Day 1: Bathroom Remodel

Almost three years after moving into my condo, I've finally got around to renovating the hideous, pink, bathroom.

I figure the project will take about 5 days (not really in a rush here) and will be a vast improvement (not hard since the little space doesn't even have an outlet for my fiance to plug in her hairdryer).

So far the plan is to do the floor in slate tiles, and the walls surrounding the tub in glass mosaic tile. The vanity will be upgraded to a double sink with drawers, along with the electrical (updated vanity lights, GFHC outlets and dimmers). My fiance picked out a beautiful set of paints to pull it all together.

No blog post would be complete with a few photos, so here are the "before" and "during" pics of the first day (a.k.a. "Demo Day").







Tomorrow I plan to replace the drywall with backerboard (it is rotted through from water damage), remove all of the trash and lay the first set of tiles.

I'm off to Home Depot to stimulate the economy...

Maybe This Explains Why My HDTV Signal Is Spotty ...

I was looking for some fodder to reference for a work blog and in my search came across this article: Comcast Degrades HD Quality To Make Room For More Channels

It appears that Comcast is compressing some of my favorite HD channels, thus lowering the quality of the picture. When I had the cable guy over last year to hook up the HD DVR box, I immediately noticed the picture looked pixelated (compression artifacts, "tiling" or big blocks as they are often referred to in troubleshooting guides). The orginal installer said it was because I had an RG-5 coaxial cable leading into my condo from the main building "smartbox."  He said that the cable would need to be replaced with a RG-6 to get a perfect picture. Well, a couple of installers later, we installed an RG-6 just to test is out, and the picture still didn't look perfect. I was given a thousand excuses why the picture still wasn't perfect by multiple comcast installers:

• "The signal is too strong"
  
• "The signal is too weak"
  
• "It's your TV"
  
• "It's the HD box"
  

It was a frustrating process going through all of this, but one by one I was able to troubleshoot all of these theories:

• "The signal is too strong": I added a load resistor.
  
• "The signal is too weak": I added a signal booster.
  
• "It's the HD Box": I had a new box swapped out.
  
• "It's your TV": This one is my favorite ... A $4k TV that doesn't know how to accurately decrypt and HD signal? Not likely. Since this is Sony's flagship LCD and received top ratings from multiple home theater publications, I knew this was bull snot.
  

This article finally explains what the true problem is. The only option I have is to go with Verizon Fios (Fibre Optic lines). I hear the picture is stellar from one of my friends who does high-end home theater installations. Unfortunately, I won't be able to take advantage of this solution until my Comcast contract runs out (I signed one of those two-year contracts with the intention of saving money over time ... harumph ...)

 

I've Been Gone Too Long From This Blog Thing ...

I've made some movement over the last several months on my space. Some things I've learned:

1. Kitchens will take you longer than any other room to renovate.
2. Home Depot isn't the solution for everything.
3. Decorating a place can take longer than renovating it.

Right now I'm in the phase of "wait to get inspired before decorating the bedroom."  I think I can consider the living room/dining room done though. I've decided that if I have to pick a theme for these two rooms, it is Modern Eurasian.  I'll have to post some photos so you get what I'm sayin'.