Heated Floors and Marble a Luxury? Maybe not.

We were cross country skiing in Burgenland, a forgotten corner of Austria.  It was wet and cold and we were staying in an old Castle

Our room had heated floors.  Wonder upon wonders.  Certainly not what we expected

Unbeknown to me, Gene made a mental note that if and when we would build a house it would have heated floors

And so it does

Our house has mostly marble floors.  I know, you say that they must be expensive.  Yes, and so is an in-floor-heating system.  However, it is a one time investment and it pays off handsomely

By now all of you know that I live in the country and in a very small town

I appointed myself as the general contractor of our new house

In 1994, the Internet was not what it is today.  Everything had to be found and researched the hard way

After begging and pleading with several companies to please make the 2 hour trip from the big city to lay our marble floors, we realized that we would probably have to tackle the job ourselves.

Gene gave a decisive NO.  I reminded him that in addition to the cost of marble,   each square foot would cost an additional $10 to lay.  This cost without extra cuts and extra designs.  Total cost over $25,000.

My advise for Gene, "get a pair of knee pads, please" and I will be your aide d' camp.

And so, we began

I don't know what gave us the courage to begin with a difficult pattern and a difficult area

Our entire lower floor (except the library) is covered  in Desert Peach and trimmed with Rojo

We were still living in the "Big City".  We worked on our house on weekends

 As we gained more experience we became bolder with our designs

Cutting curves into marble was not easy, I left that task to Gene

 The stairs in the hallway are not marble I painted them to look like marble

The house itself was built by a fantastic crew of young men headed up by Jeff Tucker, a local young builder

For 4 month, every weekend we laid our floors

Envirotherm of Salt Lake City designed our "Buderus" heating system.  Because we have so many large windows, heating coils were concentrated in certain areas.  Seven separate heating zones can be regulated.  Hot water for household needs is part of the system

It may be minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit outside,  we are cozy and warm on the inside, as we were many years ago in an old castle in Burgenland

Gina

Tooday I'm linking to  http://romantichome.blogspot.com/