BioE's Profile

Wow; lots of inspiration here. :) And the "showhouse tour" clarification is a nice idea - even if it just makes me feel slightly less inadequate as a designer.

@Lyonstill: my impression was that the author was asking for *personal* recommendations, either for a specific product, of for custom furniture makers in the New York area. I spent the past month scouring hundreds of furniture websites for sectionals, using Google and other tools, but I'd also love to hear from someone who can personally vouch for a sectional that is well-made and lasts - precisely because, as the author says, a lot of this furniture falls apart after a year, and Google may not tell you that. :)

I use Sony earbuds; I think they're pricier than need be, but they fit my ears, and neither the hard earbuds nor the over-ear earbuds work for me. But I never have a problem with being unable to hear street noise when running, and I don't really understand where people are coming from on that score. My buds don't actively cancel ambient sound with white noise, and while they stay in my ears, they certainly don't fit so closely as to make a sound-blocking seal. Unless I crank up the volume to an excessive degree, I can hear ambient sound just fine.

I'm actually with Jess13 on this too - but it's not really fair to the refinisher to show the desk in isolation. Refinishing something for yourself isn't like refinishing furniture to sell in a boutique - you're trying to make a piece work in your space. A distressed slightly country white desk may look far better in her home than the original and/or or a more trendy or out-of-the-box piece.

Also, "duck egg blue" is a thing. http://www.polkadotbride.com/2009/09/creative-colour-duck-egg-blue/

I feel your pain; our current rental has missing grout, cracked tiles, missing tiles, etc. While there's nothing to be done about the missing tiles, and I won't re-grout for a landlord (I did that in my own house, and it's a massive amount of work) I used a toothbrush and cleanser to clean thoroughly in the largest cracks and filled them with silicone caulk (white in the missing grout, clear around the fixtures). In addition to making things look cleaner, it does something that hasn't been mentioned yet in this thread -- it also prevents leakage from the shower into the walls, reducing the odds that you'll have to deal with maintenance crises. Since we live in a prewar multistory apartment building, there are constant plumbing issues, and one weekend after hours (naturally) our neighbor two floors down came up complaining that our shower was leaking through his ceiling. When the super opened our bathroom wall, he found everything in a state of desperately-needs-to-be-renovated rust and decay, but no moisture at all, thanks to my caulking. Voila, super lets us off the hook and other people get to deal with plumbers/drywall replacement (the super told me to go crazy with the silicone).

I don't know if you have neighboring tenants or any reason to suspect leakage in the bathroom, but if so, I recommend preventative measures to keep the bathroom leak-free so you never have to stay home for/deal with plumbers, electricians, etc. (I lived through all the windows in my last rental being replaced, and it was a fiasco. I'd prefer to break a lease rather than deal with the damage and costs; supervising contractors on your own property is challenging enough, but when you're not the owner, and you can't control the quality of the materials or personnel brought into your home, it's ghastly).