Breezeway 7: floors (the honeymoon's over)

We came home on Thursday to a big disappointment. The floor was installed, which should have been very exciting and satisfying, but instead, it is so high above our original floor that it looks like they literally just laid the new floor on top of it. The builder told us the height difference would be 1/4 to a 1/2 inch, later saying that it would be closer to the 1/2. It is 3/4 inch. It doesn't sound like much, but there is a significant difference that looks sloppy.

The transition pieces are temporary and more gradual ones will be in stalled, but you can see the significant difference in height at the edge between the dining room and kitchen (top) and between the living room and new room.

This could cause some significant issues in the kitchen - most importantly we aren't sure we would be able to remove the dishwasher when the time came to replace it (hopefully not for a while, since it's only 5 months old, but that would not be a pleasant surprise in 5-8 years). Mostly, we are angry because it isn't what was promised, and yet apparently has been set for some time as the wood was laid in the new room above the floor joists and subfloor that were laid out weeks ago. Plus the french doors and baseboard trim had clearly been measured exactly to this height (shoe molding still needs to be installed, so the rough edge will not be visible).

Needless to say, we are pretty disappointed. Our builder continues to be nice to work with and has promised to try to do some things to mitigate - possibly sanding it down more than they usually would - and even (or so he says now) rip it up and do it again if we are really unhappy. But that would mean going back almost to the start, when they framed the floor, so I can't really imagine that right now. I guess the problem was mostly in the kitchen - they decided to remove the vinyl but not the board underneath it, fearing that the subfloor below that was too weak and creaky. So they were left with removing only a fraction of an inch (vinyl is really thin) and then having to level everything to that. Now we regret not just leaving the vinyl and putting the new floor only in the new room, to at least avoid an awkward transition at the dining room. We will see how this develops. The floor itself, still unsanded and unfinished, is absolutely beautiful.

Yesterday they took off the doors and worked more on the trim, meaning that the room is open now. Now that we can view this as part of the house, we really love the look - except the floors. As we hoped, the room gets a lot of natural light - much more than the rest of the house - and opens up the space significantly.

Now we wait while our builder works with the floor people and carpenter to try to come up with some solutions. I suspect we either will have to live with it (with some fixes for specific issues like a long transition piece and carving out a way to remove the dishwasher) or go back to almost square one to right after they installed HVAC and electric. Stay tuned.