The only exception was that I did once pay a mentor for his time, but only because he was local and active, and because he made it clear what his time was worth, and was straightforward that he was not promising that I would even want to do real estate or that he was going to sugar coat it, and only because he made it clear that we *were going to do a deal together* so long as I followed his instructions and did the work.

I had the entire floors sanded, sealed, and multi-coat polyurethane, and that combined with new paint top to bottom (these were concrete, not drywall, walls) sealed the smell, and that was several years ago with no return. 

@James HamlingSo you use solid hardwood on the stairs and coat with 2 layers of poly?

You need to grow a little thicker skin, or simply stop reading any posts where Will and I are involved (we often have different opinions).

Installing thicker laminate will add value and durability but what is most important it will add strength to the locking system.

Sales people at Lumber Liquidators have always advised using a thicker plan (e.g.

It was a turnkey and we just added a new coat of paint to all of the rooms (walls were all white) and total investment was under $70K.There are some properties I'm looking at around the $45 - $50K range (needs a little TLC and probably approx. $5K in rehab) but in SAFE areas that also have clean water.

He'll need to prime, then coat twice to make it right.

Any coat tails I could swing from?

We used densshield, a resin impregnated gypsum board with waterproof fiberglass coating when we installed a shower receptor/pan.