Laminate Floor!

As Monica has mentioned, this weekend we undertook the big project of laying wood laminate in the living room.

Going in, we were thinking that it would take the whole weekend: and we were certainly right.

Day 1 began after work on Friday. Monica and I cleared the room - took up the carpet - and discovered two alarming things.

1. The carpet pad was glued to the floor. This was huge. It meant that instead of just taking out some staples or something like that - we were left scraping gluey carpet pad off of cement. This may not sound too bad... and in several places: it really was fine. In other places though, it was terrible. We were never able to get it ALL off and after 6 hours had it "good enough" to allow the laminate to lay "pretty darn flat" over the top of it.

The stuff around the outside is the glued pad on the floor

2. There was a sewer access point under our carpet. This sucker stood up a good inch+ over the floor and was NOT going to make laying a laminate floor over the top very simple. There was definitely going to have to be some fancy stepping to make this work.

Not good

Day 2 began with my parents coming over to start helping out. Actually, that's only partly true: Day 2 actually started with my Dad playing a 3 set tennis match in the 95 degree heat!

Anyway, it was decided that the PVC pipe in the middle of the room wasn't going to work - we removed the cap - stuffed a rag down there (to stop any odors, although it didn't smell) and started filing/cutting/wishing that thing down to as level with the floor as possible. After some serious work on the thing - it was down to a very acceptable level. Actually, in the end it was the builders cement work around the pipe that was more trouble than the pipe itself.

My parents brought over some serious firepower - and we used a lot of it. Saws used included: jig, hand, skill, miter, and who could forget my Dad's favorite: table. You should have seen the display my Dad put on with that table saw - making some cuts that I would never try for fear of messing up the board - and then many others that I wouldn't make for fear of losing some fingers. He's quite the pro with that thing at one point showing off by twirling a hoolahoop on one foot while making cuts. Ok, maybe not that far: but it was quite the display.

The process of putting in each flight ends up being quite labor intensive. That is - you have to attach all of the boards in your flight end-to-end. After that is completed, you hook the entire flight into the one before it. The trick there is that you can't put in half a flight at once... so, we basically NEEDED to have at least 4 people to get the thing in.

Day 3 began with the majority of the room finished but the toughest cuts right ahead of us. Following another incredible display on the table saw - we had our boards ready to fit around the stairs.

After those were in we boarded up the top of our PVC pipe (not even worth a picture it was so easy at that point!) and were on to the trim. The trim did get interesting as we found out the channel between the floor and the ceramic tile was too interesting. Here Dad took his table saw display over to the skill saw and widened it out just right.

We are SO happy with the end result. It all looks great and best of all: it's done! You'll all have to come check it out in person soon!

More pics here

Office so bright... I gotta wear shades

Continuing coverage of our evolving third floor:



As you can see, it's definitely a little bright in here in the morning but it's not so bad... as long as I wear sunglasses! Hey, if your big complaint about work is that you have to wear sunglasses: I think you're doing alright. Of course, the shades are forthcoming though.

So, anyway: How 'bout that monitor? It's ridiculous: 30 inch HD cinema display, from the folks at apple. No more minimizing/swapping between windows: I can have almost everything I have running displayed at once with very little overlap. VERY handy. It's actually a little annoying when I need to unplug and take the laptop somewhere offsite: I am very spoiled!



Rusty has been so well behaved during the day. He's eager to have attention when it's offered but more obedient than I could have ever hoped for when I need him to lay down and give me some space.

Third Floor

It's been quite a while since I've posted about the condo, but we just completed some painting up on our third floor.

Check out Monica's post on the topic too: Tangled Up In Blue.

We're still not completely sure about the long term plan up there. At the moment we're thinking about putting a desk up there for me to work at - I think it would be very nice to have something up there near the big window. We're also thinking of adding some more furniture up there and (at some point) biggie-sizing our TV. Of course, other than the desk (which will probably be decided on next week) - there isn't really a timeline, but in the meantime: it's blue!

We painted 4 walls (counting the wall with the stripe as 1). Three different shades of blue are in play and our initial reaction is that we're quite happy with it.

Here you can see the 'stripe' that I was talking about on the left, leading into a slightly different shade on the right.


This is the only wall with anything hung on it at this point.


And a couple other shots:

Red makes me hungry

This is the last of the painting projects for a while. We love the way it has turned out! I think this really brings the kitchen and dining room together- both have several red components- and now we have our very own accent wall. The color is called "cherry cobbler," and it actually is more of a deep red in- person.

Office Space

The next installment in the condo tour: The Office.

It's so nice to actually have the room for a dedicated office. In our last appartment we sort of started with an office, but it morphed into a storage area when we realized that it just wasn't practical living without ANY storage (no basement storage, nothing!). After a while of having my bike sitting next to the desk I think we just sort of realized that we were kidding ourselves.

Not the case here though! An office in all it's glory. The desk pictured is the one that the movers told Monica was "too heavy to carry up the stairs" - only to be carried up as soon as I got home by my neighbor and I. Now, while it's true that both of us are consistenly rated top 10 in the World's Strongest Man competition... it really wasn't that bad!

A little painting

Now that I'm armed again (Monica bought a camera for my birthday) I'm thinking of giving you guys a little visual tour of the condo. Here's my first installment:

After another painful Packers loss this afternoon, Monica and I painted our downstairs bathroom. Not that you can complain about a room in your house being too large but this bathroom is kinda out of control, so we went with a darker color (brown) to try to tame it a bit. We've also added a little cabinet, some bamboo blinds, and a couple of small pictures (not in the picture below). I think we're both quite happy with how it's turned out so far.



So, while covering an amazing amount of ground with the paint roller this afternoon I was thinking: I wonder who invented this marvelous invention that is saving the world millions (? at least very high thousands) a year. And why do we not have a national holiday for him or his face on a stamp or something!?! Well, it turns out we don't have a national holiday for him because he was a Canuck! Mr. Norman Breakey not only invented the paint roller but also a better way of tapping beer kegs! Of course, he didn't get anything out of the invention since it was immediately stolen from him.

If anyone's ever deserved to be on currency...

We made it!

Well, we are in the new condo! There are still many unopened boxes floating around but it's actually starting to look more like a home and less like a carboard box dump! and my commute this morning? AWESOME. I will be driving an hour less every day which is an incredible amount of extra-life that I've just acquired!

Many thanks to Rob and Brandon for the help on Friday. Co-MVP honors go to those Fox boys. Thanks a ton for all the help guys, it is very much appreciated!

Monica had a second bridal shower on Saturday and we are quite thankful for all the gifts! It's amazing how generous people are - and now we have all this extra space so we can actually have a place for it all!

As for this week: there's a lot of excitement about the unpacking, and I'm really looking forward to getting back out there for MAUL. After a couple weeks of skipping, largely due to presentation preparation - it's going to be "interesting" to see how well I do out there.