$3500 family deductible (think it went up from $3000 last year). With Marmalade’s employer we have no choice in plans since they have such a small office in Oregon.
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Um, jeez. I felt like my deductible was high but now I feel like it’s REALLY high. It’s $9100 per individual (I don’t remember the family deductible). But the deductible and OOP max are the same. And I hit it this year and will hit it next plan year (and will probably get the higher plan—since, you know, cancer), so yay free healthcare.
Free except for the premiums, that is, which I do pay 
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good free tools/websites for playing with different room furniture layouts?
A deductible follow up: I’ve got about $2600 counted toward my $3200 deductible now, but my pharmacy has given me some coupons or credits so I have actually only paid about $1200 of that. I’m very excited about this unexpected bonus, it will be so much less expensive than I anticipated.
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So! I and my partner just got possession of the house we bought. Turns out the sellers’ furniture was judiciously covering some nasty-looking carpet 
. I hate carpet in general, so I’d like to replace with a hard flooring. Anyone have recommendations for material? Right now I’m between hardwood and LVP, but could potentially be convinced in favor of another material (except tile, lol). Have not yet gotten quotes on any type of flooring.
Deets: Colorado, so (lack of) humidity may be a concern. This is for an upstairs bedroom and office. Partner and I both run hot, so harder flooring being colder is not a concern.
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Hard flooring will likely end up being louder than carpeted flooring, if that’s a concern, like with work from home situations.
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Do you want to do it yourself? I ended up getting the LifeProof LVP from Home Depot and I’ve been pretty happy with it! I think with two people it would be relatively easy to install if you are somewhat handy, especially since it’s not a huge area.
It’s definitely not perfect nor the fanciest, I do have a few areas that have chipped in high traffic places, but in my bedroom/upstairs it’s in basically perfect condition. Also I don’t find it to be cold or loud at all! My dad did make sure to go through and re-secure the subfloor before laying the LVP, and it made a huge difference in noise/creakiness. None of it was warped or anything, I guess over time the nails start to back out slightly, he just pounded every single nail a few times and the creaks basically vanished.
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I had an apartment that got recarpeted and the workers fixed the subfloor creaks before putting down the new flooring. I don’t know what they did but it was great.
I want to say once upon a time I heard that there’s an underlayment that can help with noise? Or cushion, or something? Worth asking about when you do go floor shopping.
We also found that the hard flooring sat lower than the carpet so the gaps under doors is larger now. That quarter inch-ish makes a difference. 
When we made the change from carpet to hard floor I think we went with LVP for price reasons. We’ve had two house floods since then (washer drain got stopped up, then toilet backed up two years later) and we were able to pull up all the LVP, use prodigious amounts of fans/dehumidifiers, then put the LVP floors back down. I sincerely hope we’re done with house floods now.
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Oh yeah, this is definitely a thing. I was thinking like footsteps noise, which isn’t bad with the LVP, but the bigger door gaps do make a difference. I bought some adhesive door draft/noise stoppers, which I’ve never bothered to actually install, but I’ve read that they really help!
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Dog nails and kid sprinting are way louder on hard floors than wall to wall carpeted areas. Depends on how sound sensitive people are lol. I’m def on the high end there but most people don’t even think of it, so I make a point to mention it!
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I’m not sound sensitive, we have hard floors and big door gaps, and there is nowhere in my house where I cannot hear my kids, for better or for worse .
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Ok the dog nails are annoying haha. Oliver doesn’t come upstairs very often because he is always losing his stairs privileges (he can’t go up and down the stairs without totally wrecking himself) so I didn’t even think about it.
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It’s so fucking annoying when your office is closed and you’re on a call and your dog tikrikriktiktik up to sit outside your door, then tiktiktiktik down the hall as they pace and wait, then Tiktiktiktiktik over again…
Why yes I did replace all the wall to wall carpet with new carpet in our current house why do you ask I love the hardwood section we have but I’ve learned I can’t handle it everywhere!
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@Bracken_Joy @mountainmustache29 @meerkat @AnneBeddingfeld Thank you so much!!
I hadn’t considered the sound angle, so that’s definitely good to think about. The bedroom I’m not too worried about, as it’s above the laundry/workout room, but the office will be above my partner’s office. We do usually have a fair amount of white noise going - I wonder if that makes much of a difference? I’ll check with my partner to see what he thinks.
ETA I will say we currently have tile and noise/dog nails have never bothered me on that…my parents have bamboo and tile and ditto. I don’t know how similar the noise level would be, but at any rate still good to think about!
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I think sketchup is free.
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Dog(s) barking is much louder without carpeting. Dogs prefer carpeting - for traction at least.
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it does appear so. I’m going to need to do a few tutorials. it is not as easy as the stuff I was working with in 2015, but that has put on a freemium model that makes it irritating.
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We have lvp downstairs and I love it. Super easy maintenance wise, hasn’t scratched or dented in our size years with dog nails and general human clumsiness and furniture moving. I’ve been especially happy to have it the past few weeks because my hydroponic tower garden keeps leaking on us.
The plan is to install it upstairs when we finally accept the life disruption that will be replacing flooring on all the bedrooms. I do want to bulk up our underlayment to account for the lower profile compared to carpet and also add in some soundproofing between floors. There will still be many rugs in honor of Sir Prissy Pants (pictured) who refuses to sit on bare LVP.
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What is the “right” choice for backing up photos? External drive? Specific online backup? Google is threatening me and trying to get me to buy their storage and I don’t wanna.
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We got Oregon White Oak for the basement and it was not a budget option but I love it!
Depending on when your house was built, look under the carpet before you make any decisions! Our 1920’s home had original oak under the carpets so we had those refinished and stained.
I think clicking dog nails would drive me a little nuts but I love the sound of cats galloping around the house 
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