiles that emulate other material, such as wood, stone, concrete, even leather (for the look without the maintenance and upkeep)