Last week, as I mentioned, Pablo and I came home to a plumbing emergency. It appears that one too many baby wipes and reams of dental floss had been flushed down the toilet, and so our bathroom had to be gutted straight through to the kitchen below, in order to repair the leak.
Behold our new kitchen ceiling:

Since Barry, our insurance agent, quickly informed us that they won't be covering "any aesthetic fixes" until we've met our "$1,000 deductible" {suck a dirty pipe, Barry}, I've decided to approach the situation with a fresh outlook. Here are just a few ideas of how we can best utilize our new industrial-grade ceiling:
1. Place a high table directly beneath the hole and hang pots and pans from the exposed pipes. Voila! The center island I’ve always wanted!
2. Storage solution. Our pantry is getting a bit cramped—why not toss a couple bags of potato chips and a box of Pampers up into the otherwise empty space? Strategic and easy to access!
3. Cut a five-inch hole straight through to the bathroom floorboards and use it to pass toilet paper up from the kitchen in a pinch.
4. Spray paint the whole ceiling silver and hang a few energy efficient light bulbs from the largest pipes via wire. I noticed a similar design at Michael’s Genuine in Miami last week, and damned if I can’t DIY that s#it up!
5. Transform into a seasonal display, complete with scary bats and spider webs, paper pilgrims and turkeys, and scented garland and mistletoe!
Whew! That’s all I’ve got, but please feel free to weigh in with any additional suggestions. I’m in a glass-half-full kind of mood today, and what better time than the present to put my HGTV-honed decorating skills to good use?



























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