The best laid plans...

So as you read in my last two blogs, I laid down this floating tile and it looks pretty great. But yeah, just want to warn you about something about floating tiles. They float. Not being a wiseass here (okay, kinda am) but due to a certain Hurricane Irene, our backyard turned into a Great Lake.

We have lakefront property now!

And since the water had nowhere to go in the ground, it seeped up through the foundation and puddled up in our basement.

The water wasn’t much and there was no “damage” to anything. Mostly it was an annoyance of having to mop water and push it down a drain pipe.

Note: Erin’s parents got us a wet vac recently so should this happen again it’ll be a tad easier.

This puddle was just an annoyance but with the ground so soaked it seemed like an endless battle.

So the problem is that the water is flowing under our floating tiles since they are not actually attached to the tiles below them. This makes knowing where the water is puddled up almost impossible and it may lead to mold (something we need to keep an eye out for / may mean I need to pull up some tiles to check from time to time).

If your basement takes on any water or is just overall damp, make sure you use a dehumidifier and run it often. It helps to get rid of the moisture in the walls, under tiles, etc. to limit the chance for mold to grow.

As for these floating tiles, not saying I am regretting them, yet, but it may be a good idea to wait and see if your basement gets water before putting them down or just put these in rooms where a hurricane won’t effect them.

Okay, so speaking of Irene, it kind of put me in a tizzy. I’m not built for natural disasters. We just bought a house and it’s endured an earthquake and a hurricane in a week span. My entire family lives in an area that was designated a mandatory evacuation area of New Jersey, so I was scrambling to find places for them to stay, one of which is our empty house. So I’m running around getting the house as livable as possible and going to Home Depot to see what I could obtain.

I was able to find a flashlight, yes! And even though we have a bunch of flashlights, according to the news Irene is supposed to be fricking armageddon - Anthony Johnson from Eyyyyyyyyyye Witness Neeeeeeews said something about four horsemen raining down sulfur while riding the hurricane like the bomb from Dr. Strangelove - so I must get this last flashlight from Home Depot.

Okay, so I’ll need batteries for it. Run over to the depleted battery section. Egads, it’s deserted. But wait, this flashlight runs on a Milwaukee 12v battery. What the hell is that? I go back to where I found the flashlight and find the battery I need. Success! Let there be light. But my paranoid mind wasn’t satisfied. I need more light to survive the storm. I should buy a lamp.

I love lamp.

Now, in retrospect, this makes no sense. But at the time my brain was focused on getting my house as much light as possible, as if having lamps and flashlights would somehow make Irene afraid and go elsewhere.

So I bought a lamp. Which led to this text message exchange with Erin.