Thanks for your suggestions. I noticed the difference between the summer and winter with the floor. Its ashame as they are very nice looking. My wife and I are just fed up as we cant even go in the babies room without waking him up from the noise. YES, its that bad. We put a little rug in his room to try to damper the sound, but only helped a little. Floorguy, I tried with the screws underneath (probably about 100 of them or so) but didn't help. If I recall correctly, I used 1 1/2 inch screws. Maybe they weren't long enough? My arm was ready to fall off from holding the screw gun in an upwards position! I did try putting some shims where I saw that the sub floor was loose, but overall, the sub floor is pretty flat against the joists. As the contractors said, they basically didn't use any any nails when they were installed. If I look underneath them from the basement, I would probably count maybe 50 nails sticking out from the sub floor for the entire 1st floor. I don't know...... :-/ If you can remember the screw names, PLEASE let me know! :-) Any other suggestions or advice is appreciated. Thanks all!

Ok - a small update. I went to our local paint/wallcovering store and she said while it is possible to put another layer on (after gluing down any lifted areas) that it would be best if I stripped and then re-papered. She then showed me a book with textured papers in it that were already colored, and she pointed out a gorgeous plaster look-alike that I loved, and it will eliminate the step of painting for me, which frees up more energy and time for me to strip the wallpaper. I don't know why it didn't dawn on me to find a textured paper that was already finished instead of the type that needs paint. DOH! But, anyways... I think that is the way I am leaning - strip the current layers, re-paper in a faux plaster wallcovering.

I started mine with the shellac. No filing off of the first layer of nail to adhere the tip. No tip at all. I did it so my nails will be stronger to grow out for an occasion coming up in a couple more weeks. So far, I have had the shellac done twice in about 6 weeks. I am getting about 3+ weeks on it. They look like they were done yesterday. Still shiny. Work is very hard on my hands and all my nails broke way down. Now they look nice again. Just starting to show over the ends of my fingers. Shellac does NO damage to your nails. When the polish is soaked off, you can leave it off and have perfect natural nails. NO layers are missing. I love them. Now I haven't done any pottery since I have had them done and after my event I will go back to throwing and see how they do. The only downfall to shellac I was told was if your hands are in water a lot they might lift a bit. We will see. I know the wheel turning will file them down some like they did before. So we will see.

If it's cracked and not hanging you can try trimming it at home. But unless you're very skilled you could make it worse if the crack goes back far enough. Just cutting the tip might offer some relief though. A dog's nails are also very close to the bone and in rare case permanent injury could be done if you have to cut it way back. That's a job for a vet to do. I would go with the vet. He's in pain. It's not going to get better and it sounds like the dog has a history of bad nails. If the dogs nails frequently shed etc. the best solution is frequent trims and keeping the nails very short. My Rottie has really bad nails that grow quickly. You may want to get all the nails cut back at the vets and then follow up by dremeling the nails. Nails that break and split easily do better if they are ground rather then cut.