Trick or Treat?

It is first Halloween at this house. I had about 30 kids so far and it is counting (@7:40pm). I had one kid dressed as a battery and I was impressed. It's kind of fun giving out candies to little ones but I have to study for tomorrow's exam. I hope they stop coming soon...

After Picture. It's almost gone!

Living Room is Almost There

I've finally finished painting and waxing the floor in my living room. The room now looks much better. It actually looks like a normal living room and not a living room in a crack-house.


The picture below is the wax I used. It works very well and made my wood floor nice and shiny.

Still Painting...

All I have left is to paint trim with white (semi-gloss). I've been putting off painting it because painting is not a fun thing to do. I'd rather do my advance statistics homework. However, I'm tired of looking at the blue tape so I'm planing to finish it tomorrow.

My Wall is So Sexy!

Well, not exactly yet. However, this work-in-progress drywall is already much much better looking than my old wood paneling wall. Here is the picture of how my hero, the handyman, is transforming my wall. Also an unrelated picture of Lili.

The Killing of Wood Paneling

I have this super ugly wood paneling in the den. It is so 70's and it makes me depressed every time I have to look at it. My handyman had a left-over drywall from the work he was doing in my guest room. So I decided to rip the wood paneling off one wall and let the handyman put the drywall there. It required a little bit of my muscle power to take the wood panelings off. For the rest of the walls in the den, I have to come up with some clever solutions. I cannot afford to drywall the whole room. Stay tuned.

Update:
I ended up painting the rest of the wall. Here are After pictures.

My Neighbor

My neighbor is selling their house. The listing price is over 1 million. It is weired how a house like mine :-( and a nice house like this one are located on the same street. I really want to upgrade my house so that I can make some serious cash when I sell my house.　



近所の家がセールで、１億円以上の価格で売ってます。同じ道にあるのに私の家とくらべたら、天と地の差です。私の家もがんばって直せば、結構高値で売れるかも。

DIY: Painting

I'm painting my living room. The existing color on the wall was too plain for me so I'm painting just a little darker. (Cafe Latte color) This is my first time painting and I can already tell that I make a bad painter. If I were a painter, I'd be fired on the first day. It is good thing that I'm a programmer not a painter...

壁のペンキを塗っている最中です。リビングの壁の色が白っぽいつまらない色だったので、カフェラテの色に塗ります。初めてのペンキ塗りなので、かなり失敗してばかりだけど、途中でやめるわけにもいかないので最後までがんばります。

Dogs in Ghetto Kitchen

DIY: Carpet Removal

I was talking to my handyman's wife last week and I was telling her how much I hated the carpet in my living and dining room. Then she said "What's underneath the carpet?" Hmm... Good question. I called the handyman and let him cut the corner of the carpet. Wow! We saw nice hardwood floor underneath the carpet.

I thought, "All I needed to do is to remove this thing off the floor. Easy enough!" Yeah, right. I'm a kind of person who spends 45 minutes cooking using a "10 minutes recipes" book. Nothing is never easy for me. For this project, it was really hard to take tack strips, nails, and staples off the wood floor.


Here are the tools that I used. It might be good idea to use a face mask. It would be even better if you have safety glasses.
I worked on removing the carpet for 4 days. I was feeling sick maybe because I was not wearing a dust mask. I don't get sick very easily so it was bit scary. My dogs were itching and my birds were acting weired. I recommend that you open the windows when you are removing 30-year-old carpet. I couldn't open mine because all windows were painted shut. Here are before and after pictures.

Before

Work In Progress

After

I'm not sure if I need to refinish the floor. I'll ask the handyman next time.