My life in the splinter group

I am a member of a splinter group, and I'm madder than hell.

No, not a fringe political or religious organization.

Our hardwood floors are of roughly the same vintage as the rest of our apartment building, which was built at the turn of the 20th century. And they're in pretty bad shape.

My membership in the "splinter group" is hard-won. Though we have some ancient rugs down in various parts of the apartment, there's enough exposed, splintery floor around (mostly in the living room) that you want to be really, really careful when baring your soles.

After pulling the latest monster chunk of wood out of my foot over the weekend, I finally had enough, and put my design consultant on the job.

We're going to put down industrial rubber mats on the kitchen floor--and in the living room, modular carpet tiles in some kind of attractive, funky color pattern.