Poking holes in my resale value

The title to this post is a little dramatic, yes, but me and the drywall mud will be spending some quality time together when I move out.

For Christmas, I got some nifty acrylic display cases for my Hess Truck collection. (You might remember me mentioning them here and here.)

Well, they're up on the wall now, see? But not without a fight.

Hiding behind the nicely mirrored backing are a bunch of holes with drywall molly* bolts in them. Why? Both display cases were mounted to the wall twice, and it's not even (entirely) my fault.

My father helped me hang the cases, which are more bulky than heavy. Before you think I'm blaming his skills, know that he builds multiple theatrical stage sets a year. He's not unhandy.

Before drilling into my walls, we measured. We did math. We used a level. While mounting the cases, we used the level again. But, somehow, both cases ended up being crooked -- and to add insult, neither case lined up with its mate.

It was so bad we decided to take both cases down and start from scratch ... after we ran to the store, as we had consumed all of the supplied hardware.

The cases still aren't perfectly aligned, but they're MUCH better now. (And for other collectors out there, yes, I still have the boxes.)

* Drywall molly bolts, for folks who want to know, are plastic spreaders that act as anchors, allowing heavy objects to hang from drywall without screwing/bolting directly into a stud. They become permanent fixtures to the wall, unless they are dug out and patched up. 

The hard way

A quick note to readers of this blog: Please learn from my mistakes.

When adding this rug and this sofa to a room, it would be wise to place the rug *first,* then bring the sofa into the room. A college-educated adult shouldn't mess this up, but then there's me.

On a related note, make sure the furniture you buy fits into your HOME, not just its intended room. This 9x12' rug and massive sofa had to scale a flight of stairs only 35 inches wide *and* turn a corner.

Before bringing it in, I did measure the sofa -- a sectional -- to make sure it fit. Its smallest dimension is 38 inches, but the overstuffed padding squished down just enough. My movers still were NOT amused.

Make me feel better; share your brief moments of stupidity in the comments section.

Mind the gap (kitchen edition)

My (former) apartment had short kitchen cabinets. It wasn't ideal for storing stuff *in* the cabinets, but there was lots of space *above* them, which I used as a makeshift bar and beer-stein display.

My new townhouse has tall kitchen cabinets, which I like better, because all my stuff is stashed like carryon luggage on a crowded flight. But there's a small space (about 12 inches) between the top of the cabinets and my ceiling. It's not large enough to put anything useful up there and it's too high up to use as storage for anything I'd actually need.

The gap never really bothered me, until I saw what my girlfriend did with her above-cabinet area. After I mentioned how it made her kitchen a little more classy, for Christmas, she was nice enough to get me these similar supplies for my cabinet tops.

[pics and more after the break]