10. When your friends find out you have DIY skills, you'll be DIFYF (Doing It For Your Friends) too! Best to be silent about your gifts and tell them you paid someone else out the wazoo for the extraordinary new improvements! ;)

Oh, and if you happen to discover an underlying problem as you begin your project, it'll be something you can't possibly fix on your own and will have to spend 3x the amount you expect to fix it.

I'm glad you've been able to get a few projects done. It's immensely satisfying once you've completed the task and see how great it all looks.

Just remember Beth, we're laughing and sighing WITH you... not AT you.
I'm in the middle of the muck myself, and I've discovered that I'm not a very good drywaller.
*sigh*

Beth,

LOL - you forgot the umpteen trips back to Home Depot to buy yet more items/tools you discover you need while you're in the middle of your project!

And scope creep, indeed! LOL

We bought many fun tools when we finished up the basement rec room - table saw, compound miter saw, tile saw, etc. After tiling the lower half of the walls around a 200 S.F. compound room, I am now an expert at grout. But I made the Hubster promise to have an intervention if I ever mentioned tiling again ... heh!

As Joanie said - the finished results are the reward. Enjoy your 'new' kitchen!

"6. Buy the expensive tools."
Life's too short for cheap tools.

"7. I'm pretty sure that only one member of a married couple can work on such a product, otherwise, disharmony in the home will reign."
You have to have a clear division of labor. Once my wife and I got that down, our home improvement projects went much smoother.

"2. There is scope creep in Home Improvements..."
Then when the kitchen looks perfect... you realize that it makes the dining room look a little shabby. It escalates from there. Oh, did you think you were done?

Beth ... my husband has been a residential contractor for 30 years. When we actually work on our own house, the experience is always the same. As you go along, a new problem crops up, you don't have the right tool (and I thought we had at least one of every tool known to mankind), it takes twice as long and costs twice as much. So ... chin up! DYI snafus happen even to we "experts."

If you have any remodeling questions, email me. (I coulda told ya that red paint takes 3 coats!)

Deborah

Deborah - I will be sure to email you with my DIY questions! You may regret the offer!!

IMHO, one should not fret about the composition of the laminate, as much as that of the adhesive. I recall installing flooring of that sort where the job went just fine until the fumes from the glue built up in the small room and I started feeling bad, acting silly, and thinking crooked. That musta been some kinda trichloropolycarcinodeathylene solvent they had for that there adhesive.

Now that you're about done, didja know that there are water-soluble mostly-not-too-toxic contact adhesives for flooring products?

JTG - or you could get a floating laminate, and dispense with adhesive altogether!

Ah, I *think* I see. Comes and goes as the house moves and grooves, does it? Does it make funny noises when you walk on it?

Nope. Built in pad, nice 'n quiet. Only noise is from the planking under the subfloor.

Laid it right over the *nasty* linoleum.

fdcol63 -
I can't count how many times John and I went back to Home Depot! We even bought a compressor and brad gun to put the moulding up!
And a couple of handsaws. And a whole bunch of other things. Some we used, some we ended up not using.

Frank - not too mention how many times she went on her own, or sent me, not just together...

I enjoy going to Home Depot here. They are helpful in solving obstacles. But yeah, I'm through with remodeling!