the case of the pain in the *toot* floors

we started EARLY MAY 2008. ripping the flooring in the computer room. put in underlayment. felt good... on to the living room...

here's where we made our mistake. u should have ripped out everything, inspect the condition of the sub floors BEFORE buying our laminate. on the day this particular pic was taken, our new flooring came (ohhh... i dunno... all the way from canada but made in malaysia). we noticed a hump n as we proceed with tearing the old flooring... the significant slooping of about 2 inches from where i stood taking the pic to the fireplace wall.

chot's attempt to repair the hump.


this is in August, in an attempt to fix the slope, we (well by this point, i have given up, so...) chot piled layers of wood. but it seemed like the floor is moving each time. he put on inches on one side, came back the next day n found out it was higher. so off he went, rising up another section to match up the previous mistake... for months n months he kept at it. layers n layers of wood.

we (yes, we... i had to help when he pored the self leveling cement)... problem is it doesn't really self level itself despite us making it runnier than recommended. plus, for such a large problem to fix... this stuff pored in batches just doesn't cut it... what would cut it is a cement truck.

a couple of weeks after this pic was taken, chot came to the end of his "by hook or by crook, i'll lay the laminate down" insistent/ persistent. came to my "let's cut our loses n put in carpet" (dark) side.

also at this point, we were asking each other, how much weight can the sub floor hold. don't want to continue pouring cement n then having the whole floor fall into the basement!!!...


this was taken Oct. 26 2008, the night before the carpet guys were to come. chot took the day off to finish undoing all the layers of wood, all the layers of cement, grind each n every stapler head n put in new underlayment. he did it all himself...

the next morning, he was still cutting bits n pieces of underlayment in his handsome work clothes.


we all suffered i tell u!!!... he suffered from being tired with work, trying to finish his old pile before moving to the new position. suffered from fulfilling what is required of a jump to a new company. then came the orientation he was made to go to on top of the old pile of work he still had to finish... on top of the new pile of work he was given... (he is working in the same office, before he was a contract worker, now he's ammm... not. so his old boss can still find him n ask about that old pile of work).

came home n had to face the floors!!!... nuff said.

i suffered coz he wasn't around to take over nura duty. all the time i was experiencing 1st trimester symptoms... n an exhausted mother of a 1 year old.

nura suffered... from being cooped up in either her room, or my room or the kicthen. then it got cold outside... more trapped. she got sick (ok... all suffer when she's sick) with a runny nose. then she got a flu shot, fever from teething. not sleeping through the night, cranky n fussy. still teething at this point...

but alas, here we are 5 months later. we have our living room back. pic is of nura trying out the new carpet. she's unsure of all the space but happy regardless.