Day 8+9: Tiling the main rooms

Master Bedroom

After practicing on the closet, I was ready to tackle the first major room: the master bedroom.  I'd heard a good technique for minimizing layout errors is to tile a cross in the room (i.e. tile in the middle of the room, from one wall to the other, in both directions, forming a cross).  And do it using a layout line (or laser in my case).  This way, you know the tiles are straight on this line, and later when tiling the 4 quadrants, if you screw up one of them, your errors are limited to that one quadrant.  So I thought that sounded like a reasonable idea.  So I started by finding the center of the room (like I did with the closet), and adjusted that so that I'd get a "full tile" on the far wall opposite the entry door.  With this pattern, you'll never really get a "full tile" because the pattern is not square, but you can at least reduce the amount of cutting by arranging it so that the end of the room falls on a 6" boundary - so that the 6x6 tiles will just barely fit, and you'll have to cut the 12x12 tiles in half to fill in.  You can see in the picture to the right what I mean. 

Everything was working great.  One thing I am worried about is that near the end of the thinset bucket, the thinset started to set up.  I kept using it but I fear it may result in a couple of tiles not getting as good a bond as if the thinset were fresh.  One tip is that when you get down to about 25% left in a batch, re-mix the thinset (but do *not* add any more water) - mixing it up will extend the "pot life" and extra 20 minutes or so.  I did this up to 2 times per pot in later batches.

Everything was working great... until the 4th quadrant.  Somehow I got something screwed up, and as I was laying the pattern, tiles started to not line up right in one dimension.  The grout lines started to get thinner and thinner on 2 of the 4 sides of the 6x6 tiles.  I couldn't figure out where I screwed up (there was no one obvious out of alignment tile).  One thing I had changed was that I kept running out of spacers (I only had about 400), so in an effort to reduce spacers I started just using 1 per grout line (previously I was using 2). This saved spacers but my wife thinks that caused alignment issues (imagine a 6x6 tile centered in the middle of 4 12x12's, with a single spacer on each of the 4 sides of the 6x6.  That tile can potentially rotate slightly within its area). I think she's right, and it threw off a couple of tiles, and that error propogated and got worse.  Eventually, I could barely fit a 6x6 into its hole!  So near the end of the quadrant where the error was, I left out various 6x6's that simply looked wrong, assuming I'd custom-cut some to fit later on.  And I started using 2 spacers per grout line again :)

Pattern Continuity between rooms

We'd decided early on that we wanted to have a continuous tile floor throughout the condo, with no threshholds between rooms, bathrooms, or closets.  After I'd finished the first room (the master bedroom), the obvious thing to do would be to simply continue the pattern through the doorway into the next room.  But I was worried that the rooms likely wouldn't be "in square" with each other, and would result in the walls not being square to the pattern in the next room.  So, in my infinite wisdom, I decided to start in the middle of the second room, and attempt to line up the pattern so that when the two rooms came together, the pattern would work out.   Well, that was a bad idea, because I didn't think it through right, and the pattern ended up not matching up in the two rooms!  Ugh.  Well, it sort of did.  It was "close".  I'll have pics later of how I made it look OK (but not right).  Anyway, moral of the story is, I should have just continued the pattern into the next room.   Doorways provide a nice "funnel" through which it is hard for errors you may have previously made to propogate.  So once you get into the new room, just concentrate on making a run of tiles across the entire room (starting at the doorway) and then complete the "cross" pattern in the second room as before.  This is what I did in all subsequent rooms.  For this one doorway, I had to fudge it a lot and make up a new pattern to minimize the grout line differences. Also, the spacing wasn't quite right so I had to custom-cut several tiles, as I figured the most important thing was that the grout lines were consistent, even if the tile sizes were a litttle smaller to fit.

I was able to complete the master bedroom and family room in about 3 days (not counting the tiles needed to be cut on the edges).  Next was the hallway and kitchen.

Day 7: Tile

Delivery and Relocation

The Lowes truck arrived at around 10am.  I met the driver downstairs and prayed his pallet truck would fit into the underground garage, because I didn't want the tile sitting outside while I loaded it upstairs.  Luckily it did, but there wasn't a great spot right near the elevator to put the stuff.  3 pallets of the 12" tile, 1 pallet of the 6" tile, and 1 pallet for the grout and thinset mortar. All I had was a hand truck that luckily also converted into a platform truck.  I placed a scrap piece of plywood on the truck to give it a flat base and cracked open the first pallet of 12" tile.  The boxes of tile weight about 60 lbs each, and each box was tied to another box, so I figured with my crossfit abilities I could just lift each 120 lb box onto the cart. Well, I lifted the first box, and holycrap that was heavy.  I wasn't sure how much the platform cart could hold, so I started with 6 boxes in the first load.  I had to move all floor mats out of the way as they would bunch up when I rolled over them.  I also rigged up a tie-down strap to serve as a pulling handle.  Box after box I loaded upstairs.  The grout and thinset was easy, it was the damn tile that was so freakin' heavy.  Finally, after 3 hours I had all the materials upstairs behind a locked door, and was ready to begin.

 Trial Run

I read a bunch of places that said the best idea is to dry-run a row of tiles across the room (left-to-right and up-and-down) to allow you to position it so that you can minimize cut tiles by positioning the grid so that you have a full width of tile across at least 2 walls.  Fortunately, with the size of tile I had, the grout lines would fall on 6" grid lines, so it wasn't too hard to do this.  Also, I decided to start in the master bedroom closet, which would be the *only* room with a proper threshold that I'd have to respect (it was this metal runner that the closet doors slide in).  This would give me a trial room to start in (and screw up most likely) and learn how to lay tile.  So I layed out a sample layout with the large and small tiles, and measured.  You can see in the picture to the right my trial layout. I found the center of the room, started laying tiles to the walls, then adjusted the center lines I'd snapped so that a full tile would fit on the back and right walls.

Once done I snapped a 12"x12" grid in the room to serve as a layout guide.  I was ready to start tiling! I mixed up the thinset using a paddle-style mixer.  That was a mistake.  The paddle-style (it had 4 rectangular paddles on it) mixer just about burned up my drill.  During mixing, my drill (1/2" dewalt) started smoking and getting really hot.  I had to be careful and took it easy.  It would never last through 36 bags of thinset.  Instead, you should use a spiral-type mixer (as pictured).  It will save your drill.  Mix it for a good 4-5 minutes, then leave it for 10 minutes to let it "slake" (or begin the chemical process with the water).  Then mix it again for 1-2 minutes (up and down, left and right, around, until there is no dry thinset powder, no clumps, and consistent).  It should not drip off your mixer, it should slough off and not appear overly "wet".  Have a second bucket with water in it to clean the mixer off after you mix each batch.   Also, mix it in an area you don't mind getting chunks of thinset on, because it will fly everywhere during mixing if you lift the mixer up too high (and you need to lift it high to get the top of the batch mixed).

I scooped 3 healthy scoops out and plopped it on the concrete, "near" my guideline, and starting spreading with the flat side.  I was using a 1/4" x 1/4" square trowel.  I neatly covered up most of my guidelines with the thinset!  I am thinking "what the heck did I lay these lines for when I can't see them during install".  Well, if you are careful and slow and do not spread over the lines I suppose you could use it.  I am not all that patient, but I got by.  I ended up using my laser line (this thing that projects a line across the floor using a laser) for most of the alignment.  I started laying out tiles, and used spacers (tavy spacers, much better IMO than the standard white cheap ones.  You can get them at Lowes).   Unfortunately all of my intersections were "T"-shaped, and Tavy doesn't make T spacers.  Being a first time DIYer I wanted absolute correct spacing, so I ended up using 3 straight-edge spacers per intersection, to guarantee alignment.  You can see in the picture to the left how crazy I went in the closet with the spacers.
I ended up running out of spacers the second day, and finally discovered that in one day I could go through 6 bags of thinset and about 1300 (3 bags) of spacers.  I know what you're thinking, "no way will I need that many" / "pros don't use spacers", but a) I am doing a multi-size tile pattern, and b) I'm not a "pro" so do whatever you want, but if you're doing a pattern for the first time, I highly recommend spacers. I also learned how to use the trowel, but would learn more about it later on (as I'll describe). 

The Trowel 

Your trowel is your best friend during tiling.  Treat it nicely.  I banged mine, scraped it on the side of the bucket and on the ground, and broke off a couple of its teeth.  Poor thing.  Ended up replacing halfway through the job, but I digress.  By starting in the closet (a rarely visited area, not much traffic, etc), I learned how to deal with humps and bumps, by "Back-buttering" or scraping on some thinset on the back of a tile (in addition to the thinset scraped out by the trowel).  When you lay down a tile, if it's sunken (with respect to its neighbors), just pull it back up (it helps to use a tool, such as a screwdriver or better yet a chisel, put it under the tile, and twist to remove), and backbutter the tile (either with the flat side of the trowel or the notched side, depending on personal choice and how much extra thinset you need), and put it back down.  It'll probably be higher than its neighbors so push on it.  This will cause excess thinset to come up in the intersection.  An easy way to remove this is to push the new tile against its neighbor (no spacer), and scrape the excess thinset with your finger then push it back to the right position (thereby sucking thinset down out of the crack), and put your spacer in.  I ended up using my finger all the time, and flicking the extra thinset down into an area I would be tiling soon.  Fight the urge to scrape excess thinset off your trowel back into the bucket.  Just scrape it onto an area of the floor immediately ahead of your working area.  You will not get a buildup of partially dried thinset on your bucket!  It's also important to remove thinset from areas that you won't be immediately tiling (such as the area near a wall where you may have scraped thinset in anticipation of tiling, but then a whole tile wouldn't fit).  Make sure to do it while it's still convenient to reach the area, otherwise you'll be playing "twister" trying to remove thinset.  I also went around the edges of the tiles with no neighbors so it wouldn't interfere with future spacers.  Using the flat side of the trowel is best to remove thinset from the floor, but in a tight spot (such as a 2" line of thinset against a wall), I found a much better tool was a 2" bladed scraper that one might use to remove wallpaper.  Make sure to reposition any tiles you move out of position when removing unneeded thinset.

With the first area done, I was ready to start the next day with my newfound knowledge.

Day 6 continued: Floor Levelling

This is the part I was dreading. I've read a lot about a level floor for tile, and I can understand why. Ceramic, Porcelain, or other natural stones can handle large compressive loads (i.e. when you walk on them) but they are very brittle and cannot handle torsional or bending loads. That occurs when you walk on a tile that is on top of an uneven surface (such as a tile placed at the top of a small ridge on your floor). Eventually the thinset and grout will break up, and the tile will take all of that load, and bend slightly around the unevenness. Over time, it will eventually crack and need to be replaced.

Now, IMO it's not important to have a truly flat floor, and honestly it's impossible that anyone does have a completely flat concrete or wood subfloor. The general idea I used was to take a 4' level and drag it across the floor (I also selected the straightest 10' 2x4 from Home Depot and used that too). One good idea to easily see the dips and humps in a floor is to turn off all the lights, and open a window or curtain at one end of the room. Start on that end of the room with your level, and place it on the floor, and get on your knees on the opposite side of the level from the light source. Now, slightly tip the level (or 2x4) toward you, allowing only the edge of the level to contact the floor. You will be able to see unevenness by the amount of light let through the intersection of the level and the floor. As you drag the level, you will see the light pattern change indicating humps and bumps. Mark these with a pencil. Be sure to drag it in both directions in the room, because you may have linear bumps or humps that can't be see by looking in one direction only.

How do you know which bumps to fill, and which humps to grind down, and which to ignore? That is anyone's guess, and it comes with experience. Since this is my first DIY tile job, I think I went overboard with the levelling. If you have cheap ceramic tile, you probably need more levelness than if you have more expensive, thicker tile. Also, pay attention to known high traffic areas (like common walkways, doorways between major rooms, hallways, the front entrance, etc). Those will receive the most foot traffic and need a solid install. Choose a tolerance you think your tile can handle, and fill the areas that don't meet it. If you have a huge hump that needs grinding down, you probably should. I found a couple of humps but I figured that with my smaller tiles (12" and 6") and careful thinset usage, I could get away with it. Time will tell. Grinding down concrete takes a heavy machine and I didn't want to deal with it (plus with my smaller tiles, 6" and 12", I figured I could deal with gradual humps and bumps by using more thinset and/or backbuttering the tiles as I laid them).

I did end up finding several low spots (and after removal of the old tile, I could see markings on the floor where the original installer also used SLU (Self Levelling Underlayment), so I figured I should re-fill those areas.

Self Levelling Underlayment Mess

I bought 3 50lb bags of SLU, plus enough latex primer. I used "MAPEI Novoplan2 Polymer-Modified SLU" and the associated primer (can't find the link), it's this light blue stuff you roll on like paint and let dry. So I rolled it on. Here's a tip, roll on in a much larger area than you think you need, to ensure all the SLU you put down contacts the primer. I mixed up a batch using a paddle-style mixer attached to my 1/2" Dewalt corded drill. Then I poured a big blob on each of the areas I'd identified as needing it. Let it set for 10 minutes. Then the "fun" began. I started spreading it with a 4' section of straight 2x4 I'd cut from the 10' piece I bought. Immediately I knew I'd used WAY too much of it. The depth of the dips in my floor was no more than maybe 3/16". So the SLU was spreading out a LOT. I kept trying to work it back and forth but the puddles of SLU were getting huge (a lot bigger than I thought). It was turning into a sloppy mess, big time. This was also on New Year's Eve and I was in a hurry to finish to make a dinner with friends. I had SLU everywhere, on my hands, arms, shoes (I'd knelt down to work one area and inadvertently backed into another area with SLU). Some areas, the SLU would pool up at the edges from me wiping back and forth with the 2x4, creating a nice high bead (1") of SLU. Unacceptable. I started shovelling the SLU back into the bucket to take up excess. That made an even bigger mess. I worked the SLU to the wall in some spots, and the SLU flowed underneath the baseboards, which I knew would prevent a tile from going under there later. Also, when wet, it's really slippery and in hallways it was a pain to work a huge puddle from both sides, I almost slipped in it several times. I finally got it somewhat level, and after much cursing decided I was done for the day.

The moral of the story is to start small, and add more SLU as needed, rather than trying to fill the whole thing at once. Also, 20 minutes later, you can "feather" the edges (I used a wooden paint stirrer and this worked well). Lastly, I went over all areas with a big push broom to give it a little texture in the hopes it would help the thinset bond better later.

Post-levelling

After I came back a few days later and inspected, I thought it looked like crap. There were globs of dried SLU that would have to come off. I took off the small clumps with my cold chisel, but the larger areas I wanted to sand back down, so off the rent the floor buffer again. I went back over the areas of SLU with the sander, and tried to get it more level. There were still a few spots that I didn't like, and I thought the best way would be to use MORE SLU to smooth it out. This time though I'd learned from past mistakes and just used a little at a time, and got the results I wanted. After all of the above mess, I was ready to tile. Final vacuum and wiped down the floors by soaking a few old towels in water, wringing them out, then dragging them across the floors (and rinsing after every few minutes). I also held my chisel while I was vacuuming, so that when I encountered anything (like small bits of dried SLU, or nails I'd missed from the tack strips), I took them out and vacuumed them up.

One other mistake I made was when I was dragging the level to find low spots, I only went in one direction. So I ended up missing a few humps and bumps in the other axis of the room. But after inspection, I was a) sick of dealing with SLU, and b) somewhat confident I could deal with them later during installation, so I said to hell with the SLU and decided I was ready to tile.

Days 5-6: Floor Prep

Tile Selection and Layout

We decided to tile the whole unit. We chose a "Roman Noce" style, and decided that we didn't want to do it in a boring, regular rectangular grid pattern, just to make things interesting, so we decided on a "hopscotch" (also called a "pinwheel" pattern). We looked into the cost of having a contractor install (and remove the old tile). It was going to be expensive: $5000 for the tile + materials (grout, thinset, etc), and something like $6500 for removal, floor prep, and install. Since we were doing everything else, we decided that I would do the strip, prep, and install, to save a bunch of money. As of today (Jan 19 2010) I have installed about half, so I'm going to describe the tips and tricks I've learned so far. Previously, I described how I removed the old tile and thinset and carpet. So now I'm left with a blank, but messy concrete floor.

Floor Prep

I read over and over again that floor prep is the most important part to a successful tile install, so I wanted to do it "right". I did a "water test" where I sprinkled some water on the floor in various spots, looking for a good rate of absorption. Apparently if the water beads on the surface instead of soaking in, then it's not going to bond well with the thinset. So I decided to attempt to "scarify" or rough up the floor. Plus it seemed that the floor that was under the old carpet was really smooth and maybe had some kind of sealant or other coating on it from the original pour.
Finally, there was a bunch of paint on the floor, especially near the walls where the baseboards were spraypainted, and the overspray hit the floor. The original painters also used the floor to paint closet doors, and other various things. I was pretty sure the thinset would not bond to this at all, so it needed to come off. Also, there were some spots where I missed the thinset with the jackhammer, so I figured some hard sandpaper would take that off.

Floor Buffer

Enter a big "floor buffer" which is the giant heavy rotating head that you see janitors using to wax or buff shiny floors. I attached some 20 grit sandpaper to it and went to town on the concrete. It was a dusty mess, and didn't seem to be doing much, but I kept at it, going over every square inch I could. Since the buffer rotates (I'd guess around 500 rpm or more), every time I'd bump against a wall the thing would shoot left or right. Eventually I got the hang of driving the thing, but in tight corners it was an interesting pinball bounce effect :)

Unfortunately, driving over the paint didn't magically bring it up in many spots, as the paint has had 14 years to sit. If you just press hard on the floor buffer to attempt to get it up, it will shoot fast one way or another, so the trick is to get it going fast one way, then press down on it on the side of the buffer that cancels out the speed in that direction. You can really press down hard to cancel out its lateral speed, but you have to time it so that when you press down on it, you're over the spot you really want to grind down. So I was able to get up "most" of the paints in the center of the room and in the doorways with this technique. For the paint nearest the walls, I found the best way was to use a small razor blade paint scraper, that did the trick (using several blades, and the concrete wears down the blades pretty fast). Also, watch out for any tack strip nails you may have missed. Hitting that with the floor buffer usually results in torn sandpaper.

After sanding twice, I vacuumed up the dust with my shopvac. The fine dust will clog your shopvac filter pretty fast, so I would open it up and beat on the filter to clear it as best I could. Had to do that 4 or 5 times across all 1800 sq ft. Make sure to turn your A/C off and open windows, etc etc. Tons of dust. You will look like a ghost as will everything inside.

I was unable to get into the really tight spots (like behind the toilet) but figured these areas would see virtually no foot traffic ever, so it's not super important that the tile be 100% solid there. Same as against a wall. No one walks within 6" of a wall unless it's in a hallway or something. I also am counting on the small holes left from tack strips will give a nice solid bonding spot for tiles near the walls.

I also made sure to go around the cabinets and walls where the tile used to be, to remove as much old tile as I could so I can butt the new tile up against the old. I removed the "kickboards" under the cabinets (they usually just pull straight off, as they were nailed with some cheap nails or staples in the first place). I tried not to move the tile directly underneath the feet of the cabinets, as that is what is supporting the front of the cabinets. I also took out the fridge and oven and removed the tile from there.

After 2 days of sanding and vacuuming, I had a sanded floor with most of the paint removed. On to making the floor level!

Condo Remodel: Days 1-4: Demo

Removing the Carpet

The first several days I spent removing old flooring. There was carpet in the living room and 2 bedrooms, tile everywhere else. The carpet came up easily. The condo building has a "construction dumpster" where you can dump construction materials, but it turns out it was smallish dumpster, so I couldn't just dump the carpet in there, it needed to be cut up. I found the easiest way to remove the carpet was to first cut it along the length of the room, in 4-foot wide strips, using a sharp utility knife. Then pull it up from the tack strips holding it down, and roll it up. Each roll was kinda heavy in the 25-foot-long family room. A 100 sq ft piece of carpet (25 ft x 4 ft) I'd guestimate weighed about 80-100lbs. I stacked them up in the room nearest the front door in anticipation of eventually taking them downstairs to the dumpster.

Tack Strips and Pad

I figured the tack strips would come up easy by prying up with a screwdriver. Psyche! The first strip I tried to get up just broke the wood, while the nails stayed firmly in place. I finally figured after some research that I could just hit them sideways using a 4 inch "cold chisel" positioning directly on the side of the tack strip where a nail was, and hit it once with a 4 lb "drilling hammer". Sure enough the nails popped out (leaving a small hole in the concrete, more on this later).

The carpet pad was a little messier, as the original installer used glue in certain areas. I just cut up the pad just like the carpet. The plan was the grind down the floor later on in prep for tile, so I figured this stuff would come up then.

Took a couple of hours to cut up and remove all the carpet and padding, then another 30 mins. for the tack strips.

The concrete was in surprisingly good shape. I couldn't find a single crack and it looked somewhat level. I did see several humps and bumps but nothing too crazy. Looked like tile would be a piece of cake. Heh. Wishful thinking.

Removing the old tile

Now on to the fun part. I did a lot of research to find the best way to remove old tile and the associated thinset underneath. I found several youtube videos, DIY sites, etc. Here were my options:

1. By hand (chisel and hammer). I did not like the thought of this one, since there was probably about 800 sq ft of tile to remove.

2. Hire a contractor. Didn't feel like the $3 per sqft for tile removal was worth it. How hard could it be?

3. Floor stripper. There were enticing videos online of this contraption that looked like a riding lawn mower. It has this big vibrating blade on the front, and you just drive it across the floor, and it strips up whatever is in its path. Sounded awesome and fun, but a little expensive, and I wouldn't be able to get into the tight spots in the bathrooms and utility room.

4. Rotary hammer + 4" blade. This one looked ok, but a lot more manual labor that the stripper (that's what she said).

After calling around to various rental shops, they all said that #4 was the best option. So, off to Sunbelt rentals I went.

Rotary Hammer

The hammer itself is basically a jackhammer. The way they work is there's this piston inside that is driven up and down by an electic motor. The part that actually removes the tiles is a blade with a shaft that goes up into the hammer, and the piston smashes that on every stroke (much like the head of a hammer pounding a nail). So you push the blade against the edge of a tile, and the hammer hits the blade and it chips away. Loud, vibrating, and heavy. I found the best way was to get underneath the tile and pop it up in large chunks. I was able to blast through several tiles at a time if I kept the blade at a low angle. Occasionally I'd hit a tough spot, requiring a higher angle to chip it away.

Thinset

Turns out the tiles were the easiest part to remove. I think the previous installer was cheap and didn't use the proper bonding agents, because the self levelling underlayment material was delaminated and came up by hand in several spots.

I found the best way was to hold the hammer at a higher angle, and "walk" through the thinset with a lot of pushing down on the hammer. It was a bit like mowing a lawn, only much slower and dustier. It created huge plumes of dust. Luckily the condo was empty, and I had turned the A/C off on advice from elsewhere. Everything in the unit was coated in a fine white powder residue of thinset.

I'd decided early on that I wasn't going to remove any of the appliances or vanities. So I wanted to get up as much flooring as possible closest to the appliances and walls. Here I just placed the head of the blade on the top of the tile, up against the cabinet, and jackhammered almost straight down and it broke up the material right at the cabinet. Some may wish to take out cabinets first, but I am not that ambitious. I figure I can just butt the new tile up against the old, and put some finishing moulding around the perimeter of the tile.

Disposal

I'd mentioned the construction dumpster earlier. Well I filled that b**ch up twice with carpet and thinset. That was a lot of elevator trips with a 5 cubic ft. wheelbarrow and shovel. Get one of those construction shovels with a flat face on it. Wear gloves and eye protection. I found out the hard way that gloves are needed. Ceramic tile is sharp as krunk.

Condo Remodel

The Project

We're embarking on a project to remodel a beach condo in the Daytona Beach area. We acquired the condo in December 2009. It is unfurnished, but has appliances and bathroom vanities, showers, toilets, etc. Very dated too, something out of a early 1990's movie. You can see the picture on the right showing the kitchen and family room. Standard (ugly) greenish carpet, cheap ceramic tile in the kitchen.

The Plan

Our plan is simple: replace everything :) The high level plan is to basically replace everything eventually, as budget allows. This condo will be mainly used by us, for weekend excursions, along with friends and family for the occasional stay-over.

1. Remove all flooring from all rooms.
2. Remove nasty wallpaper from bathrooms and kitchen
3. Repaint all paintable surfaces
4. Replace dated light fixtures throughout.
5. Porcelain tile for all flooring in all rooms.
6. Crown moulding in bedrooms and family room
7. Recessed kitchen lighting in place of old, yellowed dome lighting
8. New bathroom vanities.
9. Re-do bathroom tubs and showers with tile
10. Replace kitchen cabinets and appliances ($$$!)
11. Re-texture lanai walls

Budget will only allow so much, so we're doing this in stages. Subsequent posts will attempt to document our progress and provide tips to the DIY'er who may be reading this.