…of room refinishing.
Poor Jane’s stuff had to ‘splode out of her room and into kitchen and living room until we can get the work done in there.
The good news is, the floor is level, and we’re nearly finished with the painting. Everything is fresh and new—we have come to realize the previous owner was a chain smoker who, yes, smoked in bed: there’s a dark haze on the ceiling in one spot. All that is dealt with and done, along with spackle patches to every ding and dent on the walls.
My room got a repaint when we moved in, as did almost everything else—except Jane’s room. So now it has a fresh new coat. It’ll be the first to get the new flooring; and maybe we can start laying it tomorrow. We’re hoping that part will go really fast and let Jane get her ‘stuff’ back in order soon, because Shu is really upset. ‘His room’ smells weird and all the stuff is piled up, and he’s blocking your path every time you go anywhere—‘Don’t leave the cat!’
We’re hurrying because I’ve got eye surgery in 7 days, and won’t be able to lift or bend for at least a week after, maybe longer. And of course by then we’ll be putting up Christmas decorations, on whatever floor the living room has by then. We’re just about saving enough by doing the floor ourselves to make it a real bargain…and we had to do something. This carpet is getting old enough to ripple in spots—it’s worn and stretched, and won’t go too much longer. Hiring an installer piles quite a bit of money onto a project like this, and I don’t know how we could get any installers to cope with the ‘stuff’ we’ve got, much of which is heavy, and/or bulky, with no place to put it. The fish tank requires expert moving, and that would be us. We have to drain it way down, preserve the water, and house the fish temporarily in the sump, the corals in a bucket, and a lot of the rock in another bucket. It’s going to be quite an operation, and we only hope we can lighten it enough to move it onto the new surface.
Could you rock it enough to maneuver it onto these?
http://www.amazon.com/Reusable-Furniture-Movers-Carpeted-Surfaces/dp/B001W6Q4VA/ref=sr_1_2?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1449423368&sr=1-2&keywords=furniture+moving+pads
We have a large heavy wooden chest in the middle of our living room with a set of these under the feet. It’s the only way I can scoot it around the carpet when I vacuum.
It’s already sitting on those. When we transit to the new flooring we’re somehow going to have to get felt ones under it, for the laminate flooring. If we can. Since it doesn’t have to move much ever, we might just stick with those glides. The living room may have to wait until late January, so that I can push. Or we organize a party involving a number of really strong guys. At 8.9 pound per gallon of saltwater, some of it being taken up by rock and sand, it’ll weight about 900 lbs just with the water and rock. The shipping weight of the tank counting the pallet was 800 lbs. This is not going to be easy for two ladies somewhat past 60, but we won’t take chances with us or with it. We’ll remove a lot of the rock, and pump the water temporarily into clean Rubbermaid containers, try to move the tank, and if we can’t budge it or can’t budge it except with mortal difficulty that convinces us we can’t manage to rock it safely on its base to get it onto the new flooring, we put it all back again quickly and figure how to find some weightlifting friends for a second try.
There’s a neat TED talk about a group in Curaçao that’s growing coral from spawn!
Neat. Mostly in our tanks, the circulation sucks it up and fish nosh on it, but I’ve had it happen. If your tank doesn’t have good systems, it can actually be a problem—clouding the water.
Wow! I really admire your skills and tenacity!
I hope that the project goes as smoothly as possible, and getting the aquarium onto felt glides and back into position goes even more smoothly than you anticipate.
We have had an idea. A locally based moving company will come in and move furniture. I think we can get the actual glass tank emptied down to 200 lbs, remove the canopy, and get professional moving guys to lift and position the stand on felt glides, then other guys to set the tank carefully into its socket. We have a second tank half that size, and with a somewhat lighter stand, and we have a piano and entertainment unit, all of which will need to be moved onto the new hard (and slightly higher) floor. on felt pads.
I think calling professionals is likely cheaper than the hospital bills.
Dare I find it funny that fish tanks are worrisome, but moving a piano is barely worth a mention? We paid a pro $200 to move DH’s piano into our house from a client who gave it to us, and it was worth every penny. May the floor laying and subsequent furniture rearranging go smoothly! Tetris! Tetris!!
Much better to have pros do the heavy lifting than to hurt yourselves some way.
I’ll admit that when I saw, “organize a party of big, strong guys to…” I immediately thought, “Oh, yay! Sounds good!” I am ordinarily the very quiet sort of guy about that, but apparently my subconscious is, well, a guy, and therefore, ah, interested. 🙂 Actually, I’d probably go more for the bookish, techie types, rather than the beefcake, but my subconscious seems to be less, ah, picky?
In fact, I’m quiet enough about it to wonder if this is over-sharing or a good chuckle for y’all.
Hmm, if one prefers good looking, strong women doing heavy lifting, that’s perfectly fine too! Heheh. Equal opportunity eye candy?
Them’s called “stroppy lasses”.
Not a thing wrong with enjoying the scenery!
Would that there were a jack that would both fit and lift!
Hooray for common sense! We’ve moved 6 times in the past 11 months (that includes packing and moving my mom), and our local movers have greatly helped us maintain our sanity. That said, we moved a lot of my mom’s stuff ourselves, because we would take carloads of boxes as they were packed to reduce the chaos in her place.
My mom packed some of her hardcover books in rather large boxes, so they weighed upwards of 60 pounds each. She’d packed the book boxes in the basement. When I suggested that she use smaller boxes for such heavy objects, she cheerfully reminded me that I’d assured her that I could lift and carry 80 pounds. “Sure, I can lift and carry 80 pounds. But that doesn’t mean that I necessarily *want* to!”.
The movers can easily lift any carry at least 160 pounds, I think!
oops! lift and carry.
Spending a bit on pro movers is a splendid idea.
Re: sliders under furniture. I recently got a piano, and my neighbor gave me some sliders for under the feet that are made of rubber, to minimise the sound transmission through the feet, but are teflon and slightly rounded on the bottom. I’ve got parquet, a smooth varnished wood floor, and tge teflon slides very easily and doesn’t make scratches. The piano is over 200 kg (a big old oak box), and I’m not very strong at all, but I can slide it about easily with a medium-to-mild push.
Pushing heavy furniture that’s on upside-down bits of old carpet or on felt sliders takes a bit more effort.
I’m glad you’re being sensible and not trying to lift the aquarium yourselves, but if you’ve already got it on teflon sliders it might not be necessary to change those.