So the sink has set the tone...

When we last left off my husband I were in our neighborhood Lowe's. We had a flat cart carrying a $400 sink and a 8' butcher block counter top. Then my husband said he needed to go look for flooring and steering that darn cart with the countertop on it wasn't exactly easy, so I pulled over to the side of the large middle aisle I was in and waited. We had discussed what we would choose so I didn't feel he needed me to escort him there.

This beige/white tile is what we were replacing

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I had ended up parked next to one of those tall rolling carts they put clearance items on and park in the large wide aisles to grab attention. I idly looked at the items on it, most of which weren't much interest to me. On the bottom shelf there was some luxury vinyl plank on clearance. It was a dark, espresso type color in a wide wood pattern. I immediately liked it, but my husband usually wants lighter colors for floors and I didn't mind that. Besides, I dared not say anything else in this store on this trip was pretty.

Back up the aisle he came holding some boxes with flooring in them. They were nondescript, beige/white, with a slight pattern. I can't remember what this one was specifically but I have seen others like it called "white travertine". It looked a lot like the above. I must have made a face when he set them down on the cart because he asked what was wrong. There was nothing really wrong with it and it would be fine, but it just looked so blah to me. And I told him so. He beckoned me to come look with him and as I turned the cart down the aisle the dark flooring on the clearance rack caught his eye. He crouched down and began to look at it closer.

He started to count the pieces to see how many square foot was available. There was enough to do the kitchen. He asked me what I thought. I told him I really liked it but assumed he wouldn't. He looked at the sink and the countertop on our cart and said, "No, I think it would go well with what we have here."

Spoiler alert: The dark LVP looked, well, just like this.

I was stunned. "Really?". He said yes.

An associate came around the corner and saw us looking at the Casa Italia (that was the color name). He said, "Take it all! Get it out of here!" My husband later explained to me that once most stores do not have enough of a flooring to do an entire house and cannot get more they clearance it out to get rid of it. Customers often will order flooring a house at a time. And anything clearance out and not gone at the end of their fiscal year can count against a department manager's evaluation. Lowe's was happy for us to take all they had left from our neighborhood store.

So we did. At 57c/square foot. We spent a total of $46 on all they had and only needed half to do the kitchen. We also bought two sheets of thin wood called "underlayment" to go between the bare floor and the LVP at $15/sheet. I later found out some use a roll of cushy foam like material for underlayment like the one seen here

I think either would work, but do your homework. As we were putting the floor in ourselves, our kitchen floor cost us a grand total of $53. Now I didn't feel so badly about the sink. But what to do about the other 40 foot of LVP flooring we now were proud owners of?

Keep in mind we still haven't made it out of the store yet! Are there any more surprise idea changes coming on this trip? Stay tuned!

Be well y'all!