ORC WEEK 4: EASY + BEAUTIFUL DIY FLOOR

I knew the floor would be the single biggest change in our basement renovation. The old floor was just so terrible that it absolutely could not stay, not to mention we needed a floor to not just change the look of the space, but add warmth, sound dampening and be durable.

I can't tell you how happy I am with the change our new cork floor made. But that is jumping ahead in the story because we installed this baby ourselves!

Globus Cork provided the materials for this floor so that I can share the process of selecting it and installing it with you.

Before we finalized the design, we laid out one row of tiles and took a panoramic photo to see the whole room at once. You can see we make a few changes to the planned design.

So in Week 2 (back when I was an optimistic person who wasn't completely freaking out about finishing this project on time), I walked you through the process of selecting the floor, which was no easy feat when the options are pretty much only limited by your imagination. We decided on a random stripe pattern in using Bleached and Alabaster colors, both in the nugget texture.

We installed click and lock bamboo floors in the bedrooms several years ago when we did our big renovation and I remember there was an issue with the delivery truck actually getting the flooring to our house. It came in several boxes and technically we should have had a forklift to move it. So it was a lovely surprise when the cork flooring showed up delivered by a regular carrier, possible only because it's so light.

I made a list of the order in which the stripes went that we checked off as we went so we didn't lose our place!

Globus Cork has a really thorough installation tutorial on its website which was hugely helpful but honestly, we were overthinking it. We opened the boxes and let the cork acclimate for a few days while we prepped the floor. The key thing is that the cork, which is laid used a contact adhesive (the back of the cork tiles are pre-coated and then you apply glue to the floor) needs to go on top of clean plywood or uncoated concrete. We had our tile installer friend (a good friend to have!) do a self-leveling skim coat on top of the concrete to make everything smooth and give us a nice surface to work on.

As with any floor, the hard work is in the prep, and it's important to make sure that everything is square. Using a chalkline, we mapped out the center, perpendicular lines and a starting line for our first row that was based off the centerline, not the wall (there isn't a straight wall in this house).

From there it's just a matter of rolling on the adhesive, letting it dry clear (it took about an hour with a fan blowing on it in our cool basement), and then sticking on the cork. In order to avoid stepping on the adhesive, the first few sections, each about 3 feet wide, took a bit of time. The first row is the most important, so we took a lot of time lining it up with chalkline and a square, making sure to not allow it to touch the floor until we were ready for it to stick.

Line up the inside corner of the tile first, then the long edge, followed by the short edge and lastly the freestanding corner. I applied firm pressure for a nice tight seam.

It's important to line up one corner at a time and just lightly let it touch (if you have to pull it up you still can, albeit very carefully, so long as you don't press down) and then gradually get the other corners set. Set the next tile by butting it up right next to the first tile, again one corner at a time. The nice thing about the cork tiles is that they have some give, so you can really get nice tight joints by firmly butting up to the previous tile.

Pound the tiles with a rubber mallet to seal the adhesive. We paid special attention to edges and corners.

With the first row set, we made our way across the room, checking off each row on my cheat sheet, because it would have been easy to lose our place with the random stripe pattern. When a section was done, we pounded it down with a rubber mallet. I'm not going to lie: This was the only onerous party of the process. You have to pound the cork (not roll it) to seal the adhesive, and that's a lot of pounding. Bonus: You can skip your regular arm workout.

Use a drywall T-square, a solid cutting surface (NOT your floor!) and sharp utility blades to trim the cork tiles. We cut them upside down, but I don't think it matters. Way easier than the saw you'll need with just about any other kind of floor!

There's a few other tips and tricks we learned to installing cork flooring:

• Unless your pattern requires them to be lined up, offset your seams.
• Use a drywall T-square and a sharp utility knife (change the blade often) to cut cork. 
• Take your time with the first few rows and then you can fly pretty quickly.
• A scissors or utility knife also works for cutting around odd-shaped corners or obstructions.
• Pull tiles from several boxes to account for any color variation.

If you look closely you'll see a bump where we failed to make sure the self leveler was completely smooth. 

There's one don't to share with you as well. Globus Cork is clear that the floor needs to be perfectly smooth before you lay the cork and in almost every spot it was. But there was one place where the self leveler didn't level very well and there was a bit of ridge. I meant to sand that area down, but I completely forgot about it, and now there is a raised spot visible through the cork. It's not a big deal and I doubt that anyone else will really see it, but it could have easily been avoided. So learn from me: Make sure you don't skip that step! Cork is a forgiving floor because it can handle a floor that slopes (don't try that with tile), but its flexibility also allow bumps under the tile to show.

After the floor is installed, a final coat of sealer goes over the top (the cork is already sealed, but this final coat helps seal the joints and make the cork even more durable). It was easy to apply with a foam roller but took a little longer to dry than we expected. The only problem with that was that we had to wait a little longer to show off our new floor!

I can't begin to explain the difference this floor makes in this space. But maybe I don't need to. I think the pictures speak for themselves. What you can't tell from the pictures is how much nicer it is down there. It's hard to explain, but it goes beyond just looks. It's warmer, quieter and cozier. And I really do think the stripes combined with the off-white paint on the walls and ceiling have made the room feel far more in proportion than before. Almost like it's magic. Yeah, let's go with that. It's magic. 

I'm (crazy enough to be) redoing the basement as part of the One Room Challenge. Check out the progress week by week here:

• Week 1: The plan
• Week 2: Flooring options
• Week 3: Paint for days

And make sure to check in on the hundreds of other guest participants and featured bloggers. Things are gonna get hairy from here on out!

ORC WEEK 3: CHA CHA CHANGES

Ah yes, Week 3 of the One Room Challenge. I remember this week from when I did this last year. It is when the panicking properly starts. Because right now it does not feel like I'm even remotely halfway through this basement project.

You can catch up on Week 1 and 2, but most of the work is happening on the computer. I've made a list of the items I need to purchase for this renovation and I've been working hard to check things off. That's ironic since I've mentioned on more than one occasion that this is a low-budget affair. But when you're doing a space for the first time—and that's really what this is as we just sort of stacked stuff down there before—there are a lot of things that you need to collect.

This is a pretty terrible photo, but it illustrates how we basically painted everything the same color, from the ceiling to the walls to the trim.

The biggest change in the space is also the simplest: paint. I'll never know what I was thinking when I decided to paint the walls down there raspberry and baby blue, but I'm far more in my comfort zone going with a cream color. We chose Benjamin Moore Mascarpone, which I've used for the trim and some of the walls in most of the rest of the house, for two reasons: 1. We had a lot of it left over from other projects so I didn't need to buy much, and 2. I just didn't have it in me to go through the whole "Which shade of off white should I pick?" thing. Honestly, it's a little warmer than I might have liked, and interestingly, the less expensive paint we went with for the walls, which we did have to buy, is far more yellow than the trim paint that we already had, even though they are all Benjamin Moore formulations, but it's OK.

I also changed out the door hardware from the bright, cheap gold to a more classic black. I originally decided on black accents in that space for the same reason I chose the paint color—ease—but I'm very happy with the decision. It's not just simple, not to mention black is often a less expensive finish than some others, it also works well with the space.

I chose these simple door knobs with a square rosette for the closet door and the louvered doors to the other half of the basement. (Here's an affiliate link for them.) Sidenote: Painting louvered doors is like visiting the seventh circle of hell and I don't recommend it.

And of course, my favorite bit so far is the industrial lights I made for less than half of what I could have purchased them for. It was a much easier project than I anticipated and I detailed the whole how-to here.

Next week is a big one: Floor time! I'm certain that more than anything a new floor is going to transform this space.

Make sure to check out the featured One Room Challenge participants as well as the hundreds of guest participants making huge changes to one room in their house in this crazy challenge.

ORC WEEK 2: FLOOR OPTIONS GALORE

Welcome to Week 2 of the One Room Challenge. I'm "playing along" as a guest participant in the blogging event that has people making over a room in six weeks and linking up via Calling it Home.

In Week 1 (which I just published a couple days ago) I laid out the room, the issues, the challenges and a very rough design concept. But any renovation of that room would fail if I didn't deal with the main issue in the room: the floor.

A variety of the colors available from Globus Cork that we considered for the project. Top row: Alabaster, Ocean Fog, Pisello; Second row: Slate Gray, Bleached, Sage; Third row: Cement Gray, Ocean Blue, Natural; Bottom row: Graphite, Whitewashed, Sable.

The existing floor—pink and blue sheet sheet vinyl—could be described as hideous at best. This was not something that I could just design around. And honestly it wasn't really the best kind of flooring for this space. In fact, flooring in this space has a long list of qualities it needs to have:

• Durable. This is a hard working space because we are constantly walking back and forth through that space to get to the utility side of the basement.
• Able to deal with water issues. We have two sump pumps in the basement—one on each side—that manage the rare water issues we have down there. That side of the basement has never had a real water problem other than the one time the sump pump failed, but it's a basement, so water can happen. 
• Add warmth. The basement isn't well insulated and although there is heat down there, the space is naturally cooler than the rest of the house.
• Dampen sound. Even with low ceilings, the acoustics are not the best. Couple that with the likelihood that the washer or dryer could be running in the next room, or the furnace may kick on and it's not exactly super quiet. Anything that can help dampen the sound would be good.

Vinyl (doesn't solve any other than the water issue), wood (warm but nothing else), carpeting (no way, never near a potential water issue) and tile (durable, but misses the mark on the rest of the requirements) were out. In fact there was only one kind of flooring I could come up with that actually fulfilled all the requirements: cork.

I love cork floors. Our family cottage used to have them when we were growing up and they survived soaking wet kids full of sand from the beach, wet towels left for days, several months with no heat and more. Back then cork floors were the color of cork, not unlike a bulletin board. Which is not bad, but doesn't work in every space.

But now, cork can be found in just about every color under the rainbow. I reached out to Globus Cork to work with on this project in part because they offer hundreds of color and texture combinations. The fact that their cork tiles are easy to install, meaning we could do it ourselves, was a bonus. 

Globus Cork is providing flooring for this project so that I can tell you about the process of choosing it, installing it and living with it. Of course all opinions are my own.

Globus Cork offers more than 40 colors of cork in three textures, all of which can be cut in custom patterns. You know how they say that sometimes having more options is worse than fewer? Honestly there is so much to choose from that it can be a little overwhelming, although a project gallery on the website helps spark the imagination.

The neutral options we considered (clockwise): Cement Gray, Alabaster, Bleached, Whitewashed and Natural in the middle. 

I knew I didn't want a basic solid-color floor for the basement. I felt like it would be a missed opportunity to not do something a little out of the ordinary for a space like this, so I ordered several color options to get a feel for just how bold we wanted to go. And although we played around with some of the blues and greens, I'll admit, I'm just not a good enough designer to know how to make something like that work for the long term. I think plenty of people could make a floor to die for that is very bold and exciting and even timeless, but I don't trust changing tastes enough for that.

So we quickly narrowed down the options to a more neutral palette, and one that was light in color because we need to do everything we can to make that space feel brighter and larger. Although I liked Cement Gray, it seemed like the oddball out among the neutral options we pulled, so we nixed that. And I loved Natural, but there was a warmth to it that didn't work well with the stone in the fireplace, so I pulled that out of the running as well. Then it was a decision of whether we wanted two or three colors.

I think we could have made any pattern look really nice with a combination of Alabaster, Whitewashed and Bleached, but my concern was that the floor might get too busy. So we narrowed it down to two: Alabaster, a cream color, and Bleached, which is basically bleached natural cork (the two end tiles shown above).

Here's the diagram we made showing what we plan to do with the random stripe design. Nothing like making things complicated.

As for the pattern, I thought a stripe going across the room might help the space appear a little wider than it was and, for no reason other than to do something a little different, I opted for a random stripe. The design will be about two-thirds Bleached and one-third Alabaster, with stripes of random width and placement. 

On paper is one thing, but we'll see how it looks in the space. It's liberating to be doing something a little out of the ordinary and I think it will help turn a very basic space into something a little special. 

There are so many amazing renovations happening as part of the One Room Challenge. Check out the featured participants and the guest participants (more than 200!). 

PRESTO CHANGO POT TRANSFORMATION

When I set about doing this project, I planned on doing a long, involved tutorial on the blog. As it turns out, it was just about the easiest project I've ever done so no tutorial is needed.

Remember these pots I found on a super sale in fall at the Restoration Hardware outlet?

I knew when I bought them that the color wouldn't work at my house. I think it would be lovely in a lot of places, but they just look like big bananas in my yard. I searched the Internet unsuccessfully for a DIY solution for staining pots so I ended up just kind of winging it.

I sanded them lightly with 220-grit sandpaper and then I stained them with Minwax Classic Gray stain (affiliate link) (the half-pint container was enough for two pots). I tried out several combinations of Weathered Gray, Classic Gray and those with other colors mixed in and ended up liking plain old Classic Gray the best.

I used a saturated staining pad to quickly cover the pots, let them sit for a minute or two and then buffed them with a rag to remove any excess stain. I liked the color after one coat, but once it dried it was too light so I did another coat. But that coat didn't go on very evenly, so I ended up doing three coats.

After three coats of Minwax Classic Gray stain.

After they dried thoroughly, I ran the hose over them to see if the stain would wash out and it didn't. So that's all I'm going to do to them. I can't be sure how this will hold up but if some of the stain fades I'm OK with a mottled effect as well. In the end, they ended up a little darker than I had hoped, but I think it will be fine and it's much better than the original color.

'Windermere' starts as cream but fades to white and is said to have great fragrance.

The plan for these pots are a pair of 'Windermere' roses at the corner where the patio meets the driveway apron. I'll underplant them with annuals, especially for the first few years while they are getting established. I've had great luck with the 'Prairie Snowdrift' rose that I've been growing in a pot and overwintering in the unheated garage, so I'll treat these the same.

Until I get a chance to see how my stain job holds up I guess I can't really vouch for this method, but if it works it'll be about the easiest project I've done.

HOW TO MAKE AN INDUSTRIAL LIGHT FIXTURE

You know what a bummer it is when you find something you really like only to discover you really don't want to spend that much money on it? That sort of sums up my search for lights in the basement, which, as you may recall, we are trying to do on a tight budget. At one point during my search for lights, which was all over the place as I couldn't decide what kind of "feel" I wanted down there, I found a simple but sharp industrial style light that I kept coming back to. At $130 plus shipping, it would have been in the budget had I only needed one, but it was a no-go when I needed three.

At some point during the process of falling in love with this light, I posted a picture of it on Instagram, to which my friend Eric from Gardenfork replied, "You know you can make that, right?" So I watched Eric's video on making an industrial pendant light and set to work sourcing the parts.

My Instagram post showing the $130 inspiration light that I recreated for $60. 

I had a sneaking suspicion that it probably wasn't that hard to make some light fixtures, but my concern was knowing what parts I needed. And since I would have to order most of them online, I didn't want to end up in a situation where I'd order things I didn't need or fail to order something important. Eric's video helped with that part and then I went to the Gardenfork Facebook discussion group (a group hosted by Eric for discussing DIY projects, gardening stuff, and tons more), posted the list of the parts I was planning to buy and asked someone who had a clue to check my list to make sure I had everything. Eric was nice enough to reply and I had to swap out one item, but from there it was off to the races. In the end, I was able to recreate the inspiration light for less than half the price!

The parts you need to make this light, clockwise from the left: Metal shade, brass shade fitter/clamp, nut, electrical wire, ceiling canopy, porcelain socket, threaded nipple. 

Here are the parts I ordered (links take you to where I ordered them from but there are lots of places to order these things from):

• Black metal lampshade 12" $46.29
• Black canopy (the thing that covers the electrical bits in the ceiling) $3.50
• Clamp on shade fitter/holder (the part that holds the shade to the socket) $4.85
• Porcelain socket (the electrical bit/where you screw in the light bulb) $4.80
• Electrical wire $.60/foot (I figured on about a foot per light)

You can absolutely pick up the wire at at the hardware store but I threw it in the cart as long as I was ordering.

Other parts:

• Threaded hollow nipple. We reused the ones from the old lights but we could have purchased them for 38 cents. 
• A nut that fits that nipple (purchased locally)
• A canopy "kit" if necessary. This includes the metal piece that stretches across the hole in the ceiling where the electrical comes out (maybe this is called a junction box, but the fact that I made these lights with no concept of what these parts are called ought to reassure you that you can do this) and bolts to screw into. Again, we were able to reuse the old parts from the previous fixtures. 

Onto the assembly. This is the part where I should warn you that electricity is dangerous, etc. but you already know that and, frankly, I made it through this alive so you probably will too. (I'm kidding. You will.*)

This is the bottom of the socket where the light bulb screws in. The only thing you need to worry about on this end is loosening the screws to allow the cap of the 

Start by unscrewing the cap from the socket. There are a bunch of screws in there so make sure to only unscrew the ones holding the cap on. 

Then use a wire strippers to take off about 1/4-inch of the plastic covering from the end of the hot (black) and neutral (white) wires and about a half-inch off the ground (green) wire.

Next, you have to attach the hot and neutral wires. Start by twisting the exposed ends of the wire and bending it into a 90-degree angle (just to make it easier to fit in the space. When you look in the socket, there will be a screw on either side of the green screw. Each is backed by a small plate, one in silver, one in brass. Attach light to light and dark to dark, so the black wire goes to the screw on with the brass plate and the white wire goes to the screw with the silver plate (it's hard to see in these photos but when you have the socket in front of you it's obvious). Unscrew the screw a few turns, slip the exposed wire under it and tighten. When you think it's snug, give it a little tug to make sure it's really in there. Do this for both wires.

Next, wrap the green ground wire around the green screw in the same fashion. This screw is larger, so you can make a hook with the wire and sort of wrap it around the screw before tightening.

Thread the nipple into the cap of the socket, tighten the set screw on the cap and feed your wires through it, working the cap down.

This next bit takes a little doing because there are a lot of wires to jam in that tiny socket, but work them down as best you can, then tighten the screws that hold the cap on firmly. 

When it's on it should look like this:

Now take a deep breath because you've done the hard bit. Next you want to feed the wires through the canopy and push the nipple through the hole (there will be no snickering, thank you very much).

Use a nut to secure the canopy tight to the socket.

Then attach the shade holder to the shade. It just slips on and you tighten the screws. Slide the socket in the top and tighten the top clamp screw to secure it. We actually did this after we wired the lights to the ceiling as it was easier to attach everything without the shade on. 

 Then wire it to the existing electrical box like you would any other light. Mount the canopy onto the metal holder on the junction box to secure the light to the ceiling.

And that's it ... a light that, as far as I can tell, is identical to one you can buy, except mine cost $60 and the inspiration light was $130.

Here's the inspiration:

 And here's mine:

* But if you don't, don't blame me.

HOW TO CLEAN A FIREPLACE SURROUND

Have you ever cleaned your stone fireplace surround? I bet the answer is no. I mean, how are you supposed to clean craggy rocks? We're been in our house for more than 13 years and I know we've never cleaned our fireplace surround. My guess is that no else in the 70 or so years previous to our ownership did either.

What spurred me into action on this completely unfun project was some photos I took in the living room. One thing stood out: There was a big soot streak in the middle of the fireplace surround.

So I did a little searching on the Internet for how to clean fireplaces. As far as I could tell, there are two options, pay a professional to come do something that sounds super messy, or go at it yourself with a variety if different cleaning methods. Turns out that what I did worked pretty well, but I'll warn you now that this is a job that's going to require your best Cinderella (pre-ball) impersonation. There's some serious elbow grease involved.

A before picture that shows how much soot had built up over the firebox.

Here's what I did:

1. First I moved all the furniture and taped off everything with plastic to make my living room resemble a scene from "Dexter."

2. Then I mixed a powdered TSP substitute with a little water to make a paste. I found that making it slightly more liquid worked better. I used the entire box and wished I had another, so plan on using quite a bit. I smeared the paste on the stone and mortar with the most staining. I wore a respirator and rubber gloves for this. Then I let it sit for a good 20 minutes to really soak in there and hopefully do some of the hard work for me.

Scrub and then scrub some more.

3. The next bit required safety glasses. Unfortunately the only safety glasses I could find were ones with bifocals so I was feeling a bit woozy. Anyway, then I took a really stiff bristle brush and went to town on all that paste. I mean I scrubbed, and hard. A lot of the paste fell off onto the hearth, which was fine since that was plenty dirty too.

Take a close look at the mess I have going there. It's ugly.

4.  It was clear to me right away that a lot of built-up grunge was coming off and I didn't really want to stop with just the part over the firebox. So I mixed up some dish detergent (Dawn, which I keep in the house for cleaning but not for washing dishes for some reason) and a little liquid Barkeeper's Friend with a bunch of water and used that to scrub the rest of the surround under the mantel, just to get the dust and regular dirt off. I made a point to not go over the areas that I had used the TSP substitute on with the soap solution because I'm no chemist but I know bad things can happen when you start mixing random things.

I had to change out the water at least five times before it wasn't this color anymore.

5. This all created a huge mess, so if you do this, be prepared. It gets a lot worse before it gets better. Then I had to rinse all this stuff off. The garden hose or a pressure washer would have done a fine job, but since I don't have a drain in my living room, I had to use a bucket and rags (I tried a sponge but the stone just ripped it apart). So I rinsed, and rinsed, and rinsed, changing out the water every time it got dirty, until the water in the bucket wasn't dirty when I rung out the rag.

Ah ... that's better. 

Then I just towel dried off what I could and left it to dry.

Isn't it amazing what a difference that made? Look at the hearth, which I only scrubbed with soapy water; it's a completely different color. You can see that I didn't scrub close to the edges of the hearth because I was afraid of water damaging the wood floor, even though I had protected it. 

Isn't it so much better? Now I just need someone to come clean the years of dust off the 15 or so feet above the mantel.

So fess up, have you ever cleaned your fireplace surround?

LOOKING AHEAD TO A SUBTERRANEAN DIY PROJECT

First, let me start by saying that even though it's the end of the August and kids all over the country are already back in school, summer is not over. Not even close. Dammit.

Now repeat that until you really believe it. Because even thinking about fall and the miserable season that comes after it puts me in a foul mood.

But deep down, I know that my gardening days are numbered for 2015 and I've started cooking up plans for what to do with myself when it's too cold out to blissfully stare into the center of a gorgeous flower.

After a year off of house projects, things WILL be done this year. It's just a matter of what things we decide to tackle. As is the way with Murphy's Law, no sooner had we all but decided that we'd redo the first-floor bathroom this winter than Mr. Much More Patient's car started having serious issues and cutting into our renovation budget. That may still happen, but in the meantime I have some DIY urges that must be satisfied. So this season-that-comes-after-fall-that-shall-not-be-named I'm going to put some serious elbow grease into fixing up the finished side of the basement. I've decided the only way to make it not continually turn into a convenient dumping location is to make it nice enough that we don't want to do that.

Step one, of course, is to clean it out. I hate doing that. I hate having stuff that doesn't have a place (and sometimes a purpose) and have to do that do-we-need-it dance. I also struggle with how to get rid of it. How do you deal with stuff overload? Donate it all? Pick through it and sell what you can? A little money would be very nice but at the same time it is a time consuming and frustrating process. For instance, I sold a $20 area rug through a local Facebook rummage group but have spent two days trying to arrange a pick up with the buyer. Is it worth it for $20?

Traditional Staircase by Raleigh Photographers Tad Davis Photography

I do have a plan, though. I know they are all the rage right now so that probably means we'll all hate them in a year, but planked walls will be happening. I've looked up a few blog tutorials and I think I can plank all the walls for about $200 in plank materials (not counting nails, caulk, etc.). The whole thing will get a coat of paint to make it light and bright down there.

Beach Style Bedroom by Traverse City General Contractors MAC Custom Homes

I think I'll pull up the ugly gray carpet on the stairs and paint them, but in the corner where I pulled up the rug, it appeared that the treads are particle board, which could complicate that plan.

In a perfect world, I'd like to use vinyl plank flooring to cover the pink and blue sheet vinyl that's down there, but this weekend I discovered that we needed about 400 square feet of flooring and even the least expensive vinyl planks add up to a pretty penny when you have that much floor to cover. So I'm looking into options and toying with the idea of painting it.

Contemporary Hall by Santa Monica Architects & Building Designers White Picket Fence, Inc

Since there's a "stuff" problem down there, storage also needs to happen. There is an awkward corner with a sump pump and the electrical box, both of which have been half covered up by a previous owner. I think that might be a good area to just build out with semi-built-in units as both a way to incorporate those necessities into the design and add storage.

Beach Style Hall by New York Architects & Building Designers Wettling Architects

A few other things will also happen including some lighting improvements (changing out the ceiling lights and maybe springing for an electrician to  put some sconces around the room) and removing the fireplace insert. The flue has been closed off so there's no reason for the insert which was once used to heat the room. I'd rather have an empty firebox with candles in it or whatever than the big, hulking insert.

But it all starts with a clean slate and I really want to know what you all do to deal with your stuff. Let me know!