andrealew's Profile

WMJR, I agree. I do a lot of landlord tenant relations in my job and it constantly amazes me how tenants wreck apartments. Sometimes it's unintentional. One landlord gave permission to a tenant to 'add some color' to the living room wall in his beige apartment. Upon the walk-through at the end of his lease, we discovered he had painted a gigantic deep red Nike woosh (Nike's logo) across the living room wall approximately 14 feet long. He balked at returning the room back to it's original state and was adamant he shouldn't have to pay for it's removal as the landlord had given him permission to paint.

Wood shrinks over time as the moisture leaves it. That creates the gaps in between the floor boards. This Old House recommends filling those gaps with hemp after sanding before staining and coating. It allows for that expansion and shrinking due to tempurature changes.
It looks like there's more going on with your floors than shrinking so you need to first check for termites and dry rot and treat if necessary. Also check the distance between your floor joists. Some older homes have floor joist 24" on center which was the norm way back when. Today it's 16". If yours are 24", there is too much weight on the wood and it's causing the wood to bow between the floor joists and pop out where the ends of the planks are attached to the joist. Sadly, the only solution to curing this is to take up the floor (it can be done!) install additional floor joists in between the existing ones, and return the floor to it's rightful place. The only problem with this solution is that there will be some lost flooring. It's old, it's dry, it's brittle. It will crack. Also, if it is tongue and groove (most is, and you can confirm if your is or isn't by a seemingly lack of nails-the nails are actually hidden in the tongue part). You will lose at least one plank due to taking up the first piece and possibly more due to the age of the wood.
Hopefully 24" floor joists are not the cause and it's simply some localized damage which is easily dealt with by replacing the damaged planks. Whatever the cause, there are many resources for replacement wood: take it from inside the closets or from a another room in which you replace the entire floor, freecycle.com, the 'Free' section of Craigslist, and of course, wood recyclers.
Whatever your solution, good luck with it and congratulations on the baby!

Mary, if the area is dry, this is a non issue. The plaster looks smooth and dry and not black. It looks like old water stains, caused by the minerals in the water. It's a cosmetic issue. You removed the paint so why is this suddenly a landlord issue? Put the paint back and move on. Just make sure you use the appropriate bathroom primer and paint.
To those of you giving legal advise, you shouldn't practise law unless you have a license to do so. Telling someone to withhold rent in this situation is not wise, especially since it looks like Mary is wrong about it being mold. She can find herself in eviction court for not paying rent and that will be on her credit report for many years to come.

You have fabulous lighting and your furniture goes well with the art. Why complicate things when everything you have can stand on it's own the way it is? Just put some color on the walls. Non-white, real color. It'll tie everything together.

Being the owner of several Victorians with plaster walls, I've seen this before, quite a few times. It doesn't look like mold to me either. It looks like what happens when plaster gets wet. Use KILZ primer for bathrooms if you're worried.

P.S. I also installed a storage closet about the new stall, for all those essentials you need but rarely use, like a heating pad, etc.

Very, very funny!

Very, very cool!!

I once owned a home that I swear was haunted. Strange things started breaking almost from the moment I closed on the house. A friend suggested a Native American ritual, the burning of sage while apologizing to the spirits occupying the house for my intrusion. It seemed to do the trick and I'm going to do it in my next home, too.

From humdrum to charming! Lovely! I would consider moving the stove closer to the wall and put one of Ikea's freestanding recycling-garbage-can-holding base cabinets with built in countertop between the stove and sink. They're about 12" wide if I remember right and the recylcling and garbage cans inside it are tall.