Tiles, tiles, and more tiles

This week I had to make my final tile selection and place the order. To be totally honest with you, I was completely torn. See I absolutely loved the tile selection and service from The Tile Shop, but sadly that was going to cost me well over $2k, which was outside of my budget. Thus I had to evaluate the situation. Budget often takes precedence over everything else. I had to thus suck it up and figure out how I was going to work with Floor and Decor, because in my area no one can beat their prices.

My mom and I spent about 2 hours in a design meeting going over their selections, and finally made our choices. I wrote down the SKU numbers, so that I could simply walk in and say "Please show me XXXX", evaluate and decide if I was going to buy it.

It is extremely important that when you are buying tile that you first go and see the tile in person, don't just internet date and hope for the best. The photos never ever do the tile justice, and its much easier to compare actual colors.

Anyways, I walk into Floor and Decor, the big box store close to the Mall of Georgia. I ask to speak to a sales associate, and proceed to wait 10 minutes for someone to show up. Not a great start, but I had budgeted 2 hours for this ordeal.

Finally the girl shows up, and I give her the SKU number for the first tile. She looks it up on her device and then informs me that "Oh, that one isn't in stock anymore. It hasn't been for a while."

I think Great. Strike two, but at least this one was not her fault, but the companies web designers. I ask her to show me a few tiles. We proceed to walk through the store, looking at different floor tile options, until this beautiful dark gray tile just speaks to me yelling "Buy me, I will work and I'm the cheapest." I really wanted a black tile, but they had none in that color for a floor tile. So after looking at a few others, I come back to this gray one. It's cheap, it's a good color, and it will work. So onward we go.

Fortunately, all my other tiles that I had selected was in stock, and so the rest of the shopping experience went without a hitch. The blue and white one in the photo, ended up being the accent tile we chose, along with some white subway tiles.

At the counter we ring it all up, and I realize I hadn't even properly introduced myself to the girl I had spent the last 60 minutes with. So I proceed to introduce myself and hand her my business card. Making sure to write her name down, because next time I want to work with her again. And no, you can't have her name ;p I have to keep some secrets.

How can you tell if someone is a great sales associate? The other associates kept stopping her and asking for her advise on where to find things. A bit of a drag, but at least I knew I was with a pro.

Anyways, long story short, my final total for the tiles ended up being $718!!! That beats $2.5k any day all day long in my book.

So will I shop there again? Yes, but only if my sales lady is there, and I know exactly what I want before walking in.

Linda

#Supercutecottage