apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Please tell us about your great day. I am sure everyone wants to know!:)

Is the kitchen complete? And more importantly, where is that baby!?

Is today great for any par-ti-cu-lar reason, or just on principle?

WE'RE ALL DYING!!!! Any news???????

totally off topic (open thread, right?) but is anyone else having problems with google, gmail, or blogger this morning?

they seem to all be down...

kate, I've had some problems with comments on Blogger.

All the new posts are signed "Maxwell" so it sounds like he is the one updating the site...so how come no update on baby and kitchen?

In my case, Yahoo has been less than something to shout yahoo about.

It's possible to set posts to appear automatically, so who knows?

has anyone tried to spray paint laminated furniture? I was thinking of buying the thomas o'brien nesting tables @ Target & trying to spray or paint the wood veneer white. With a decent primer would this be a problem?

I expect Maxwell could pre-date posts. Plan ahead and write posts to publish in the future -- so he could not be tending the site but still manage to get us our daily fix.

But yes, dying for news.

A.L.

I've painted Ikea laminated shelves and tables without a problem. I just brushed on primer first and used a roller for the paint.

I'm not really generally much of a baby person, but for some reason, the suspense is just about driving me 'round the bend!

For anyone who might be interested, Paul McCobb's daughter has started a blog about her father's furniture (spottings, memories, etc.) and she blogged me today (I refurbished a coffee table of his, plus she posted my credenza). Check it out if you like!

http://thegardenofpinkshadows.typepad.com/my_fathers_chairs/

A.L., I haven't tried painting laminated furniture myself, but have heard it is helpful to very gently sand the surface first. Then prime and paint with a roller as Shawn S has suggested.

I am getting the floor of my apartment refinished. I'm looking to have it stained a dark color and finished off with polyurethane. I've gotten estimates from Sullivan Flooring, Verrazanno Flooring, and New York Wood Flooring. They're all about the same price. Who should I pick?! Has anyone had any experience with them or can recommend someone else?

Thanks!

the graduate - do you have light-colored wooden floors that you are having stained a darker color?

It is amazing that the baby drama and the kitchen drama are killing us, even though most of us haven't met them! There's material for a dissertation or a novel here!

thanks ErinT & ShawnS. Am now emboldened to try painting furniture.

the baby drama is getting to me too, and I'm not much of a baby person either, especially for someone not close to me.
i keep checking and checking...

look, best wishes to maxwell and all that but isn't there something creepy and fetishtic about all you morons sitting around posting about his unborn child? let us remind ourselves - and i plan to tell this to my son the moment the half-savage bastard can finally speak - being born is a horrible burden. you enter this world naked and alone, and you die naked and alone. and many people are out to get you in between. meanwhile, civilization as we know it is collapsing like a castle of sand and i believe that we are in the precipice of another Dark Age.

Okay... Someone needs to mention that ATLA Editor Gregory, his girlfriend Emily, and their fab "Silverlake Sanctuary" finalist entry from this year's Smallest Coolest contest http://la.apartmenttherapy.com/la/small-cool-2006-entries/finalist-9-greg-and-ems-silverlake-sanctuary-007962 are featured in the new issue of Readymade. The new issue that just hit the stands. Yup, someone should mention that.

Looking at pics of Gregory and Emily's place makes me smile THIS BIG. I think it's great that they're being featured in Readymade.

Thanks for the heads up, Enrique!

busygirl - Yup. That's exactly what I'm getting done. My floors are currently honey and I'm having them stained a chocolate brown.

There is something sweet and touching about our strange anticipation for Baby GR, I am cynical and frightened about the state of the world and I am ever more grateful for any and all acts of kindness and compassion. Some are born into love and die surrounded by love. I just came from the emergency room and luckily my husband is sore but ok. Two broken ribs, some stitches. I coincidentally went out to get into the car just in time to see him plummet off a 2nd story roof (he was repairing and painting) and land face down in a mix of dirt branches and cement. My neighbor immediately showed up,a firetruck and EMI and an anbulance, friends and family came to help. There are endless horrors, appreciate the moments of love while you can.

jonathan---

Yaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwnnnnnn.
Aren't the summer reruns over already?

the graduate - we used Verrazanno and LOVED them. They started the day they said they would, and finished the day they said they would. The job was beautiful too, and our floors needed a LOT of work. I'd say go with them.

this is a total nonsequitur, but I'm thinking of using a simple polished concrete for my basement bathroom floor. I'd like to know what type of sealer I need to make it a good bathroom floor (waterproof, not slippery). Also, do I need to ask my contractor to use any special cement (ie how does the end product look, using different types of cement?)?

Does anyone know of any good website or other information source where I can get up to speed on the material?

Thnx

hey the graduate,
I'm considering staining my floors also. Can you give more info on the quotes your received? what was the price range? for how many sq. ft? and what kind of wood are your floors made of?

kate(NC), so glad that your husband is okay - what a terrible accident. Hopefully he will heal quickly :)
Mags

jonathan - of course there is something a little voyeuristic about all of us morons anxiously awaiting the birth of a child whose parents we only know through their blog on the information super-highway, but as p(too) says, YAAAWWN!
haven't we all gotten over that part of life with the internet? that it IS creepy and voyeuristic (not sure about fetishist) but that is how friendster, myspace, and the millions of blogs make any sense. people WANT to see other peoples' lives. heck, i might even care a little about when your child is born.

And then there's Jonathan, who's verbally exhibitionistic and expects our voyeurism.

What happened to the 9 month cure posting from yesterday (9/26)? It disappeared.

YR, if you discover anything, ask Maxwell to let us all know. We are not redoing our shower stall until "phase 2" of our remodel, but apparently, retiling the showers in our building are a huge bitch with massive leak factor...so maybe something like that might solve my problem, too.

a,
I wondered that too. I think that the comments probably caused it to be taken down. There were suggestions that things were less than kosher, in several respects.

A commenter mentioned, in the context of discussing electrical outlet locations, "wall warts" and something about plugs. If anyone knows what "wall warts" are in that context, please post.
I am currently looking at rewiring my pre-war.

A

A,

I thought that just meant that the poster preferred hidden plugs, as opposed to obvious plugs. Maybe I'm wrong.

Thanks Fiona, I thought that too, but she used two terms and seemed to contrast them.

In the electronics industry, "wall warts" means those little black adapter boxes that you plug into the wall and then connect to an appliance that takes a different voltage. For example, that big thick end of your cell phone adapter? that's a "wall wart" in the electronics industry. Its apparently a transformer that takes the electricity in your wall and converts it to a much lower voltage for your device.

I never heard the term used about the outlet itself, and I thought the poster's comment (sorry, OP, I can't remember your name and now I can't look it up) seemed to contrast "designed" outlets with ones that stuck out in the wall. I thought she was suggesting that they would have a "designed" electrical landing area. I only saw one outlet on the wall of the kitchen, and I guess I sort of thought cooks needed more than one. Maybe there are outlets on the fridge wall.

'Wall wart' apparently is the standard term for those plug/transformer combos that do their utmost to block half the outlet:
http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/W/wall-wart.html

I agree with Fiona that the context was the poster's dislike of visible outlets and plugs.

We think as one.

Yeah, I'd also love to know how the electrical was handled. Having just moved into newish (2002) construction from an oldish (1926) building, I can entertain myself for hours by counting all those beautiful electric outlets required by current code.

Thanks Wende. I am curious about the "landing strip" electrical issue, like, do they have a quad with GFI somewhere that is not showing (there is a sink in there), and also I'm dying to know what the thing to the right of the fridge is. Is that a cabinet with the magic opening? Like the uppers? And why the space?

http://www.natronafurniture.com/

hi all-

i have to buy a very small (about 70 inches long) sleeper sofa for my boss. she and her son both have strong allergies and are sensitive to chemicals and fumes in regular mattresses. does anyone have a recommendation for good quality, non-toxic furniture?

thanks!

minitee - one idea would be to get an allergy relief mattress cover. That way you wouldn't be so limited in your furniture selection. Click on my name for a link to a company that sells several different allergy relief covers. Good luck shopping for the boss :)

The Graduate,
I had my floors done last year by NY Floor King -212-289-6600. THey did a great job, and the price was excellent. For about 450 sq feet area they pulled up and removed my carpet($300), sanded, stained, and poly for approx $800. I got an extra coat of stain put on on since the color was not exactly what I wanted, so that added another $200 for a total of $1300. I highly recommend them.

Note, this was oil and not water based. If I ever do this again I'd do water base since it doesn't smell so much (it took over a week for the smell to subside).


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