We are the Featured Family for Fulltime Families e-Magazine!

12/02/2011 09:52:00 PM by LivingAndLearningOnTheMove
I am so behind on my blog posts it’s not even funny! I have so many pictures of the places we’ve been and the people we’ve met along the way to add yet!  So, when Kimberly Travaglino from Fulltime Families Magazine asked us to be her featured family for December, I was a bit intimated to say the least! We are just an ordinary family that wanted something different in life. We decided we wanted to travel with our children while they are still young and “like” us! LOL! I just had to write that because we’ve all been there, done that as a teenager that just “hate the world!  *smile* Anyway, we decided to go ahead and be her featured family because we are just that, an ordinary family living an extraordinary life!  We are only one of many families out there living their dreams on the road. Before I go on and on rambling, I’d better get to the point and give you the link to magazine! *smile*  Remember, if you would like to join the magazine, please use my link and I’ll get a little something extra! If not, feel free to just look at the complimentary issue for my friends and family!

Heres's the link to get a subscription or join: http://fulltimefamilies.com/ftf-magazine/current-issues/?ap_id=LivingAndLearningOnTheMove
Here's the link to just see the magazine:
www.LivingAndLearningOnTheMove.com (Look on the right-hand side of the page! Sorry I had to do it this way, I guess I'm not technical savvy in this respect!)
Labels: , , 0 Comments

Lapbooking: Now is your opportunity to SAVE BIG with Hands Of A Child

11/23/2011 03:57:00 AM by LivingAndLearningOnTheMove
     Hello everyone! I wanted to share with you one of my very favorite methods of teaching my children.... through lapbooks! Lapbooking is a fun way to cover any subject from a literature unit on a book (like Charlotte's Web, etc.), math (like Multiplication Pizza Party), social studies/history (anything from Ancient Egypt to learning about geography of a state or even country) or even grammar (we are doing one on a grammar detective)! Our 1st lapbook was actually on Guinea Pigs. The kids wanted to get a guinea pig and I decided to have them learn all they could about them before bringing one home! I also wanted to mention some of my observations in regards to lapbooking. I found that the kids are always VERY proud of their final product and they gladly “show” it to everyone! When they “show” it around, they are restating everything they learned throughout the process. Ever since the very first time that I witnessed them doing this, I KNEW this was an excellent hands-on approach to teaching just about anything!

     Before I start rambling, I want to share with you one of my favorite sites for lapbooking, Hands of a Child. www.HandsOfAChild.com . They are having a HUGE SALE for Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday. The following is the information regarding their huge sale! If you aren't sure if they are for you or not, this is a great time to try one out for less money! They have a sample for each Lapbook that you can look at and pictures of completed Lapbooks so that you can see an example of the finished project. Many times there are several different little mini-books used within a folder or binder, somewhat similar to notebooking; but, in my opinion so much better! If you have any questions on lapbooking, feel free to email or call me OR even contact Hands of a Child as they have wonderful customer service! If you wonder how much I love Hands of a Child, I thought I'd let you know that I'm a Lifetime Super Member! The information on the sale is as follows:

Our 5th Annual Black Friday Sale is Almost Here!

Are YOU Ready?!?!
As always we will be offering a HUGE Black Friday Discount on Hands of a Child Products*

This year we will also be doing an additional discount on all products we offer during Cyber Monday*

and NEW This Year
Small Business Saturday


Support In the Hands of a Child
on
Small Business Saturday

Saturday, November 26th is the 2nd annual Small Business Saturday. Small Business Saturday is a day that is dedicated to supporting small businesses. Please take time out of the busiest shopping weekend of the year to support small businesses!

When you shop SMALL businesses, your money makes a HUGE impact!

Like many businesses in the United States, In the Hands of a Child is a small company. We began In the Hands of a Child in 2002 when Kimm and Niki, two homeschooling moms, found themselves constantly searching for the right graphics and information for their children to complete hands-on activities and unit studies. The two quietly "set up shop" on the web and became the first company to sell ready to assemble lapbook kits.

Three years later, Katie, a stay at home mom of three, joined In the Hands of a Child as an author/researcher and partner in the growing business. Nine years later, we are still small, but thriving. The three of us share equal responsibilities, each bringing unique qualities and talents to our small business, with one goal in mind- to provide quality unit study, lapbooking, and notebooking materials to all educators. Together, we have published over 400 packs and continue to release new ones on a regular basis!

Please join us in celebrating our success and endurance as a small business. On Saturday, November 26th we are offering 1-year Super Memberships for $50.00 (retail $75.00). Purchase a Super Membership on Small Business Saturday and not only do you save $25.00, but you make a HUGE impact on our business. Most importantly, a Super Membership at In the Hands of a Child will put laughter and learning into the hands of YOUR child all year long!
But WAIT are you already a Super Member?

Super Members can start saving TODAY, no need to wait until Black Friday to begin saving BIG!

Use the coupon code SuperThanks to get 45% off all Hands of a Child Products*

Use the coupon code SuperFun to save 30% on all non Hands of a Child Products**

Use the coupon code SuperMember to save $25 on your 1 year Super Member renewal 
* Excludes Custom Designed Project Packs, already discounted products and Super Memberships
** Quantities are limited, backorders will not be excepted

www.HandsofaChild.com
sales@HandsofaChild.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
1-866-HANDS-01
 
Labels: , 0 Comments

A family in Vegas with Kids

11/09/2011 08:48:00 PM by LivingAndLearningOnTheMove
     We knew Las Vegas was known for gambling, drinking, and other unspeakable sins; none-the-less, we were determined to find some good – some family fun! So, our friends had just been there and we had never been, so we asked them what they did when they were there. They said that you just go and walk around and that there was a lot to find and do for free.  For those that don’t know the hotels are connected and you walk through them and see the different sites to see. Each hotel has its own theme and many have something to see or do for free (thanks Erin!). I thought it was a bit weird that you walk through hotels that you are not checked in at, do not plan to check in at, nor even play in the casinos!  Once we arrived in Vegas, parked in the parking garage, I completely understood! The adventure was on!




Kids in front of Nevada sign!
Frank and kids in front of Planet Hollywood


     We decided the first day that we went into town that we would just check the place out and go from there. Wow! We only brought our camera phone with us as we didn’t want to be the only crazy tourists flashing our camera everywhere… little did we know EVERYONE carried their cameras and acted the crazy tourists that we were!  There were so many side shows ~ meaning people do almost anything for money/tips while you are walking around! The kids enjoyed the below gentleman so we had their pic taken with him! We walked and we walked, and we walked! If you decide to take the bus, it drives around the “Las Vegas Strip” and it costs $5 for two hours or $7 for 24 hours. That’s not a bad price at all; but, me being cheap and figuring the exercise could only help us all, I thought no, we’ll pass on the $28. It was fun walking around and exploring; but, wow, we only walked around (including sitting and breaks in between) for about four hours and I was limping by that time!
     Through doing research of our destination, I found a website that offered quite a few attractions, museums, and other things to do for a relatively reasonable price. I found a similar site when I was in Houston called the City Pass (www.citypass.com). The one for Las Vegas is called the Las Vegas Power Pass (www.visiticket.com/LasVegas). If you’d like to get it for just one day, you can see as many places as you can or would like to for $80 for an adult or $50 for a child. The more days you add on, the cheaper it is considered per day. For an example, we did it for two days so it was $99 for adults and $66 for kids. So, if you do it for one day for an adult it averages $80 or 2 days for an average of $49 a day. If you do it for 5 days, it runs $35 a day.  Before getting it, we decided what we’d like to see in Vegas and how much it would cost us if we didn’t get the pass. Just to see the Beatles concert ($50), Siegfried and Roy’s Dolphin Habitat ($20) and Madame Tussauds Wax Museum ($20), it would have been $90! On top of those destinations, we also had at least another 25+ things to see and do for “free” with the pass. Wow, did we find a lot of educational, yet fun things to do in “Sin City.” Not only did we find educational things but we also found other areas of interest like arcades! I’m not a big video game player or enthusiast by any means; however, with the pass we each were able to play for up to 4 hours in the arcade for FREE (a value of about $30 each). We even had pizza, soda, and some ride coupons!
Kristi volunteered to go on stage to help the magician! Boy were we proud of her and was she nervous!
She still doesn't know how she made that table rise!
Ta ~ Da!

We were rocking and dancing in our seats (just as a family) and Kristi was dancing so much in her seat that they came up and asked if Kristi would join the Beatles on stage as their biggest fan! People all over Vegas kept coming up to us congratulating Kristi for doing so well up on stage with them! Quite an experience! She was able to take home a little tambourine with all their autographs on it!

With our pass we were able to go to the top of the Stratsophere! It was awesome! Daddy even rode the rides at the top! Yikes, we were afraid he may fall off the top! LOL! (At least the kids were!)    :-)
Siegfried & Roy’s Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat

We absolutely LOVED the dolphins!

The pass also included going to the top of the Eiffel Tower!

Scenes from the top of the Eiffel Tower!


More scenes from on top of the Eiffel Tower.

The kids driving their first small go-carts!
 
 More fun on the go-carts!

Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum with the Pirate's of the Carribean!  
Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum with President Obama! 
Leaving our rv park. Notice the cactus plants! There were so many animals that played around
those plants that we could stay busy watching the ground squirels, birds, and even quail!
     I thought I would write this blog post because my general misconception (along with probably many other people’s misconceptions) is that Las Vegas is not a family friendly place for children.  I hope you have fun looking through all the fun things that we enjoyed sharing with each other!
Labels: , , ,

The largest HOLE in the United States!

10/26/2011 01:30:00 AM by LivingAndLearningOnTheMove
Wow, did we learn a lot at the Kennecott Copper Mine! It's kind of funny because Frank said this was going to be boring, going to see a "big hole in the ground." LOL! We learned all about the history of the copper mine, safety, green issues, and so many more. I think the two areas that the kids enjoyed learning the most about was the specific minerals that were mined (in other words, beautiful rocks!) and all of the areas that copper is so important in our lives! Little did we know that copper is in every faucet of our lives!
Isn't this huge! It was hard to wrap our minds around how big this was! It is actually 2 1/2 miles in distance across one direction! The trucks down there look like toy trucks and they have VERY LARGE tires as seen below!

We couldn't believe the trucks that they use for the mine had tires that were way bigger than daddy!
 ...or that so many different beautiful minerals came from the mine. (for some mysterious reason, Brad couldn't wait to go to the gift shop and see what was for sale!) 



And here are pictures of different things that we couldn't have without the addition of copper. If I recall correctly, this mine produces over 1/4 to 1/2 of all copper which is I think 150,000 or more (?) tons a day!











You would not believe this; but, there were so many more locations of copper throughout our lives! If you would like to see more of the Kennecott Copper Mine and of what we learned, follow this link: www.livingandlearningonthemove.com/2011-10-25 Copper Mine . We hope you have as much fun as we did looking through all of these items!
Labels:

Ski like an Olympian!

10/26/2011 01:00:00 AM by LivingAndLearningOnTheMove

     Wow! As I stated in our last post (23 Oct), we have been super busy doing our school work! So, unfortunately, even though we are on the road, things have become quite routine as we’ve been staying at home (in the RV) getting caught up with school work.
     Needless to say, field trips have very much been missed! So, today we decided to go see two things in the local area – the site of the 2002 Winter Olympics and the biggest hole in the U.S. (an Open Pit Copper Mine)! I’ll write about these in 2 different posts. It was funny today as we were driving up to the Olympics site, we saw a large green ramp (for lack of better terms) going down the mountain (for the ski jumps, etc.) and I said wow, just thinking how these magnificent athletes were right where we. The kids said, “Is that it?” We laughed and said, “Yes, that’s it! Just Kidding!”  Then when we were on the way to the Copper Mine which is known as the biggest hole in the U.S., the kids said now we are going to the biggest hole, is that it?!  LOL!!! We were like, “Yup, we decided just to go to the biggest ramp and the biggest hole in the U.S. …. Heheheee.. too funny!  LOL!  

     Anyway, the Olympics Park was so awesome! It was so surreal and I felt my patriotic tears coming on! It was funny because I started hearing the Olympics song in my mind as we ascended up the mountain to the location!  Strange, right? *smile* As we entered the door, there were a number of different displays including different types of sleds… two for the luge and skeleton and one bobsled. We were in the moment so Frank told Brad and Kristi to go ahead and get in it… I was thinking, no, we aren’t supposed to be doing this!!! It was about this time that I noticed a sign on the other side of the wall that said it was a replica so we can go ahead and dive right into it! LOL! So here is a family picture of us in it! 



     Lots and lots of interesting displays throughout the Olympic Park. If it weren’t so cold, we could have taken a guided tour which takes you all the way to the top of the luge back down again, and up to the top of the bobsled run and back down again and around the museum. The memorable things throughout were a collection of medals, a large quantity of 2002 Winter Olympics pins, and a small area about the Special Olympics. It was neat because they showed the different devices that they used to help the athletes to complete each sport. Another neat area was an interactive area. This was the kids’ very part. They had an area that they could practice skiing between the poles down the slope. They do not know how to ski but they sure looked adorable trying to! If you would like to see more pictures of the 2002 Winter Olympics (in Park City, UT), click on the below link. If you would like to learn more about our fun at the Copper Mine, read the next blog post!

This was a really neat interactive system that allowed the kids to "ski down hill" and the kids sure had a blast! If you would like to see more pictures, click here: www.livingandlearningonthemove.com/2011-10-25 Olympics Park 2002
Labels: , , ,

Math, Math, Math!!!

10/23/2011 02:48:00 PM by LivingAndLearningOnTheMove
     Wow! Normally, we try to do our school work in the morning and field trips in the afternoon; or, if we need to leave out early in the morning, we take our school with for the trip and complete the rest the day before or the day after. We have been a bit behind in the last few weeks because of our trip home to Iowa. We’ve also been working day and night because of the level of math that we are on. The kids are learning how to multiply multiple digits together such as 467 x 234. I just learned of a different method than how I was teaching the kids called lattice multiplication. Our curriculum didn’t explain how to do this and I didn’t know that an easier method existed. At Cool Math for Kids, they explain in detail how to apply this type of math. After reading the first page, I didn’t think I was going to understand it to be able to teach it to the kids!  *smile* After the second page, I realized how VERY EASY this method is after applying the concept!  Here is the link: http://www.coolmath4kids.com/times-tables/times-tables-lesson-lattice-multiplication-1.html .  Thank you Aunt Sonya for showing me this! I actually learned something from my sister?! LOL! Just kidding sis!

     I found some links to blank lattice pages so that I could apply this to our math problems in our curriculum. They have different worksheets whether you need to 3 digits by 2 digits, 3 digits by 3 digits, etc.!  Here’s the link:  http://www.superteacherworksheets.com/lattice.html

     Hope your family has as much fun as we are having with math! (Well sometimes!  LOL!!!)
Labels: , , ,

Nigerian PayPal Scheme

10/22/2011 02:06:00 PM by LivingAndLearningOnTheMove
     Hello everyone! Now where to begin? I really thought since I haven’t written in a while and I’m just starting to write more frequently that I would start my blog out with something very pleasant, something interesting that we’ve recently seen, or at least cheerful! But, something that we’ve dealt with recently made me very angry and I thought it might be helpful for some of you out there.

     When we recently went home to Iowa, our transmission went out on our Jeep Liberty (in Wyoming) on our way home. We were in the middle of nowhere; but, thanks to insurance we were able to get towed to the nearest town and a safe place for the night. Still, it was in the middle of nowhere so there were not any rental agencies nearby and we had no other choice but to take a moving truck the rest of the way home! It was not a pleasant ride and didn’t do my back any justice! Anyway, we have two vehicles and once we made it home, we had access to our other vehicle. We found a transmission and brought it back to our Jeep Liberty in Wyoming and towed it where our RV was in Utah. Frank fixed our 2004 Jeep Liberty and now it runs as good as new. Needless to say, we can’t tow two vehicles on the road behind our RV (as much as our children wish we could) so we either needed to store or sell one. I really wish we were close enough to Iowa that we could store the Jeep while driving our Town and Country; however, it would cost so much to get it back to Iowa that if we stored it, it would make more sense to store it here in Utah. Frank decided to go ahead and sell his Jeep and that’s where this story begins!

     So, once Frank decided to sell it (his 2004 Jeep Liberty), VERY NICE by the way, he listed it on the two free local sites in Utah, Craig’s List and KSL. We had some bites right off the bat. One tried to negotiate a lower price by phone; while two others, merely communicated via email. I want to show you the back and forth emails so you can understand how this came about. Right off, our instincts told us something was wrong, they were too interested, didn’t try to negotiate down, and even the grammatical and spelling errors throughout their emails. Still we thought, no one is perfect, give them a chance. But, there were other errors too; like, in almost every place there should have been periods there were commas. Still, I thought, give them a chance. I WILL NEVER THINK THIS WAY AGAIN! I just need to say that if your instinct is telling you NO or if it sounds too good to be true, than it probably is and LISTEN to your conscious! A lot of other people have written about how they were taken and they were not as lucky as we were.

     Once I received that last email stating that they would ONLY pay through PayPal and no other way, I knew something was going on that I wasn’t going to like too much! I have heard of other scams; but, I knew PayPal was secure and I was running different scenarios in my mind and I just couldn’t figure out how they were going to scam us without paying in my PayPal account. So, I figured I’d at least Google PayPal scheme and up popped a Nigerian PayPal scheme. It basically stated that they would go through all the lengths that the emails have so far (many used the exact wording that mine did) and then when we’d give them my PayPal email address, then they would send me an email that said I’d been paid through PayPal when I really hadn’t. It would come from the scammer even though it would look like it came from PayPal. This would not have gotten by me because I would have gone via a separate internet browser to check my PayPal account directly.

     None the less, I decided to do a little more research. So, I knew you could find out more information about a person if you look at the full header of the email; however, I didn’t know how to check the header when I was in web email like Yahoo. So, I did a search and learned how to do so. Next, I looked at the full header and looked for the “received from” IP address. It is normally a set of numbers like: 41.155.86.107. Then, you take this number, and enter it into an internet site to see where it came from. The above IP address number is from Nigeria! Not a good sign when you are trying to sell a vehicle or anything else for that matter! After I wrote an angry letter back to the scammer (*smile*), I wrote to the IC3, an internet security organization that stands for The Internet Crime Complaint Center which partners with the FBI. So, here are the internet addresses that helped me in my research.

Blog: http://the-colloquium.blogspot.com/2009/04/nigerian-scams-buying-items-using-fake.html (This one had a list of others that have been scammed along with some of what was said and email addresses that have been used.)
See full headers in various email accounts: http://www.fraudaid.com/find_headers.htm
Find out who the IP address is from: http://whatismyipaddress.com/

I hope this blog entry helps some people avoid a losing money and/or property!

*******
Here are the emails back and forth because I wanted to give you an idea of what the emails may sound like. Although they use different email addresses or tactics, many people have said that they use the same types of words over and over and they may have even copied and pasted text. Here are the emails: (I just noticed that his “name” is spelled correctly for the email address but he spelled HIS OWN name WRONG on his “from” name his emails (since this is filled out by the person sending the email)! LOL!!!
*****************************************
From: Micheal Don
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2011 6:11 AM
Subject: 2004 Jeep Liberty - VERY NICE!

What is the con dition of the vehicle...Any mechanical Fault.

****************************************
On Thu Oct 13th, 2011 11:23 AM PDT Frank wrote:

Sorry, your email went in my spam folder - will check there more frequently.
There isn't any mechanical fault. It has a hardly noticeable slight front pull to the left; I believe it needs a new alignment. That's it! If you'd like to look at it, feel free to call me. 515-778-4069    Frank

*****************************************
From: Micheal Don
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2011 3:24 PM
Subject: Re: 2004 Jeep Liberty - VERY NICE!

Alright i just wanted to make sure nothing is been left out....Payment will be sent using paypal cos am a paypal verified and i will handle the paypal surcharge as well.I will arrange with the shipping company agent to have this picked up at your location once have paid for the Merchandise as i am out of town at the moment.Inthe meantime due to nature of my job,can you send me more pictures (if available)? Regards.

******************************************
From: Frank
To: Micheal Don
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2011 3:38 PM
Subject: Re: 2004 Jeep Liberty - VERY NICE!

I am sorry but I will only deal with cash in person. Not being disrespectful, it’s just that I have been burned before. So if you have someone who will come and get it, your shipping agent as you said, they can also bring the cash. Otherwise, I do have others that are interested. Please let me know right away. Thank you, Frank

*****************************************
From: Micheal Don
To: Frank
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2011 5:57 PM
Subject: Re: 2004 Jeep Liberty - VERY NICE!

Hello, i can only pay through paypal for now as i have no access to my bank account online but i have it linked to my paypal.you can set up a pay pal account by logging on to www.paypal.com and register with your email address or use any email address of your choice and get back to me with the email address used in setting it up,they also called it paypal email address.you can get back to me with the email used so i can make the payment.,,no problem at all Thanks wait to hear from you soon. Micheal.

*****************************************
From: Frank
To: Micheal Don
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2011 8:13 PM
Subject: Re: 2004 Jeep Liberty - VERY NICE! - $7200 (North Salt Lake City)

Why are you writing to me from Nigeria? I easily checked the IP address and it said you are in Nigeria. How did you expect to get the vehicle to Nigeria once you took me for a fool? You are such a gape. Now if you would like to pay cash... in PERSON then we'll talk. I'm not a stupid American. Have fun in Lagos. This is your exact location. I will be notifying the IC3 and other authorities. You are between Massey Street and Omi-didun Street... very close to the lagoon!

Latitude: 6.4531
Longitude: 3.3958

Frank
Labels:

RV Remodel - Living Room Area

8/08/2011 10:00:00 PM by LivingAndLearningOnTheMove
(This is part 1 of 2 - the 1st paragraph is the same in both remodel posts. This one is about the Living Room Remodel; while, the other blog post 2 of 2 is all about the bedroom remodel to include the bunk beds.)

     So, we decided it’s time to remodel our RV again! First, when we decided to add bunk beds to our living room for the children, we didn’t take into consideration GROWTH SPURTS and how fast these growth spurts were going to occur! So, needless-to-say, the children are already becoming TOO long for their beds!   :-)  Second, after having carpet in this RV and dealing with it for the last 7 months and trying to keep it clean, we’ve decided it will be much easier to have some sort of hardwood or laminate flooring! We’re thinking it will be easier if we just leave the slide alone and leave the carpet on it along with the carpet in the front “cab” area of the RV. I’ll break this down into two blogs – one for the living room area and one for the bedroom area!
BEFORE - Living Room Remodel
(other than the small bunk should be
above the couch in this pic-but isn't).

DURING - Living Room Remodel (tearing out
carpet)
     For the living room, we decided to start by replacing the carpet with some kind of manageable flooring! As we’re deciding what to use, our thought process is that we wanted to use something that looks decent, is durable, easy to clean, and relatively easy to install! We were a little afraid that if we bought the regular laminate wood flooring that it wouldn’t fit properly under the slide so the slide could go in and out. In an effort to avoid those types of issues, we ruled it out. We also wanted to skip doing the flooring on the slide because everything would have to come out; the couch, dinette, drawers, the separator type walling that we love, EVERYTHING! We wanted it to look awesome like laminate – but an alternative! So, we finally found just that! We found some “laminate” looking strips. You know how some types come by single small squares, etc.? Well, this kind appears to come in long single wood pieces, piece by piece. When you apply it, you don’t have to worry about tongue and groove or glue of any sort. All you have to do is to remove the paper strips on the back and the adhesive is right there! What is really neat about the wood pieces is that it has that “real” wood grain feel to it so it feels like walking on real wood!

     So, we started by pulling up and tearing out the carpet. As we were doing so, we found that we weren’t getting all of the carpet out from under the slide. We were worried that since we didn’t get it all out (from underneath the slide) that it might “bunch up” and get stuck while moving the slide in or out or that it would obstruct the flooring in some other way. We tried to just pull up that last piece of wood above where the carpet was getting stuck; but, that wasn’t working! So, we came to the realization that we were going to have to do the slide. We started removing the screws. You would not believe how many screws held different things in like the drawers! Wow, I don’t remember the count; but, I think it was fifty-something for ONE drawer! That’s just one sliding drawer under one of the dinette seats (not even counting the seat, etc.)! As we were taking out these pieces tearing up our house more and more, it seemed like we were getting further from our goal! By the time we got all of the pieces out and were ready to put down the laminate on the slide and get it put back together, we found that under the body of the slide had black mold. Great! Just what we needed! I guess it was a good thing that we weren’t going to be moving for a while. Each step seemed to add another step instead of getting another step accomplished! We went from just laminating the floor in the living room area, to adding and doing the slide, to having to completely redo the slide before doing the flooring for the slide! As you can see in the pictures, the black mold was mainly on the Styrofoam. So, we completely got rid of the Styrofoam and worked from scratch there. We also did a bit of research and cleaned the area thoroughly with bleach just to be safe.

Removing the dinette area.
This is the drawer with the
fifty-something screws to remove!
This is when we found the
black mold.
This is the entire slide area.

Doing the living room area while
waiting for the slide areas to dry.
Doing it in a stair-step approach
to appear more like laminate!



My husband said to watch the
roller area!














      Since we had to do the slide basically from scratch, we’ll start there. We took housing wrap (for wrapping houses for insulating them) and sprayed adhesive gluing on it to stick to the new plywood board (which goes under the flooring on the outside underneath of the slide). Then, we bought the same thickness of Styrofoam for the floor. We sprayed the adhesive glue on the plywood so that the Styrofoam would stick to it (for the lower floor). Next, we used spray foam to fill in the empty cracks. Once the foam dried, we trimmed off the excess, cut the plywood board to fit the new top floor of the slide. We sprayed more adhesive glue on top of the foam and put the plywood on top of it. We took sheet metal screws and tightened down the slide floor. Finally, we started the regular laminate process! This sounds more confusing than what it was during the process. It wasn’t really so confusing, just VERY time consuming! My husband was very good at looking at the way each level came off and how it should have been. We are very glad we did it as it wasn’t in great shape anyway! I thought we had more pictures of this part of the process. If I can find them, then I'll add them in the future!


     So now the only thing we had left is the laminate process and putting all of the stuff back together on the slide! As we were tearing the carpet out, we were also cleaning down every bit of the living room floor as we were doing so because we knew that if there was even a spec of small dirt or a nail head sticking up, it could really make a difference (having a spot “stick up” and have a “dent up” for a lack of better words) in the flooring. We applied the laminate strips, strip by strip, so that it had a laminate look without all the hard work! The laminating process went VERY quickly once we had the slide done. The most time consuming part was probably taking everything off and then back on the slide again; along with taking care of all of the slide insulation, etc. After we completed the entire living room area, it looked SO amazing! The only mistake that we found after the fact is something that could have easily been done by almost anyone. My husband used pretty long screws/nails along the outside edge of the slide (we think it was when he put the edging decorative material around the outside of the slide). It scratched a few pieces of the laminate on the living room floor. We made sure we had a box extra of the laminate strips so that if anything happened, we could easily take care of it. Well, we replaced the scratched pieces and he took some of those pieces you put under furniture, either to move it or to not scratch floors, and attached it under the slide. Wala! It was all taken care of! I can definitely say that it is so much easier to take care of our floor now!   :-)


AFTER - Isn't it beautiful?!!!
Notice the cat and dog had to be
right in the middle of the project!


 
Labels: 3 Comments
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)