Moving is Fun!!!

Well, it depends on whose opinion it is you're asking, really. Vee and I hated moving so much that the sight of our cluttered, tiny unit almost drove us to tears. But someone enjoyed it...

See her? She's in the picture somewhere... No?

How 'bout now? ...still nothing? Oh, come on, you've never played "Where's Waldo?" before? (Fun fact: Waldo also goes by Wally and a plethora of other names, depending on the country.)

Okay, there she is. That's Em, our six-year-old furball.

This was hours after we moved in, so she was still a little apprehensive and probably decided the highest place would be safest.

But overall, she seemed to think the whole moving thing was a big adventure. She got to explore the mysterious top side of the bed slats...

Lounge in a fortress of cardboard boxes...

And try out new nap spots. Nothing's better than fresh, warm laundry, right?

So much fun, and she hasn't even explored the deck yet!

Look at her, all curious about the goings-on outside, but didn't even know that she could use the cat door that's right beside her to slink out...

Choosing Laminate Floor: Cheap vs. Expensive

We originally wanted cheap laminate floors. We just couldn't see how the expensive ones were better. But after a lot of enlightening research, we decided to dig deeper into our pocket and go with a middle-of-the-line product. After all, installing the laminate ourselves will save us a lot of money. 

So how does one know what to look for when choosing laminate flooring?

1.  Laminate products come in thicknesses of 7 to 12mm. The thicker they are, the better (and the more expensive). Thicker planks feel and sound more solid. It's hard to explain, but going into a home improvement store and knocking on laminate planks of different thicknesses gave us a good idea.

2. The flooring specialist in Home Depot told us that cheaper laminates are harder to install. He recommended products that are $2.50/sq. feet and above for beginner DIYers.

3.  According to the same guy, premium laminates look more real. Laminate flooring basically imitates real hardwood. Each hardwood plank is different because it's a natural product, but the patterns on laminates are printed on, so repetitions are bound to happen. More expensive products usually have fewer repetitions.

Pattern repetition on our laminate floor planks.

Interestingly, the flooring specialist also said that the grain or the finish (glossy or matte) of the planks didn't really affect how real they look. But I notice that top-of-the-line laminates often have a glossy finish, so maybe the gloss gives a more polished look .

4. Additionally, I think each individual laminate plank should only have the pattern of one separate hardwood plank on it. Some laminate products have wide planks, with each plank trying to pass off as multiple hardwood planks. These have printed-on borders between each fake hardwood plank. The thing is, under some lighting conditions and/or after being used for some time, it can be pretty obvious that the actual joints of the laminate planks don't match the fake printed joints.

See the white lines of the real planks?

In the photo above, I've highlighted the edges of the laminate planks, which have discolored over time. It's now painfully obvious that they are laminate planks and not real hardwood, because each plank is masquerading as three planks. Even before the laminates lose color, it's possible to see the edges of the real planks under some lighting conditions.

Price considerations aside, from personal experience, it pays to talk to someone in charge of the apartment or townhouse complex before buying laminates. We went through some unnecessary drama just because we didn't ask our strata manager to specify the kind of flooring we have to get to meet the building requirements.

Anyway, we got ourselves laminates that are 12mm thick for $2.49 per square feet. Because we got a 19-percent discount, we only paid $2.02 per square feet (plus tax) for them. Each individual piece looks like a separate hardwood plank. We've installed the laminate on two-thirds of the living room and so far, we think the repetition is not too obvious.

We think we did really well choosing our flooring and we give ourselves little pats on the back every time we see the installed laminate because it just looks so good.

Our Laminate Floor is (Finally) Here!

One week from our order date, we got a call from Home Depot saying that they had our laminate flooring at the store. That was great news, because at first they told us it was going to take at least two weeks for us to get our flooring.

The laminate floor boxes were pretty heavy, so it was a good thing that we found some shopping trolleys in the parking lot. Instead of having to take the boxes one by one, we hauled six at a time with these babies.

Let me zoom in on one part of the scene above.

Vee has done this at least twice, taking off his gloves and leaving them where he last put his hands. They look a little creepy, like they come alive when you're not looking.

By the way, you know those grocery stores with trolleys that automatically lock their wheels once you're a certain distance away from the store? Apparently, they lie because we see some of those "locking" trolleys in the parking lot and they work fine.

Anyway, this is what our new floor looks like. It's called Oslo Walnut from Beaulieu Canada. It's a nice medium brown and so far we're really happy with our decision.

But our laminate-floor-shopping experience was a saga.

First, the cheapskates that we were, we liked the 97-cent-per-square-feet laminates with nice pattern and coloring.

Then, after talking to a flooring specialist at a Home Depot store and getting some advice on choosing laminates, we decided on a 2.99-bucks-per-square-feet product with attached foam underlayment. Also, there was a 10-percent-off promotion for flooring products and 10-percent-off promotion for the first purchase on new Home Depot cards. In total, we got 19 percent off and also saved a little because we didn't having to buy a separate underlayment.

Then, our building manager said he wanted at least a certain level of soundproofing. We went back to Home Depot and found out that:
1. the laminate product we ordered did not have the required level of soundproofing in the attached underlayment.
2. we had to get the most expensive underlayment product in the store to get that kind of soundproofing.
3. we couldn't just add the soundproofing product under the said laminate because the attached underlayment would make the floor unstable.
4. therefore, we had to cancel our original order and choose another product.
5. the product we finally decided to buy instead had to be special-ordered and could take up to three weeks to arrive.
6. therefore, we might have to live on concrete sub-floor for a few days while we wait for the laminates to arrive.
7. Home Depot was going to honor our 19-percent discount again because it was the last day of the promotion on the flooring products and even though it wasn't technically our first purchase. This was the huge silver lining in the horrible shopping trip that it was.

But now that our new laminates are here, only about one week from the order date, we've almost forgotten all about the buying process. We're just happy we don't have to live on concrete because we can at least finish the flooring in one room before moving in. And it turned out for the best, because a friend offered to help deliver these boxes to our apartment (saving us $60 in delivery) and we spent the one-week wait time stripping and cleaning the concrete sub-floor anyway.

Stripped!

The floor, that is. It's bare now.

We used to have nasty old carpet all over most of the apartment.

When we came to see the apartment before actually making an offer, we saw that the carpet was already peeling off the floor in one corner. True enough, it was quite easy to pull the carpet off. It was what came after that wasn't so easy. But let's start from the beginning.

We first cut a section of the carpet with a utility knife so it's easier to manage...

Then pulled it off the walls and floor...

And rolled it up.

Then we did the same thing with the foam padding that was underneath the carpet.

And now the concrete sub-floor was visible. See the roll of carpet that's in front in the photo above? It was too long so I had to use a utility knife to cut it in half. That was actually harder than just cutting it before rolling it up.

And see all the stains on the carpet? That's why I vowed, then and there, never to install carpet in any of my future homes. We had to wear a mask because of all the dust that was trapped in the carpet. And dust mites were probably flying all over the place, too, when we were flinging all that old carpet around. *shudder*

Creepy invisible critters probably hiding in  your carpet.

Anyway, the other difficult thing was removing the tack strips around the room. These were the wooden strips that held the carpet in place. Vee used a hammer, a chisel and a pry bar to remove them. Then he used the back of the hammer to remove any tacks left in the concrete. The tacks left little holes in the concrete (experts in DIY forums call them "divots", apparently). But we're going to cover the holes with new flooring anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

Those tacks looked really, really sharp and scary, by the way.

I freaked out a little every time I saw these strips, just as I do every time I see anything sharp. I blame Final Destination for the mental images in my head of flying sharp things trying to kill people. More than once I had the image of an inanimate object deliberately tripping me and me falling, head-first, onto those tacks. Damn you, Final Destination. *shake fist*

Anyway, I then removed the baseboards on the walls. This was actually pretty easy. I first used a utility knife to separate the baseboard from the wall if any paint was in the crack.

Then, I stuck a putty knife in the crack between the baseboard and the wall and wiggled it around to separate the baseboard from the wall. When there was enough space, I wedged a pry bar in the crack and pulled outward at an angle. I started at one end of the wall and slowly moved to the other end. This was pretty easy and was actually rather fun.

And finally, the floor was stripped down to its birthday suit.

That took about a whole week to finish, since we had work to do. One day, Vee went there early and said he got a surprise for me. Turned out he stripped the tiled portion all by himself with a pry bar. He had a hammer and a chisel, too, but turned out the tiles were pretty easy to remove for my stalwart, hard-as-nails hunk of a man.

A little background. We used to have a weird tiled patch on the floor in the entryway to our apartment. The door at the top left corner of the photo leads to the apartment hallway. The door on the left side of the photo leads to the bathroom and the floor is vinyl there. The top right corner is the kitchen with vinyl floor. And the gray line at the bottom right corner of the photo marked where the tile ended and the carpet begun. So it was just this small section that was tiled. And it bugged the hell out of both of us because it was so weird and awkward.

But anyway, they're all gone now, so we're happy. Good riddance, tiles and carpet!

How I Fixed Our Toilet Leak by Myself

It seems like I spoke too soon when I said we had no more leak in our toilet after we removed the old one and installed a shiny new one.

Yep. It leaked.

See the puddle of water on the floor?

But I managed to fix the leak. By myself, no less. *grin*

We first thought the leak wasn't from the toilet, but from the water supply pipe in the wall behind the toilet (visible in the background of the photo above, to the left of the toilet itself). We were already thinking of calling someone we knew who was in construction to help us with it. Nothing scares us more than plumbing problems.

But then, with the old toilet, it never leaked unless someone flushed. And we didn't flush the new toilet all night because we hadn't even moved in. And yet here we were, with a puddle of water on the floor. So it couldn't have been the pipe.

Then, Vee turned off the water supply valve...

 

And when he checked the toilet again, the floor was flooded and the tank was empty. We found our culprit! Turned out we didn't tighten the bolts and nuts that connected the tank to the bowl enough. A quick poke at the bolts revealed that one of them was wet.

So Vee tightened the loose bolt, turned on the water and let the tank fill up. He turned the water supply off again and we went out for dinner. When we got back, the floor was flooded and the tank was empty again. But we were tired, so we went to sleep and left the problem for another day.

While Vee was at work yesterday, I decided to fix the leak. I didn't take any pictures because I was worried I was going to drop the toilet tank the whole time and didn't want any distraction. Plus, we had just moved at that time and I couldn't find my camera's memory card.

But for illustrative purposes, here's what the problem bolts look like.

Basically, I removed the tank and placed it on the vanity. I removed the bolts and then put them back on again. I poured a cup of water into the tank and checked for any leaks. When I was satisfied with how tight the bolts were, I then placed the tank back on the toilet base.

Now we have a leak-free toilet! And I didn't drop the tank even once! Yay me!