It's true, my home is contagious!
I have the decorating bug, I've tried to find treatment but to no avail. Well (un)fortunately my roomie has found herself infected as well.
It started with painting her room; a lovely green shade, and finding herself a snazzy mirror to accent it as well.
It has since moved into her bathroom. The other roommate has moved on to greener pastures and with no plan on replacing him she took the opportunity to make her bathroom her own.
Originally she was going to go with a nice blue theme. But upon finding the following shower curtain everything changed! I present to you,
Symptom 1: A hideous bathroom. (as always, click to embiggin)
Treatment 1: a snazzy shower curtain!
Symptom 2: Ugly cabinet with uglier hardware and huge outlet gash.
Treatment 2: New color and hardware and snazzy outlet and cover!
Symptom 3: Hideous mirror (unseen light fixture) and cabinet.
Treatment 3: Fancy paint and hardware, and new clock, (unseen new fixture), more outlets and covers
Same Symptom as above, new angle more ugly
Treatment 3.1 New hardware for towels and the like!
I think the roomie did a fabulous job and I love the fact that she feels more comfortable now. It's always been my desire to have the roomies feel like they can dig in and make something more to their liking. Fortunately this is also to my liking. bonus all around!
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I've been doing a bit of thinking lately.
The other day I had a friend tell me that they stole something from a local restaurant, just a nifty little tool that they use there. Why did they steal it? Because they were dared and they thought it was "funny".
I'm really conflicted with this revelation. I do not agree with stealing. At all. BUT I have downloaded pirated movies and have a couple of songs that were likely pirated as well. I usually give my friends a total ration of shit about it when I know they do it. The irony being that one of them is the one that gave me a bunch of pirated songs. I have also got a few books for my kindle that were pirated. (Harry Potter and Sookie Stackhouse- I've even offered them to friends. Hypocrite much?) but I justify it to myself since Harry Potter is not available on e-reader yet and as soon as it is I am buying them. But I also realize that hey, I have all the hardbacks, so how fair is it that I can't just import those into my Kindle? I was able to rip my cds into my iTunes. But at this point in time there is no way to convert your existing library into your e-reader. sigh.
But to go back to what prompted this, I have friends that pirate a shit-ton of movies and music to the point of being quite proud about it and even to the point of having their internet blocked due to these practices yet they are still unrepentant about the practice.
The thing is, I could never imagine any of these people ever walking into Wal-Mart of Bestbuy and stuffing a dvd or cd into their bags, let alone a few hundred of them. But doesn't piracy amount to the same thing?
What happened to our morals as a country that such activity is so much more acceptable? I admit it, I would have a hard time being friends with someone who I knew was a thief. But I do know people who are. Does it make it so much different since it's digital and not physical? I mean I trust these people in my home; I'd never think they'd steal from me. But they do steal, on a regular basis. How do I feel about this?
I know, a ton of people will be like, well don't judge them. I judge, but I try to not to convict, if that makes any sense at all. I mean we all judge, it's what people do. But we don't always pass a conviction onto the things we disagree with. It's a "victimless" crime; it doesn't hurt anyone I know. But it still hurts society doesn't it?
Other than the "funny stealing" that my friend told me about, this weekend a couple of things happened that make me acutely aware of thievery and how it affects people. One I won't go into, my friends know what it's about and know what I am going through. But the other, someone getting my CC number and making a dupe card and clearing out my account. I should be really pissed. But I'm not. It's weird. Maybe because I don't know them, and they don't know me so I can't take it personally. Like I would if it was friend or family. It also didn't hurt that I was able to recover all my money within a couple days. But it still begs the question? Why take something that isn't yours? And can't this be extended to simple piracy?
It seems like a grey area to me at this point. I love and adore my friends that pirate and would never doubt their integrity otherwise. But it makes me think a little bit.
I have conquered my wall!
I was concerned that I had wasted money on getting my new speakers and after a couple weeks of thinking I realized that I could make it work without any real modifications.
As you can see from the pic below I had NO extra space between my studs for my speaker placement. The only other thing I might do is use my Dremel and make a couple small reliefs in the studs so that I can engage the little clamps that hold the speakers in place, but the hole is tight enough, I don't know if it will be necessary.
You can see the mostly finished product below, all I have left to do is paint, but since I am changing the wall color it'll be a little bit before I jump into that part of the project.
Unfortunately I was stymied on being able to run the wires behind my trim along the floor. Sigh, I don't know what size of sill plate they used but it's not a 2x4, so I'll have to think about that one again too. I'm thinking I might use a second piece a trim above the first a little ways, maybe make it look like it's architectural if I can. About the only thing I can think of.
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.
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.
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.