Yesterday, everyone was under some large, leaden blanket...
Welcome to sope (3 Fingers Painting, Inc) who has advice for painting stripes, JenPDX who says wierd stuff comes out of her nose in NYC, Margaret Stix who has a good large bulletin board resource and Ksenia who wants a granite window sill!
See pics of our apartments at or ATNY Flickr page and see where we all are and chat in real time at the...AT FRAPPR Geographical Survey
Speaking of kids, I have 2 under 1.5yrs ala Britney. We are ripping out these crap 1960 floors and replacing with something more in keeping with this 1910 apt. While they are doing this, can I add some soundproofing btw the subflooring and the floor? Any direction on this? My neighbors already think we're trashy enough ("you're pregnant... again?") so anything we can do to improve our neighborly relations is helpful.
Also, I think we're doing an oak floor bcs it seems to be standard and my mind is mud. Any better idea?
Marva & Brian got their bathroom tile up but ran into a change of plans with the bedroom:
http://atcure.blogspot.com/
(I will be so glad to be UNPACKING supplies... can't get a dratted thing done without the proper tools.)
For soundproofing floors, try Homasote. It's recycled newspaper pressed into 4'x8'x1/2" sheets. I think they also have some other products for that purpose. It won't completely block sound, but it should muffle it a bit.
Unless you love oak, don't go with oak. There are so many other wonderful woods available. We are in the process (ordeal might be more accurate) of putting new flooring in our house. We spent months shopping. Although we really love tropical hardwoods, we could not find a Canadian supplier of sustainably harvested (FSC certified), pre-finished tropical hardwood that we could afford. As time went by, we also realized that we wanted to avoid anything that might look dated or show too much dirt by virtue of being too light or too dark.
In the end we went in the opposite direction. We bought yellow birch. It looks nothing like Ikea birch. It is warm and varied with a medium tone. It is almost as hard as oak. If you are buying real wood (engineered or solid) consider the wear that kids will cause and make sure you get a product with a good finish. Although I suspect everyone will be trying to hide laminate flooring in 5 years, there are some interesting choices in laminate too. Shop around...
Oh, and there certainly are options for soundproofing and I think your downstairs neighbours would be pretty happy if you took the time to do it. Laminate and engineered flooring can be really noisy.
MissyElliot, I've heard of something called green glue, which is applied using a caulk gun and sandwiched between two layers of either drywall or flooring. Something about viscoelastic dampening. The web site has all kinds of technical acoustic jargon and pretty pictures of oscilloscopical proof of how favorably it compares to other soundproofing techniques.
http://www.greengluecompany.com
and (for the oscilloscopical proof) http://www.greengluecompany.com/soundproofingDampingOptions.php
Anyone have any overhead lighting recommendations for a 21x15 living/office/dining room with 10' ceilings? We are trying to avoid the expense of an electrician installing track lighting and we can't really use a craigslist-style side job electrician because of the co-op insurance regulations. We're unlucky to have 2 board members + the super living on the same floor as us so it's not a risk I want to take. plus I fear something going wrong not knowing what condition the wiring is like in the ceiling - there's a single recessed light already up there that the previous owner put in but it's in an awkward place for our room layout.
I'm thinking of just buying some swags or cord kits + shades from ikea and hanging them down from hooks or poles we could mount on the ceiling and then running regular extension cords to existing outlets with remote controls or plug-in dimmer boxes and just using those thin cord conduit tracks to dress the cords along the ceiling and down the walls but I'd LOVE some more inspired ideas!
Our style preference for lighting is very simple and clean and neutral, not ornate and we'd like to spend under $500 to accomplish this. The floor lamps we have have to go! They are really inadequate and I really prefer light from above than light reflecting up and out from a 6' floor lamp.
Thanks!
MissyEliot, ocgrl's got the answer. I'm a huge Green Glue pimp on this blog. It's not cheap, but it's really effective.