Studio Livin'

That's what it's like, people.  Two cats, a dog and two homeowners crammed into a master bedroom while the rest of the condo is a disaster.  The second bedroom and hallway are full of everything that should be in the living room/kitchen.  I can't even bring myself to take pictures of it all right now.  But maybe this will give you some idea of the scale of The Mess.

Those bags contain what were our hardwood floors.  That's a lot of bags, no?  It's all very sad.  Adding to this fun, a couple of other things have come up.

1. My car's "check engine" light came on.  It comes on (and stays on) when the manufacturer feels you should take it in.  This time it was cause I reached 25,000 miles.  This was especially important because I need new tags in August, which require my car to pass an emissions test.  They automatically fail you if your check engine light is on.  So, I took it in and learned that it would cost "a minimum of $330" to change all the fluids and do the 25,000 check.  Next thing I know, I have two voicemails and several missed calls from the dealer and P.  Apparently when they couldn't reach me, they called him.  When I called them back, they told me my front rotors and break pads needed replacing, and that it wasn't safe not to replace them.  When I got my 15,000 mile check-up, I had my rotors resurfaced and my break pads replaced.  This was in 2006.  As you can see, I don't drive my car very much.  It's a 2004 with 25,000 miles, and it was a program car, so it had 5,000 miles on it when I bought it.  I guess that's part of the problem.  I know nothing about cars, but this man tells me that normal breaking will remove surface rust from your rotors.  Since I don't really do much "normal breaking", my rotors rusted through.  Total cost: $714.
2. This whole "studio living" thing isn't so good for interpersonal relationships.  So, we needed to get out of the house.  We met our friend Mike at Wild Pug for "Dog Day Afternoon".  The bar opens its doors to pets and their owners, and all the dogs run around and tire each other out while their people get drunk.  It's a real good time and Fergie loves it.  When we came back home to show Mike the devastation in our unit, we noticed that there was water leaking out of the freezer.  There wasn't much water, but there isn't much floor, so the water was in danger of hitting the subfloor, which can't be good.  I called our insurance company immediately because I had visions of a "well, since you didn't call us about this, this isn't covered" kind of conversation.  They told me to call the adjuster, which I did.  He didn't answer, so I left a VM.  Still waiting for a call back.  I also tried calling the company that did the floor removal but got some poor man in the Hinsdale branch who had no record of our service call.  To that man, I apologize.  I wasn't in a terribly good mood.  I eventually got the correct number.  They've put a large piece of plastic over the door to our living room/kitchen -- it's a bit like "ET".  They set up five air movers and a huge dehumidifier to dry the subfloors.  The A/C sensor is in the hallway, on the other side of the plastic.  So, the living room was pretty hot compared to the rest of our condo.  The freezer began to defrost.  I think we've got it under control now, but it made for a very tense evening.  Again, those interpersonal relationships are hard in situations like these.  

That's pretty much it for the disasters.  Knock on wood!  On today's agenda: move the cable box into the bedroom so we can watch our programs.  Cause we're 80 and are set in our ways.  

Annoyance of the Evening

The good news:

1. Our sink has water pressure again!  Two years ago, just after we took over our apt lease from P's brother, our sink exploded.  It leaked into the unit downstairs.  All of the pipes had to be replaced, along with the cabinet.  Our water pressure has been nonexistent ever since.
2. The sprayer also works!  That hasn't worked since BEFORE P's brother moved in (which was about a year before us).

The bad news:

1. As you can see, the cabinet that was installed in place of the old one (about two years ago) isn't an end cabinet.  It's a center cabinet.  Can you see the MDF that sticks out like a sore thumb?  Any suggestions on what we should do with it?  We thought about tiling it, but I think that might look weird.  We don't have any tools to cut a piece to fit the space, though Home Depot could probably cut us one.  Also, the cabinet doesn't match the rest of the cabinets.  The rest are white.
2. After replacing the cabinet, there was a VERY large gap between the new countertop and the existing drywall.  The "repairman" used spackle to try and fill the entire half-inch gap around the wall.  He then painted ONLY THE SPACKLED AREA with paint of an entirely different color than what was on the wall.  We ended up painting the entire kitchen as a result.  We like the orange.
3. The man who fixed our sink (this was the third attempt at doing so, btw) took two full nights.  I watched a DIY.com video, and it took the man in the video five minutes.  He bought the cheapest fixture possible.  Also, in process of fixing the water pressure, he managed to soak the entire bottom of our (relatively new) cabinet, get some substance on the lovely orange wall that won't come off, break something glass (we still haven't figured out what that is) and he switched the hot and cold lines.  So, the cold knob is hot, and hot is cold.  Neat, huh?!
4. Our cats have had to be locked up for 28 hours straight in my office.  As of last night, there were chemicals all over our kitchen from under the sink.  (Method, here we come!)  Also, they cut a very large hole in the side of the new cabinet when it was installed for the pipes to go through.  I am 100% positive that given the opportunity, Sheila would have been back there, lost forever in the bowels of our kitchen.
5. The original call to our landlord was because one of the ceramic knobs on our bathroom sink broke in P's hand.  He had to go to the emergency room to stop the bleeding.  They still haven't fixed that sink.