I'm Still Alive

I've tried to keep this site light and cheery, but lately things haven't been going that well for a number of reasons. So I haven't posted anything for more than a month and even thought of giving up blogging. Besides being extremely busy at work (I'm my own worst enemy in that regard - I'll run myself ragged until I'm completely drained and then get depressed), the noise issues in my apartment are taking their toll on my mental health. I hear my upstairs neighbors walking back and forth in their apartment as if there were no barrier between us, and they refuse to get carpeting in their living room. But worse, I was idiotic enough to buy an apartment adjacent to an elevator. It turns out that parts of the elevator machinery seem to get lose (it's a very old building), and when they do, I get clanging and thumping in my apartment that vibrates through my very soul. Making it worse, is that dealing with the management company and the superintendent has been a nightmare. They'll eventually call in some mechanics after I complain enough and make some adjustments that seem to help, but the problem always returns after a couple of months. To add insult to injury, they act like I'm the problem and claim that they don't hear the noise and that noone else has complained. However, I'm on the second floor and the closest one to the elevator motor so of course I'm bearing the brunt, and it's complete BS that they can't hear the noise. I've spoken to a couple of the porters, and they know exactly what the sound I'm hearing is. (And this is supposed to be a top-notch building.)

Anyway, today I had some soundproofing folks from City Soundproofing over to evaluate the situation. They were very professional and made me feel better because they totally validated my belief that the elevator noise is excessive (yes, I realize I'm paying them and it's in their interest to make me feel that way). They're going to go back and formulate a proposal but they tell me that although we may be able to treat the ceiling, there's not much I can do about the elevator noise on my end. So tomorrow I'll go back to the management company and start this dance again. It's really draining.

I Strip Freely

I have just embarked upon the most ridiculously laborious project I have ever been dimwitted enough to take on - stripping the paint off my moldings in preparation for painting my dining area. What could be more fun? The previous owners did a terrible job painting around the moldings (a pox on them!), and I made the mistake of not fixing it before I painted my living room (really, the mistake was not paying someone to handle this . . . ). Anyway, as one can see from the first picture, there are all these lumps of excess paint where the wall meets the baseboard, which just looks disgusting. Maybe I'll go back and fix the living room some day, but right now I just want to deal with the dining area and do that right. So I'm using this product called Soy Gel, which is a soy-based, biodegradable stripper, that's supposed to be nontoxic. I have to say, it doesn't smell bad and it does what it's supposed to do. Still, the process is labor intensive. There's also this stuff, like cardboard, that's getting exposed at the intersection of the wall and molding that crumbles when it's scraped (second picture). I'm not sure what it is, but I'm trying to remove the paint while disturbing as little of this as possible. In one area I covered the exposed stuff (which I'll call "stuff" for lack of a better word) with spackle and sanded it down, and think that worked. I won't really know how this whole project is turning out until I start painting and see what that looks like. Oy, what have I gotten myself into!

Fixed It: Broken Floor Tile in Kitchen!

Before and After:

I am tres proud of myself - all by my lonesome, I fixed the broken floor tile in my kitchen! It took me long enough, but aside from figuring out what needed to get done and lugging home all the excess material I was forced to buy (see July 21st entry below: http://fulllifenow.blogspot.com/2007/07/broken-tile-in-kitchen.html), it really wasn't that difficult. I used a flat screwdriver to force out the broken floor tile, I vacuumed out all the debris, I spread a coat of mortar in the space and then pressed the new tile into it. I cleaned the excess product out from the grooves with a plastic knife and waited a day for it to dry. Next, I mixed a little water into some grout, just enough to get it to the consistency of toothpaste and using a plastic knife again, I put as much as I could fit into the grooves with some extra over the top. Finally, I packed in the grout with a damp sponge at the same time that I cleaned off the excess. Voilà!

Great Website: BeJane.com

I must give props to this website "dedicated to educating, inspiring, and equipping women with the knowledge and tools they need to have confidence in home improvement and themselves" founded by Eden Jarrin and Heidi Baker (the "Founding Janes"). The website is easy to navigate and contains detailed instructions for DIY projects around the house from the simple to complex, including, fixing a leaky faucet, installing privacy blinds, painting, decorative mouldings and one which I plan to rely on soon - installing a ceiling fan! http://www.bejane.com/.

Broken Floor Tile In Kitchen

It's hard enough to keep an apartment clean and organized. Then just when you think you've fallen into a rhythm you can sustain, something else turns up that needs to be dealt with. I'm not crazy about the cheap floor tiles in my kitchen to begin with, but right now, I just need to deal with fixing this eyesore and safety hazard. After making a couple of trips to Home Depot to find a replacement tile, but leaving because finding someone in that crowded labyrinth to help me was too stressful, I finally manage to get myself over there again. Although I get some help, it turns out that you can't just buy a single tile (or two or three for that matter), you have to buy a whole case, one that has to be ordered from the warehouse because they don't have it in the store. I don't even mind paying the $11 dollars it will cost as much as I'm annoyed by the fact that I'll have a whole case of tiles left over to deal with (I am tempted to "boo" the Home Depot but will refrain only because the young man I eventually found to help me was actually pleasant and knowledgeable) . Fine, I ask for some grout. It turns out there are different colors of grout, not just grout-colored grout. So I order what to my best recollection seems like the right color which of course turns out to be wrong when I get home. Also, apparently you don't just need grout to afix the tile, you need mortar to lay it on, and the smallest size they have is a gallon! So I order that too. I will try to exchange the grout for the right color when I pick up my order up on Monday. I only hope that I can get home and fix this thing without making a bigger mess. (Update: http://fulllifenow.blogspot.com/2007/08/fixed-it.html)