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. 

Surprise! No mishaps.

I promised some grill-related exploits a couple posts ago. Now that the weather's getting nicer and the days are getting longer, I've used my new grill a few times.

I haven't had any mishaps. Not one.

OK, I forgot to close the valve on the propane tank overnight. Once. But that's it, I swear.

In other grill-related news, I decided to pull my grill and patio furniture indoors during the recent tornado watches. It all fits indoors, which is good to know for when I'm ready to stain and seal my deck.

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.

Dirty window sills

Raleigh has been given the gift of phenomenal weather this week. To celebrate, I've opened all the windows in my place to air out any winter funk.

The window sills on my west-facing windows are INCREDIBLY dirty. It's not one constant layer of unmolested dirt. It's as if water got in, then evaporated, leaving only grime behind; I think I see water spots in the dirt. This, clearly, will require a good sponge and some continued observation.

In other news, this weather means it might be time for the first cookout of 2010. Stay tuned for grill-related escapades and a general disregard of basic fire safety.

Little sensor, big help

Problem: My TV sits above my fireplace. In addition to the TV, I have four other components to my entertainment system and some assorted speakers. I don't like to see wires, and I'm too cheap to pay an expert to wire the necessary cords through my walls. (I know, I know. ... If only all our problems were this trivial.)

Solution: Stack the components BEHIND the TV.

New problem: The components' remote controls signals aren't powerful enough to go *through* the TV, which means my lazy butt would have to get up and press the buttons on my now-hidden components. (And you thought my previous problem was trivial, huh?)

New solution: I found this transmitter and receiver at Best Buy. Point any and all remote controls at the transmitter and let RF waves do their magic. If it lived up to its packaging claims, the transmitter/receiver combination also could operate my remote controls through walls, floors, multiple rooms, and even politicians' thick skulls.

The packaging claims are greatly exaggerated. True, the devices often work when both the receiver and transmitter are in the same room -- but not always. Luckily, a Best Buy reviewer named mdjiron (who coincidentally also lives in Raleigh) came up with an engineering fix that other reviewers say works great. 

I have yet to try the hack, but if I don't electrocute myself, I'll report back with results. For now, I am just happy to keep my butt planted on my VERY comfortable sofa, channel surfing like a king.

Aw...sheets

I have a queen bed, fairly plush, but by no means ridiculously oversized. I needed a set of sheets for said bed.

I went to Wal-Mart to buy their best sheets, figuring the best sheets from a discount store average out pretty well. I found a color and style I liked, and made sure the queen set hadn't been opened.

You probably know what's coming next... When I got home, I attempted to make the bed with my new sheets. There was no amount of stretching that would have gotten that fitted sheet onto my mattress.

[more after the break -- click below]

Resurrecting a fish tank, part 1

My 29-gallon fish tank has been dormant for four months. It went uncleaned for a couple months before that. My lack of aquatic attention can be blamed on the amount of time needed to search for and move to a new place.

I'm not proud of it, but the caked-on scum in my fish tank developed into a rainbow of colors. There was green scum. There was purple scum. There was black scum. And I kid you not, there was scum that changed colors like the corner of a $20-dollar bill.

Clearly, there are only a few industrial products I could use to remove that scum, none of which would be safe for any future fish residents, which require a narrow range of pH levels and water chemicals to survive.

Or I could take the fish tank to a (manual) car wash and blast it with the high-pressure rinse cycle. Guess which option I chose?

It actually was fun to clean the fish tank at the car wash (obvious note: remove any live fish from the the tank before attempting this), though I got many strange looks from other car wash patrons.

Using the soap setting on the water gun (not the separate soap wand) helped loosen the entrenched scum. And the high-pressure rinse cycle did, in fact, clean everything out, though it sprayed soap bubbles everywhere.

After drying the fish tank off. I brought it home and filled it with some new gravel and decorations. Now I just need fish.

[freshly cleaned tank, with its light off and its light on]