"Somewhat" Extreme Makeover - Condo Edition

On top of the usual holiday shopping, parties and family get-togethers, I've spent the last three weeks doing renovations. It all started with the need to change the old, tired and fading carpet to laminate flooring... and well, it quickly turned into a major project... Here's a short synopsis:

1. Ripped out old carpet and underlayment - damn that was fun.
2. Stripped off baseboard moulding - not as hard as i thought!!
3. Installed 300 sq. ft of laminate flooring (3 days) - 12mm material looks and feels real nice, but you better have a good saw to cut it!!!
4. Repainted living room, dining and hall - (1 day) -
5. Repaint kitchen (frickin' 3 coats and a primer) - (2 days) - i'm so thankful for Painter's tape...
6. Remove old ceramic tile and prepare subloor - 1 day - stripped off half of tje cement by hand, only to be told by Home Depot later, that its not really necessary!
7. Laid down new ceramic tile - 3 days of quad burning and back aching fun!
8. Applied Grout - 1 day of more quad burning and back aching fun!

I'm not done yet. Got a couple more weekends worth of work to be done. But in the end I think it will be worth it -- despite an irritating cold, dry, peeling finger tips (never leave cement on your hands for long periods), and a sore lower back and muscles.

If anything, I've gotten a much greater appreciation for those people who do this work as an career!

So this is Christmas...

(dang, i can't get that Lennon song out of my head!!)

- I'm dreading going to the malls... I like giving, but i hate shopping. I also hate finding parking at Metrotown.
- Nat and Drew from the Z morning crew are camping out at Pacific Centre to raise funds for the Salvation Army Toy Drive. The other morning they told of a story of a homeless man, who came up to the booth and gave up everything he had in his pocket....A dime, nickel and 3 pennies.
- The Province had a Guide to Christmas Lights display over the weekend, Niki and I checked out some of the Surrey displays. Boy, do some people really go nuts. One place was so popular that it had a tour bus bringing people to see!!

Oh, and it turns out i had 5 vacation days that can't be carried over to next year, and so i'm taking it off for Christmas. It won't be much of a vacation though...got a big project in the works...it's been something i've wanted to do for quite some time, but haven't had the time to do it. If I could only be more diligent in my blog entries, I may post updates every now and then...