The pain surging through my knees is more than I can bare. I'm almost to the point of using a walker.
Of course this is all the fault of Shaw Flooring, the company that not only manufactures the sadistic product known as laminate flooring but they are also behind the 'easy install it yourself' how-to video.
You know, the video where the beautiful people get in front of the video camera with the very nicely pressed khaki pants and denim (or polo)shirt, and show you how easy it is to do things like install wood flooring, rebuild an engine, or establish peace in the Middle East.
At no time do these people show signs of stress, fatigue and in no way do they ever perspire.
It's so easy and effort free!
I have to admit that I swallowed this fabrication of the truth hard. I wanted to much to believe that removing one floor only to replace it with another could be done easily within an eight hour day, all without so much as wrinkle anywhere on my clothes.
It had to be true because the people in the IKEA video did the very same thing. Hell, they were dancing and having dinner on their new floor only hours after they started!
My knees both submitted requests for a six week vacation today and I would love to give them the time off but this weekend we're supposed to start another giant festival of pain and suffering in the place called the Master Bedroom.
Join the fray by reading through and commenting at the end.
We're about to begin the Great Laminate Flooring Debacle of '02 - but we've about determined that a professional - someone who is paid to sweat and blow his knees out - will be doing the work for us. We've got enough to do, what with finishing up the Master Bath (11 months and counting on that remodel), painting the Daughter's Room (she insisted on Pepto-Bismol Pink), and beginning the slow, yet mysteriously satisfying destruction and rebuilding of the Kitchen (wife wants all-new stainless-steel appliances; husband wants more cabinet space; nobody wants to do the work themselves).
To wit: I understand.
The original thinking was that doing this project on our own would be fun, satisfying, and cost saving. Now I think it's just obvious that I will never be able to replace Norm on This Old House, no matter how many power tools I buy.
We've been wanting to get on Trading Spaces, but we don't know our neighbors well enough to risk it.
You're a brave man Bob... Have you seen the kind of hideous "redesigns" that show produces (for the most part). Your duaghter's pepto-bismol pink room would be the least of your worries.
Hey Greg - how about an edit feature for us dyslexics??????
You get IKEA instruction videos in the states (you're in the states, right?), in Sweden, where IKEA is from we only get a small pamphlet with numbered instructions..
Floor by numbers? Damn, perhaps America truly is the land of dreams. Although this floor is about as Communist as it gets.
Actually, we've liked quite a few of the redesigns that have turned up on Trading Spaces. But it depends on the designer: Vern and Doug usually do very nice work, just not always our style. Laurie and Genevieve (sp?) usually do nice work, again: not always our style. Frank is very good at what he does, but way not our style. And then there's Hildi. Hildi, Hildi, Hildi... "straw plastered to the walls" Hildi. "Couches spray-painted hot pink" Hildi. She's the other reason we're afraid to go on the show. Nevermind that we don't know our neighbors well enough - we're afraid we'd end up with Hildi working on our room, and we'd end up with cat fur glued around the television screen and kudzu hanging from the puce-colored ceiling.
"If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:"
... then you've never been to Ikea. Chin up, Greg, it could be worse. You could be moving and you could have thrown your back out with the very first box you lifted.
Like me.
does all IKEA self-assembly stuff come with video instructions in the US, or is it just this one floor-thing? seriously, i want to know..
Tomas, I've seen the video only in the store but I suspect that you have to buy it for something like $9.95.
Um, sounds like it's going great. Well, going somewhere, anyway.
All hail Norm from This Old Housel. All hail!
Since the flooding from our washing machine last night, we just might be working on our own flooring solutions sooner than we had earlier thought.
Alan, when we moved into this place one of the first things I purchased was braided hose for the washing machine.
Good luck with the flood.