WE haven’t decided whose bright idea it was to go there in the first place, but Brendan and I made our way to the seasonal HIA Home Builders Expo at the Perth Convention Centre to have a look at the deals available and to get a good idea of how much we need to reasonably save for our house in time for handover. Our main priorities were flooring, solar electrical systems, air-conditioning and outdoor living options. But little did we know we were going to put a hefty chunk on the credit card for a deal that couldn’t be missed…

We looked at solar hot water systems and concluded they were an investment we had to make maybe 5 years down the line, and air-conditioning was something we could afford immediately. Brendan moved on to paint systems and I was distracted by the window coverings on offer. We agreed a wood fireplace was a good option and a spa was totally out of the question. Then came the killer. We had walked through a couple of other exhibitors as well but it was the Carpet Call stand that got us in the end — they had the carpet we liked!

And we went with this colour, of course. We wanted something dark because of Sky’s shedding and light carpet always means any sort of stain doesn’t wear well; trust me, spilt makeup on sand-coloured carpet looks like a skid mark! If anyone’s interested, it’s a solution-dyed nylon which is hard-wearing and will take spot cleaning better than any polypropylene or wool carpet would. And it will be installed over Dunlop Springtred underlay which makes it feel like you’re walking on air. Yay!

But we didn’t stop there. After countless quotes from a trek through all of Cannington’s flooring shops, we knew that our dream of bamboo, engineered or timber flooring was out of the question. All that we could go for was laminate. But when we found an almost-indestructible version at the Carpet Call stand, we had to give it a go.

Anything that could potentially withstand Sky’s claws was always going to be a winner, so when the salesman attacked the flooring with a set of keys and it came out unscathed, we were sold. It’s the Classic 1060 by German flooring company Parador, although the picture shows the 1050. The only difference is the thickness—ours is 8mm—but the colours available are exactly the same:

We haven’t decided on the actual shade, and we don’t have to until the day we want it installed, which is hyper convenient.

The total pricetag? Let’s not speak of it, but we can reveal it was a bargain (we’re talking $5000 less!) compared to what we’ve been quoted in the last couple of weeks…

Brownie points for both of us 🙂