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Posted by Troppo on May 23, 2008, 7:52 am
>
>>
>>>
>>>> "EDS"> wrote
>>>>> Boring carpet over better floors. I basicly don't like carpet,
>>>>> probably because I'm not a neatnik, have 3 dogs, and it's easier
>>>>> and cleaner to sweep a hard floor.
>>>>
>>>> Same here, I don't care for carpet for all the regular reasons.
>>>> The only room with carpet in our current house is the master
>>>> bedroom, Berber-in good shape, and its gonna go when the bathroom
>>>> remodel is done. I'll probably put some maple laminate down as
>>>> thats what we had before and really liked it.
>>>> The rest of the house, other than wet areas (tile) has hardwood
>>>> floors-oak. My wife also has some throw rugs littered about the
>>>> areas.
>>>
>>> We go for throw rugs - small enough to chuck in the bath when they
>>> get dirty. Hardwood floor was out of reach; we have sealed and
>>> polished particleboard.
>>
>> Whoa, I'd like to see that as I never saw it before, never even
>> thought of it.
>> How about the seams, are they OK?
>
> Does it look sort of like "cork floors"?
Yes - cork is the nearest. Seams are mostly ok because the boards are
tongued and grooved - the tongue is a removable strip of neoprene.
Standard is "yellow tongue", red tongue is termite treated and costs
more, but we have found that termites ignore the untreated stuff provided
there is a something else around like pine. Edge joins must be made over
joists on a suspended floor, so if the cut is a bit ragged it can be
filled. The boards are 3.9m x 0.9m x 19mm thick. That's roughly 12 ft 9
1/2 by 2ft 11 1/2 by 3/4 inch. Current cost is $A37 a sheet.
The older type needed sanding, to get a smooth finish and remove the
manufacturer's labels. Latest version is clean and smooth, only needs a
couple of coats of varnish.
Have recently laid these sheets straight onto a concrete floor. Specs say
they can be laid without gluing, but we found that at least one long edge
of each sheet should be glued, also butt edges, and all edges for smaller
cut sheets.
Beats DIY tiling anyway ...
>>
>> Held up for 18 years but now showing its age. Been trying to
>>> find a decent floor polisher, something rugged with a bit of weight.
>>> Trouble is, on Ebay these seem to be regarded as "collector's
>>> items". "I don't want to put it on display - just want to polish the
>>> @!##?^& floor". So I'm going in for laminate as well.
>>
>> Try a military surplus site.
Don't get those over here in Oz - just small establishments selling
mostly army personal gear at astronomical prices :-(
Years ago working on building sites in the UK, it often looked like the
army was putting the buildings up - everyone wearing cheap army surplus.
>> Buffers/polishers are used big time in the barracks on the wood
>> floors, with Johnson paste wax.
Hmmm great stuff - I remember its characteristic smell - but having
trouble sourcing it :-(
>> The big heavy duty models, maybe 24" diameter and will wrench your
>> arm outta the socket if you don't have a stout pair.
>> Even if you can find one that doesn't work, blow motor, you can put
>> an old washer motor on it.
>> I wouldn't mind having one laying around.
Maybe I'll ask the contractor who cleans my office workplace. They run
them until they blow, but yes the motor looks the same as a couple of
tumble-drier motors I have lying around. Might be easier to find than one
of those little Hoover devices with twin brushes. I have one of those, at
least 40 years old, still going fine but a bit on the light side.
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Posted by Kris Krieger on May 21, 2008, 1:36 pm
>> Occasionally I will watch the shows on HGTV.
>>
>> I just don't understand, why the prices seem so far out of
>> reality...they redid an entire basement, extended a living room on
>> the ground floor and made it into a balcony for the master bedroom on
>> top, redid the landscape,
>
>> all new kitchen...and the total price was like 38K? Where have they
>> bee
> n?
>> 38K is not even enough for the kitchen cabinets.
>
> You're right. $38m is rediculous for a kitchen. About a month ago I
> bought a HOUSE for $40m -- $41.5 with closing costs. And it came with
> kitchen cabinets. And if I pull up the rugs guess what's there -- you
> got it -- vintage 1925 hardwood floors.
>
>>
>> Tonight I watched the House Hunters show, where they showed three
>> houses t
> o
>> a couple and they choose. The wife said "I don't like the location,
>> it'
> s
>> too far from work, and the rooms are small, however, I really like
>> the closet door decor and the brush nickle finish feature of the
>> faucets". Hmmm...ok...brush nickle faucet feature - checked - sold!!!
>>
>> MC
>
> Unbelivably, I think a lot of people buy based on the furnishing and
> paint color. Frankly, I'd be embarrassed to be a buyer on some of
> those shows when it shows the profit the flipper is getting. People
> could do basically the same thing themselves and save a bundle -- but
> people want "move in condition".
>
In some cases, paint color is significant - I looked at one house, back
in Massachusetts, where *every* room was painted with *very* dark colors
- one was a super-dark burgundy color, another was a super-dark pine
green, all the hallways were a shadeof blue that was so dark it almost
looked black, anotehr was a dark tomato-type red, and so on. There was
no way I could have lived with those colors, so, if the rest of the house
had been such that I'd wanted it,. I'd take $$ off the offer to pay for
the repainting, or demand that it be repainted - which would involve a
hell of a lot more, goven teh colors, than just slapping up one coat of
paint. Then there are the places that are completely wallpapered inside
with all sorts of floras and stripes and paisleys and so on. THat has to
be stripped and then the walls repainted (merely painting over wallpaper
eventually leads to peeling wallpaper underneath the paint, which looks
really trashy and, esp. inwarm climates, is a breeding ground for spiders
and whatnot).
Before looking down on those who want move-in condition, remember that
most people can't pay for two homes at the same time, or for that matter,
afford to pay for an apartemnt plus furniture storage, IOW living ion one
place while fixing up another - especially if you're moving 2000 miles.
OK, yes, if one wall in a kitchen is some ghastly blood-red color (seen
that :p ), or if one hallway is wallpapered, or something of a similarly-
modest scale, such as a kitchen faucet, it can be dealt with, but it's
very different to deal with a whole house.
And frankly, there is simply no excuse for a house to *not* be in move-in
condition, other than that some people are lazy f**ks and trash their
places, then think they can demand top dollar for the dump - seen that,
too, places you walk into that stink, have black crud in all the corners,
filthy appliances, and so on, filth that make you want to take a shower
after you leave. The situation ther eis similar to the idea of "merely"
painting - moving a houshold is hard enough to coordinate, without having
to spend a couple weeks cleaning and disinfecting and fumigating and so
on, which is literally what no small number of places really would
require.
They never show those places on HGTV, of course, but the large number of
crapholes passed off as "homes" for sale is why people are so happy to
walk into a place that's clean and has well-coordinated colors.
As for furnishings, it's called "staging" and, like it or not, the fact
is that a lot fo people really have little or no ability to picture what
a place could look like with their own furniture, or with different
stuff, and so on. The other aspect is that, if you walk into a place,
and it's dirty with trash all over, it immediately makes one suspect that
the rest of the house has been similarly un-maintained. Of course, a
nicelyt-staged place is also no guarantee, and that's where most poeple
fall down - it looks nice, so they forgo a thorough inspection, only to
find out, *after* they've moved in, that the fouindation is shot and the
place is riddled with termites, and/or that other serious problems exist.
Flips are, of course, a problem - the general principle is "Slap some
lipstick on that pig, and somebody'll buy it". But MIO, buyers have to
use their heads, and if a buyer doesn't, well, it's no diofferent from
teh guy I knew who gave some street-seller $50 bucks for a packaged boom-
box, only to find out that the new-looking shrink-wrapped packaging had
phone books in it to give it the heft of a boom-box. Caveat emptor.
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