$3500 question, WTF trade

So as I mentioned yesterday, Cindy and I headed back to Home Depot last night to talk to the flooring guy about more exact numbers associated with options.  The first thing we did was go over the quote where the entire main living space would be done in the ceramic tile that looks like wood.  As we went line by line in the quote we started crossing off grunt labor prep work as Cindy and I had decided we would just bite the bullet and do that part of the job ourselves. We also committed to be the delivery service for the raw materials, saving $300 HD would charge us to drop it at our door.

By the time we were done crossing out line items of expense it added up to a whopping $3500 off the original estimate which was pretty amazing.  We then had to price out the three options we were considering which are wood looking tile in the entire main living area and carpeting the bedrooms, wood looking tile in great room area and a strip leading from the front door, creating a visual separation for the dining room and office (carpet), or just re-carpeting everything that is carpet now.  Option A is most expensive and option C is least expensive with roughly $3000 between the two.

Anthony, our Home Depot guy was very knowledgeable and thorough in explaining our options and the way things are handled.  We left there with all the info we needed.  I told him we had to think about which option we were going to go with.

So when Cindy and I got home we tried to envision the options.  Cindy’s gut reaction is just to tile everything in the main area since she is a Florida native and ceramic tile is more widely used around here.  Being a PA native I have always lived in homes where carpet was the dominant flooring surface and I prefer walking around with soft carpet under my toes.  Tile obviously has more durability and next to no issues with dirt/staining, a problem I obviously have had with two dogs in the house.

I had a very hard time picturing the floor with the tile and had anxiety regarding how it would turn out.   The logical part of me realizes it should look great and will dramatically change the appearance of the space.  The new carpet we picked out is a darker color too so even just laying that down everywhere would have a less dramatic but still significant visual impact.  After some further discussion Cindy and I agreed that tile in the main area would be the better option, now it was deciding between the two options with doing so, including or excluding the front office and dining room.

Cindy’s initial reaction was to just tile it all.  I was wishy washy about it.  I was more of a proponent of a tile walkway leading from the front door to the great room area, creating a visual separation from the office and dining room which could still be carpet.  Since I like the feel of carpet and I spend such a good chunk of my time in the office, having new rug in there makes sense to me.  Yes, having carpet in the dining room where food is normally served is not ideal but our dining room is actually utilized for eating meals once or twice a year, tops.

Of course I have to think about the dogs as well.  From an owners perspective, tile is the way to go as it won’t care what sort of excrement is expelled upon it as well as not trapping the incredible amounts of fur that comes off the dogs.  From a dogs perspective it is mixed.  During brutal summers Nicki loves to lay on cool tile but she also loves soft carpet as well to sprawl out on a good deal of the time.

After some back and forth pro’s and cons with Cindy we agreed on the idea of the tile strip from the front door with the dining room and office getting new carpet.  As I am typing this out, as well as getting feedback from Randall and Jeremy, both of whom are in the “all tile in the main area” camp, I find myself pushed back into the pool of uncertainty.  Carpeting the two front rooms also has a price advantage of over $1500 but that is not the driving factor.  I just want to make sure that I am not choosing a flooring layout too heavily based on resale value as opposed to comfort and personal preference since I have no near term plans to sell my home.

So I was shocked to see the headline about the Eagles having a trade of Lesean McCoy to the Bills pretty much locked up.  The trade would send him to Buffalo in exchange for a young linebacker from Chip Kelly’s old school of Oregon, named Kiko Alonso. (never heard of him)

When I read the details of the proposed trade I didn’t feel much better.  Yes the driving force behind the deal is to clear salary cap space since McCoy was due to make almost 10 million dollars this year. But WTF, McCoy is one of the premier running backs in the league.  Alonso had a strong rookie season but missed ALL OF LAST year with an ACL tear, an injury that you never know how an athlete is going to recover from.  It almost seems like trading a Corvette for a Camry.  Sure your monthly payments are less but you are losing a lot of performance.

Yes McCoy underperformed last year, especially during the first half of the season where he did next to nothing.  However to trade him away for a 3rd year linebacker that spent his entire second year on IR seems pretty damn looney to me.  Some proponents of the trade will say this move as well as a few other cuts the Eagles announced (Trent Cole) will free up a bunch of cap space so the team can be aggressive in free agency.  My question is exchanging value for value.  Is dumping McCoy worth 10 million dollars in cap space?  I personally don’t think so.

Chip Kelly seems very interested in getting former Oregon players on the Eagles roster.  In addition to Alonso, rumors have been circulating that Kelly is trying to do whatever he can to get in a position to draft Marcus Mariota, the Oregon QB, despite the Eagles drafting in a position way too low to get him.  The speculation is Kelly is willing to practically give away the farm to get him which again makes me nervous.

Although statistically Nick Foles was not great before he got injured last year, he was still leading the team to wins, something Mark Sanchez was not as good at.  I think to dismiss Foles and mortgage the future for Mariota would not be very smart based on the long and fabled history of highly rated college QB’s falling on their face once they reach the NFL.

The Eagles off season is shaping up to be quite an interesting soap opera.