>> The walls are made of cardboard, so you can't actually attach anything
>> to them. (Not if you don't want the entire wall to crack in half,
>> anyway.) So everything has to be bookcases and the like.
>
> Ah, yes, paneling - we've got some of that in our place - it's attached
> to sheetrock, but I could see that being a problem.

Basically each wall is a sheet of plasterboard. So, looks pretty, but no 
sound damping, and you can't make any holes in it. (It'll just snap in 
half.)

My mum's house is made of, you know, BRICKS and stuff. At night I do 
feel a little bit vulnerable sitting in this cardboard display case with 
no curtains and nothing but some plaster between me and the big bad 
world out there...

>> I'm hoping this place will be cool in summer - the Sun never faces it.
>> But it's not very warm right now with no curtains... I'd turn the
>> heating on more, but without curtains I'm just pouring money down the
>> drain.
>
> Are the windows single- or double-glazed?  Curtains may not make that
> much difference if they're double.

It's all double-glazed. Never the less, the bedroom is significantly 
colder than the rest of the flat. And the single tiny radiator there 
takes much longer to get warm - presumably since it's at the opposite 
end of the building. So right now my kitchen is like a sauna, but the 
place where I actually want to sleep is still too cold. (And cools down 
rather quickly once I turn the heating off, which is the alarming part.)

Having said that, it's warmer since I turned my PC back on and set four 
instances of POV-Ray running. (I've lost about two weeks of render time 
due to this move...)

>> The flat comes with an owner's manual of sorts - a folder with sections
>> for everything you would ever need to know. Trouble is, it was clearly
>> compiled by the builders. So it contains the manual for the boiler they
>> installed, not the new one it was replaced with.
>
> Got a model number and manufacturer for the new one?

Well, I found the manual for the actual boiler laying around in a 
cupboard. I still don't have a manual for the timer controls though.

Weird thing is, it says Honeywell on it - I thought they went out of 
business about 30 years ago...

>> No matter what your woes, somebody else always has a bigger problem.
>> Why, I just spoke to my ex-girlfriend, and her sister died yesterday.
>> What do you even SAY to something like that??
>
> "I'm sorry for your loss" or "Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that" is usually a
> good place to start.  That is sad news indeed.  I find that some people
> enjoy talking about the person who passed away, others want to be
> distracted.  Listening is usually good.

When I heard she had leukaemia, I wasn't sure what to say. A few months 
later they diagnosed liver cancer. Last week they added brain cancer to 
the list... There's really not a lot you can say to that. And now she's 
actually dead. Everyone responds differently; I think Lynn just wants to 
be left alone right now. She's probably got a dozen people offering her 
their sympathies.

On a happier note, she visited my flat last weekend, and seemed 
impressed with it. And hopefully I've got another visitor tomorrow...

>> Sometimes I like to think of moving from one American state to another
>> as being like moving between European countries. I gather they're
>> approximately the same size...
>
> Depends on the state.  Here in Salt Lake City (and the surrounding towns)
> there's about a million people.  Seattle's about the same size, but
> different politics, climate, ... pretty much everything. :)

...just like another country. ;-)

>>> That's one of the nice things about owning a place and fixing it up -
>>> you can make money on it when you sell it. :)
>>
>> Interesting. I assumed that you always lose a huge chunk of money when
>> you sell a property - pretty much like anything else you can buy...
>
> Oh, no, property values can (and do) go up.  I bought my first place out
> here in the mid-90's, paid about $89K for it (well, the bank did, and I
> paid them back when I sold the place and we moved in 2001.  The new place
> cost roughly double that (I think about $160K when all was said and
> done), and our realtor tells us that we should be able to get about $325K
> for it when we finish the last few little things that need finishing (a
> couple hardwood floors to professionally clean and refinish, and a little
> bit of painting).

How does that work out after you correct for inflation?

> A lot of it has to do with supply and demand.  Right now around here,
> it's a seller's market (there are more people wanting to move in than are
> wanting to leave), so you can ask a higher price.

I figure if you buy a property that's almost brand-new, once you sell 
it, it's not brand-new any more, hence drastically less desirable. Also 
half this block of flats appears to be empty currently, so...

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