Your roommate barely can keep the laundry piles from overflowing into the walkway and the concept of a coaster is clearly beyond his grasp. But with a little info from our DIY swickis, these quick projects are things that even he'll have trouble messing up.
1. If you're tired of living in a cave, then it's time for a lighting project. Multiply a room's length by its width and then by 1.5. You'll have a number that should be roughly equivalent to the number of watts that you'll need to illuminate the room. If that number is 300 watts, you'll need at least 5 60-watt light bulbs to get the right amount of lighting.
2. Tired of standing in a half an inch of water during your shower? Don't worry. Using a drain cleaner is simple. It really just involves pouring some goo down the drain and then pouring water down about 15 minutes later. Plus, there are now eco-friendly drain cleaners that you can use to lessen the impact on the environment.
3. Some of your cabinet handles feel like they're going to come out with the next tug. A Philips or flat-head screw driver and some elbow grease may be all you need to fix it with a few turns to the right (remember righty tighty and lefty loosey). In some cases, you may need new screws or handles, which can be found at a hardware store.
4. The baseboard running around the wall bottoms has had its share of stuff rubbed against it, dropped on it, and kicked into it. Hand your roommate a paint brush and bucket and lay down some plastic or newspaper to protect the surface underneath it while painting it up.
5. You'll want to make sure that your roommate has some sense of color, but adding a few throw rugs to your abode can offer a splash of color and hide that awful coke stain in the middle of the living room.
6. Drip. Drip. Drip. Enough's enough. Take the Xbox controller out of your roommate's hand and replace it with a wrench. In most cases, all you'll have to do is a replace an o-ring in the faucet. Either that, or put a wash cloth under the drip. Then the sound will be splot, splot, splot. But at least it'll be different.
7. Having stray knives floating around the kitchen is making you nervous, so it's never been a better time to install a magnetic kitchen knife holder. Plus, magnets are cool. Find a wall stud or install some mollies to hang up the new knife holder.
Hopefully, your apartment will be looking ship-shape before long. And if this goes well, maybe you'll have some ambition for bigger projects. You may even have some fun working together as you turn your place into a home.