Finally some motivation....

So many of you may be wondering what I’ve been up to since my last entry. Well to be honest. Really nothing….. I guess I should clarify. What I really mean is that, I have been doing things around the house, but nothing that would constitute a new entry. Unless you’re interesting in knowing that I have been cleaning my apartment. Even that isn’t truly exciting… But the serious issue is that my motivation level of fixing things around this house had met an all time low. My activities for the month of March consisted of video games and sleep…Oh, that’s right I can not forget the Holyoke’s St Patrick’s Weekend festivities… Here are some pictures from the Holyoke Road Race...
The staff setting up the finish line...
Here is a picture showing the leaders at the start of the race.
I was told that over 4000 people ran in the race... As you can see, I stood by and enjoyed the race...
Here is City Hall looking over all of us... By the way, the beer was cold and the weather was nice..
Here is picture of people everywhere after the race...

More people after the race.. I'm standing behind Brennan's Irish Pub....

With the birds starting to chirp a little louder and the potential of actually finishing this place, something has sparked in me... I’m really starting to gain interest of completing this place, again…

So with the new flicker of enthusiasm, I finally contacted the plumber so that he can install the radiator upstairs. The reason for having him install the radiator doesn’t have anything to do with my recent iron man competition… I contacted him because when I was installing the new hardwood floors in the living room, I didn’t consider the radiator... When I installed the new hardwood floor; the floor height increased by a 1/2 inch, but the radiator pipe did not budge. So I had the plumber install a new pipe to fix my bonehead mistake, which seems to be working well. The floor looks a little damage from the steam but I’ll chalk that up to giving it character. Anyway, here are some photos of the new radiator fixes.

Here is a picture showing the new pipe and fitting for the radiator in the living room... Plus my sneakers... I also had him replace a threaded fitting in one of the bedrooms. When installing the radiator in the bedroom, it turn out that the treads were damaged. The threads were stripped, so the radiator wasn’t engaging properly.

As stated in my last entry, I was able to install the window trim. However, I wasn’t in the mood to cut custom trimming for each window. So with that said, I installed the window trim with gaps between the wall and trim. The gaps were about ½ inches in thickness around several of the windows. To be honest, it was because I was lazy and decided to quicken the processes by just buying 1” x 4”s. The gaps were excessive, so I used meshed tape and joint compound to fix the issue. It worked well. Except after sanding everything, the apartment is dusty again. Anyway, after sanding the windows, I was able to start priming the window trim and main entrance hallway. The next thing is to finish painting… I’ll post pictures when I’m completed.

Here is a picture showing the gaps around the window
Here is a picture showing the new joint compound

So with the realization that the second floor apartment is almost completed, I started to consider what to renovate in my apartment. Well in my kitchen, hallway and my weight room, I’ve been looking at drop ceiling that looks pretty beat-up. It’s the type of drop ceiling that you would find in an office. Anyway, I was looking at several tiles and wondering how they were being held up. Plus I was curious to see the quality of the ceiling behind the drop ceiling. I was initially thinking of removing them completely. So after removing a tile, I found a second ornate looking ceiling. The second ceiling looks to be painted a pale vanilla color and looks to be pealing. I scrapped some of the flake of paint off and to my surprise found what looks to be copper or tin ceiling. The three rooms mentioned have the metallic ceiling. Here is a picture of what I found...

Here you can see the paint pealing off.

Now I don’t know what to do. What I mean is, I could remove the drop ceiling and then later realize that that metallic ceiling is damaged be-on repair. If it is not damage, I could repaint it to a nicer color… I’m thinking a dark bronze color…But, I’m really not sure yet... I guess I really don’t have to make that decision today... But my options are open. I guess we'll find out together... Anyway, the things that are left for the second floor apartment are to install an electric heater, replace some plugs, replace the screen door, paint the window trim and clean… After that, I should be completed. I‘m in hopes to place an ad within the coming month… I hope to have a tenant by May, but we’ll see what happens… Anyways, until next time…