As I’m searching the market for my first home to buy, I’ve come to prioritize the desired from the necessary from the won’t-pull-the-trigger-without-this. And this is good floors. Simply put, you can’t cheat with flooring the way you can furniture (case in point, only a small handful of people can tell the difference between a couch from West Elm versus one from Design Within Reach, a coffee table from ABC Home versus one found for $25 at a flea market) and decor items (I bet no one would know which of my platters are from Target and which are from Peppercorn). Flooring is the single biggest item in any house and (I think next to the layout and proportion of items in a room) makes the biggest impact.

So splurge on your floors. My absolute favorite is Herringbone, pictured here from my old NYC apartment; floors so beautiful, I would have slept on them.

Just A Tip: Bamboo floors have been all the rage for a while because they are ‘green’. Take it from someone who has lived with them for two years: they mark if you so much as look at them wrong. There is nothing environmentally friendly about having to replace your bamboo floors every few years because they look like poo.