It would seem that every damn time I try to do something in my house I find some random thing that keeps me from doing so. Sigh. When I tried to mount my television on the wall I discovered that the studs were too far apart where I wanted to place it. I had to span the space between the two studs that were in the best place (read: closest to the center of the wall) so that I would have something to attach the mount to. So now I have these horrid lengths of 2x4 stuck on the wall. The tv mostly covers them, but from above (which you can see from the walkway upstairs) and from the side they are plainly visible. I realized that the studs were spaced farther apart then normal because of the AC vent that is in the wall. (for the uninitiated: most studs in residential construction are 16" on center- the two I needed were over 2 feet apart so the mount wouldn't reach).
After getting my new couch I decided that it is just too damn cluttered in the room and along that wall. I decided to de-clutter by replacing my current speakers (they are big floor speakers that had belonged to my father and sound really good but are a bit old, believe it or not I'm pretty sure they are older than I am- BIG EYES!) with some in-wall speakers.
Installing in-wall speakers does not concern me too much, cut a hole in the wall for the speaker and cut a hole in the bottom behind the floor molding to hide the wires and voila. Done. BUT my house had other ideas. First I had the studs I had to deal with to mount the tv, now I have to fight an over abundance of studs! My first thought was that the idiots were making up for the lack of studs in the middle of the wall. But then I thought that maybe it's to support the walkway above. I don't really know which of these is accurate. But regardless, I don't appear to have space enough (where I need it) to mount one of my damn speakers. All I need is 12" or so. Talk about frustrating. I may be able to get away with 8" but I am not even sure I have that. The speakers need to be 6-8' apart, (mine will be closer to 10' and the tv needs to be centered between them) so my options for placement are limited. the thing that sucks, the left hand speaker has plenty of space, the right... I have 4' to work with, and believe it or not, I have no option. there are that many damn studs or some other random obstacle. Sigh. Please see pic below for reference, the red are what I believe are studs.
I'm gonna see if I can squeeze out 8" since that is the bare minimum I can work with. We will see.
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A few months ago I happened upon a couch at Boulevard Home Furnishings (Blvd) that I fell in love with. This was kind of strange since I've always had a low opinion of Blvd based on three things, I felt they were overpriced, cheaply made, and almost exclusively traditional in style. But I was wanting to try and get a new couch or sectional and I hit all the other places in town (mostly with Connie in tow, poor kid. lol) and though I had seen some that I liked, none of them "spoke to me" shall we say.
So without much hope I surrendered and went to Blvd just to see what I might find. Most suspicions were borne out not long after walking through the doors. Most of the furniture was extremely traditional in design and style and the ones I did see that I somewhat liked were very expensive. (of course)
Then as I was walking down the main aisle I saw this vision of a dream, a sectional of contemporary design that literally stopped me in my tracks. I was like, oh. mah. god. I have found my holy grail. lol. Not quite. While it seemed to avoid two of the aforementioned expectations: cheaply made and traditional, it did not avoid possibly the most important, it was EXPENSIVE (to me.), $3000 for the set. *big eyes!
Since I prefer paying in cash, it was not gonna happen until I did some saving, and that was gonna take a while. With a sigh I surrendered the fantasy.
Then over the Memorial Day holiday I decided to see what else they might have to offer.
And voila, there is was and it was almost half off! Only $1700! To say I was excited would be accurate. I still didn't have the cash, but I decided to again leave it up to fate (it served me well thus far, eh?) I decided to go ahead and finance it. If I got financing so be it, if not, so be it. Well I got it. yay! 12 months no interest.
The only snag... one piece was missing (thanks a hell of a lot Fitness Ridge, you just had to make your set two couches instead of a love seat/ couch combo. psh) So, the good news, it was actually even cheaper(!), $1400, but bad news, it was not the coveted couch/love seat configuration anymore, it was more, love seat/love seat. blah.
But I decided to heck with it. I have the financing, I love the look and all things considered what were the chances I find something I like as much. (also, it matches my dining set.)
So I bought it and it was delivered on Tuesday. Two things occurred to me upon its arrival: it's massive (things are always so much smaller on the showroom) and I wasn't sure if the dual love seat thing was going to work for me. And maybe it's not quite as comfortable as I thought. hmmm
But after living with it for a while and trying a few different arrangements in my living room I think I like it. I really love the look, I wish it had armrests near the table, but meh...
So without further ado, behold the Square1... (click images to embiggen, as always)
oh, before anyone opines that I should check online for a source to get the missing piece, I have exhausted that avenue. Apparently Emerald Furniture (the manufacturer) has discontinued it so I am not able to locate any additional pieces. booo But I have told Blvd that if they manage to get another piece to let me know. I've also written the manufacturer to see if they can provide me with another source. *fingers crossed.Thoughts?
Hello all!
I got busy again this weekend (I just love having projects to do) and I covered my icky entryway floor with some new wood flooring. Okay, VINYL wood flooring, but I was mainly going for a look and I had a VERY limited budget to work with.Here is the before... (click to embiggen pix of course)
and the after...
I think it looks so much better and I was fortunate; I got it all for only $15 and it was the perfect amount (almost, I had 1 whole strip-with tape gunk on it, not really usable and the scraps amounted to pretty much 1 strip).
So that was project 1 (Well, 2, actually, I am not posting them in order. lol)
The other project was the recurring nightmare I call The Awning.
As you can see from this image, I had some work to do...
Yeah, it's not supposed to be bowed like that. hee hee. So I had to put in rafters at each of the posts. It comes down to the fact that I should have just poured concrete for the posts. The piers I used move in the ground so when I would increase the tension on the cables (or the wind kicked up and moved the awning material a bit) the posts would move. I didn't realize it was so bad until I started noticing how tight I was making the cables yet they kept getting loose. I thought that the turnbuckles were loosening. I was wrong. sigh.
So I put in the rafters and the funny thing is, now the bow goes the opposite direction. lol
I made all the posts plum but since they didn't all line up completely ( I measured them all before I dug but I would guess I wasn't accurate or else the holes weren't so great. (I knew I should have used a string-line.) Well I can make shit work, now I just gotta learn how to plan it better. Lol or else learn to ask for help instead of trying to do it all by my onesie all the time. I need a bf. lol
Looks like I will have to change how the awning material is hung up though. They have little plates you can just hammer through the material but that would negate the possibility of having it retractable at all. But oh well, the best laid plans of mice and men and all that.
Woo Hoo, what a fun weekend!
The roomies helped me paint the downstairs bathroom to make it look much better. Thanks to both Connie and Corey (he was our self-described "supervisor"- a position he is aching to add to his resume) for all their assistance.
Corey also helped me tried to cut off my toe remove the lame damn shower stall doors (you know, I get it when you buy stuff from yard sales or what-have-you, but at least see if they fit properly first) and replace them with a nice curtain. It is so much easier now to access the shower, I forget how much of a pain those doors really were.
Unfortunately I discovered that I have to rework my awning again. sigh Let this be a lesson to everyone, that trying to make it easier on yourself by using preformed concrete piers instead of pouring concrete for posts, is not the way to go. Now I have to add some 2x4 rafters because my frame is bowing from the tension on the cables. Should be an easy fix. But like everything else on this thing... we'll see.
Well thanks again roomies for the help!
And Saturday night I got to help a good friend see his way into his 40s. It's a dreadful time of life, but the party for it was a ball. There were some good people and some total train wrecks. Happily the two were not necessarily exclusive. lol And any party that has arrests, is usually a good party. *wink wink
As always it has been ages since last I posted. sigh.
Lots o' things have gone down:
I have finally finished a couple of projects! (images soon to come)
My patio shade thingy (which Connie refers to as the "awning" which is probably the most accurate name for it.)
I finished painting my Sunroom (Finally!)
And I finished painting the Dining Room, which Connie helped me start so long ago. (thanks roomie)
There is a lesson here, I muchly like it when people help me with things, Corey, you lazy ass.
Much of this sudden industriousness came about because I lost my shady, crappy, verging on fraudulent job that I have held for a number of years.
I won't lie, I enjoyed the job quite a bit. I learned how to do things that I would never have otherwise. For that, I am grateful, but when it came to some of the stuff I had to do I had some issues. It's always difficult to justify your employment at a place based solely on a paycheck mostly because you feel so bad about the people that are sold a bill of goods that just won't happen.
I was able to get past a lot of the shady dealings simply because I knew it wasn't us that did the selling, we just fulfilled it. We tried to do so to the best of our abilities and help these people recoup some of their money. Without a doubt, or exception, no one ever did.
This was so hard for me and many of the wonderful and even some of the most unsettling people, gary, that I worked with, the former I miss dearly.
The funny thing, is that they didn't go out of business or get shut down by the state, instead they sold that shit heap to another company. A company that is just as shady and is even worse for shit pulling. We were told originally that it would take "at least 1 month, maybe 2" to transition. Well guess what? I was laid off that day. And now most of the people I know that were still there have been laid off and it hasn't even been two weeks. psh.
You know, I get it, you have a company and you have to watch your bottom line, but it's jacked up that a company gets pissy if you quit and don't give them two weeks notice, (I know, I was a manager and it sucked ass having to cover for people that bailed) but companies do not give you the same respect. If you're fired for cause then so be it. Your ass deserved it, but if you are laid off or downsized or what have you, then they should either give you some kind of severance or notice. Please, these things do not happen over-night. They know their shit has gone bad and that they cannot stay in business at least a couple months in advance. Here's the thing though, they know the minute they tell you that they are going under and will be letting people go, people cease giving a shit. They develop the mindset of, "what are they gonna do, fire me?"
But, that's just something that's gonna happen. For those people that are loyal and stand by you, and as a manager you should be able to tell who those people are, you should reward them for that loyalty. But this rarely happens.
So now I have a new job. The people are super nice, and they are really happy here. I would love to bring my friends from Omni/Resutlzzzesszzzzzs/Achieve/Vision to work here, though I wonder if they would curse me or bless me. The thing is, it's not a bad place from what I can tell, but it seems drugs be a big thing in this damn industry. I try not to judge and at least (from what I can tell so far) it's just ganga, but I'm still mildly uncomfortable. Also, I'm getting the impression that a record is a prerequisite. Not if that's true, but damn... it seems like it.
So that's where I am at right now, for those that care. lol
I'll get some pics up of my last projects and hopefully keep people informed on what's going on.
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