I’ve been offered the opportunity to work from home, and to that end I need to establish office space at my house. Along the way, I’ve decided to pick up a few extra house remodeling issues. Below is a log of my experiences. Also, there are two rooms I constantly reference: the SE and the SW rooms. Currently, the plan is for the SE room to become the office and the SW room to become the new housemates’s.
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Started doing some research on the web for “Home Office,” however, everyone seems to confuse the term with “Home Business” which is not what I’m researching. Very frustrating. Turns out the better term to base searches on is telecommuting, although many of those references still had a leaning towards “how to get work.”
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Considering converting the far-south storage room into my office, but I’ve noticed how warm my room gets when computers are running. Combine that with the poor A/C that room gets and the fact that I’m in Arizona… I don’t think I would really be able to get much done out there in the summer. I’m starting to lean towards taking over one of the bedrooms.
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Here is the problem, I actually have an open room, but, I had already made an agreement for someone to move into it this coming May. I queried him the other day, and not only is he still planning on moving in, he it quite excited about the opportunity. I think its the appeal of a geek house, and I can’t blame him in the least. So, now I am stuck trying to make a decision of who I will kick out or not let move in… This has been weighing on my mind for some time now. The reality is, I had already made my decision a week ago, but really wanted to be sure that I wasn’t going to change my mind. Well, today, I cemented the decision, and gave a housemate his 30 day notice. It wasn’t easy.
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Received an email a few days ago from an old friend, Dave G. I replied and told him what’s up, and an mentioned my quest. Turns out, he has been there before, and has a lot of thoughts for me to consider. He called me a “telemuter,” cute. Anyway, I’ve reformatted his comments a bit:
As far as telecommuting I have some experience with it. I quit my job in North Hollywood to move up here but they retained me. I have been working from home for 14 months now. It has some perks but I don’t think it is a great long term solution. It is pretty hard to get noticed when you aren’t there. [Your's] is nice and far away. They probably won’t ask you to come out every few weeks at least.
- I don’t recommend America West. Fly SW and join the cattle car club. Get a frequent flier card on your first trip, there will probably be more.
- Buy a good chair. Write it off if you can but don’t waste your time on Business Max junk.
- Make sure your desk is set up properly. Set it up to look out a window if you can. You will probably be sitting there a lot more than you ever did at work and will be working much more than eight hours.
- Get a second phone line with the bill sent to them.
- Get DSL or cable modem if you can.
- Track all your work in a database. After a few months it is hard to remember everything you did and it will be even harder for them to remember (especially when review time comes around,
if they even remember to review you. It has been over two years for me now).Listen to me now and hear me later, these tips will make your life much better.
This is great timing, as I’m still trying to decide which room to take over, the SW bedroom or the SE bedroom. Combining the above comments about a window (erg, I normally hate windows) and the recently revealed fact: apparently, the East side of the house stays cooler through out the day. Now I think I know: It’ll be the SE bedroom.
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Spent about four hours with the steam cleaner trying to get the smell out of the carpet in the SW room. I recall getting a whiff of this weird odor before the last guy moved in, so I don’t think he had anything to do with causing it. Perhaps it was just in the carpet when it was installed. And, I’m not sure how he put up with it. Anyway, it took about four hours before I surrendered on the darker areas. The carpet looks a lot better, especially around the edges, but it still has some weird matting going on from the doorway to the middle. I’m told I can get some type of lifting chemical that will take care of that. I guess carpet must be just like hair, first you shampoo it, then you have to condition it.
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The smell in the SW carpet is still there. I’ve noted that it only shows up when people walk across the carpet. Perhaps it has to be agitated up into the air. I’m getting bummed. We took over the room for Trebuchet construction, hopefully we wont get the carpet too dirty.
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Started shopping today for shelves. Turns out Home Depot doesn’t sell the Spur brand shelve rails anymore. They have a similar product that only comes in 70″ and smaller sizes. I’m a little bummed, as the room already has some shelves in it that I wanted to match. Fortunately, it is a different wall, so I don’t have to line up exactly. Didn’t have enough at the first store, so I ended up visiting a second one to get the rest. This always, happens, and I never understand why one store can’t stock enough product for one project. Oh well.
And so it begins… Today’s Damages:
$280.34 Home Depot, Shelving rails and supports $111.56 Home Depot, More shelving rails and supports Total to date: $391.90
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Cleaned up the SW room from the Trebuchet construction. When we started, Jeff had promised to help, but coincidentally and continently ran off to CA all week for spring break.
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A housemate (and a good friend) moved out today, on to LA to find an internship in the recording industry. Best of luck!
Before he had even pulled out of the driveway, I had left to go order carpet for both the SE and the SW rooms. Yes both, and yes, I know that SW room has new carpet installed in August ‘98, so its less than three years old. Actually, I wasn’t sure I was going to get carpet for SW room when I left the house, but while there I learned that nylon carpet is porous, and holds on to spills and smells, but the olefin carpet I was getting for the office doesn’t, so that finalized the decision for me.
Then, I was off to get 5 gallons of paint in the official Club Pebble Beach color of “Whisper Gray.” I had brought an old receipt with me so that I could be sure I got the same stuff. Last time, in ‘97, it was only $96, this time the same thing was $117. Don’tch’a love inflation.
One of my housemates told me that he had found shelves similar to the Spur units at Home Base. Also, earlier in the week I was told Home Base as having a 20% off sale. The joke was, “their sale prices are down to Home Depot’s regular prices.” When I got there, I discovered it is a going out of business sale, but, they had already been cleared out of the rails I needed. I meandered around the store, and actually found a few things I needed, and a few other things that would be cool to get, and I got.
Not finding everything I needed at Home Base, I went back to Home Depot, and got some miscellaneous things there. Along the way, I discovered that Home Depot also carries Leviton brand telecom panels! Woo Hoo! The electronics/telecom store I normally visit isn’t open on weekends.
Today’s Damages:
$378.06 Pro Source, Carpet & pad $116.64 Dunn Edwards, Paint $208.31 Home Base, Misc $ 44.21 Home Depot, More Shelving Total to date: $1139.15
Got home, and the mundane got started.
It was actually a relief to have the carpet decided, now I was just left to remove the old carpet from both rooms. Plus, the SE room had tile that needed to be removed. Having scraped up the same type of tile in other rooms, I knew that the shards would pierce the wall when they hit, so this time I saved a chuck of the carpet and used it as a target. It was almost a good idea, except that the part I saved just happened to have the “epicenter” of this carpets wear. The burlap backing simply fell apart as threads. It wouldn’t stay leaning against the wall. Fortunately, I had bought a new short ladder at Home Base, so used that to hold it all together. This was hilarious as the whole point of using the carpet target to save work later was negated by the amount of work it took to use it. Next time I’ll know to save a better piece of carpet. And yes, there will be a next time: I still have one room with the original carpet from when I moved in.
Today, when my housemate learned I had bought paint, he started on his paint the hallway kick again. I just might do it so I don’t have to hear about it again. :-)
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Today I spoke to Casey about installing the carpet. Turns out he wont be able to get to it until sometime in April. On one hand, this is cool in that I have a little more time to complete the messy things like painting. However, I feel this underlying need to get my act together soon, before the next big problem comes along (whatever that may be).
Came to a brilliant realization today, that will create more work, but now I’ve got the time, right? The South wall of the SW room has the old Spur brand shelve rails I want to match the existing ones in the office. Combined that with the fact that most of the previous housemates in the SW wanted the shelves on the North wall, I was considering moving the rails anyway. But, before I take the rails from the SW room for the office, I needed to be sure I could get the phone/LAN/cable fished down the North wall.
Well, that involves crawling in the attic. I hate the attic in my house: far too shallow, and I always itch from the insulation. Actually, I think I’m allergic to it.
I laid out a plan for pulling all of the stuff I thought I might need. Previously, in several rooms, I have installed florescent fixtures in the ceilings to replace the touchier lights that I originally bought. However, in most cases, they are still just plugged into a switched wall socket. I would much rather have them wired directly to the switches, and convert the switched socket to a normal. So, I added to my plan the pulling of some romax.
It looked like it was going to be 5 pulls in all, with two of them being power.
Things didn’t go too well. The pulley system I installed in the attic the first time I ever pulled a LAN wire up there appears to be permanently jammed. I guess that is okay, as the cable supports it feeds are nearly full anyway. I ended up manually dragging the cable through the supports. That really sucked as there is a span over some duct work that can only be reached by coming in from the side, then backing away to get around each rafter. Then, once I got over the North wall of the SW room, and even though I had checked that section of wall to be sure it was clear of any horizontals, I still hit something midway down. All I could do was shove 8′ feet of cable down the hole and hope that was good enough.
Along the way back out, I discovered that three of the pulls were never going to happen. At least not by me, and not today. They were all planned for walls that adjoin the hallway, and I discovered there is a horizontal in that wall too. In retrospect, I should have expected it, the hallway has a lower ceiling where the duct runs, so of course its going to have a cross piece there.
I think I nearly died from heat exhaustion just doing that first pull. When I made it back out, I realized the friend I had over helping feed wires wasn’t having fun, and was just putting up with me. So, I completed the second (and now final) pull to as quickly as reasonable. Fortunately, it went down the same place as an existing pull and being in the SE room, it didn’t have near as far to go to reach to the server closet.
Later that evening, I went back to the SW room, and used a wire fish from the bottom to locate the mystery horizontal. Once I found it, I used a nail and searched the area with a series of pin holes. It took over twenty tries till I finally realized I had hit it many times: whatever it was, it was flush to the far wall. I found the center, got the 4″ Blu-Mol hole saw out, and carefully drilled a hole only as deep as a the drywall (I had some wires in there to protect!). Turns out it was simply a 2×4 turned on its side and against the far wall. Found my wires, threaded them past the 2×4, and life was good. Now I’m a go for moving the shelves. Oh, and I have a hole to patch.
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Didn’t get far at all today. I had planned to move the Up Dux [non-manufacturer link] for the evaporative cooler “return” closer to the center of the house. When this is done, it will solve two problems. The first is, with my shallow attic, I can’t add any insulation without burying the current Up Dux. However, I can’t replace the current units with taller ones as the roof is too close in their current locations. The other problem, I have yet to install the SE light fixture, but the location I’ve planned for it would mostly block the current Up Dux.
I just want to point out again how cool it is that Home Depot carries real telecom parts.
Today’s Damages:
$ 28.56 Home Depot, telecom panels, Cat-5 connectors. Total to date: $1167.68
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I have a plan for the LAN drop problem. I can’t run LAN drops to the exact places I want to in the office, particularly as I discovered that the entire wall adjoining the hallway is basically off limits (as is the opposite exterior wall). I got to wondering how others may solve problems like this, and it clicked with me: cable trays! I’ve started putting a little thought in to it, and the idea is really starting to appeal to me to the point that, had I thought of this first, I might have done this any never worried about adding drops inside the walls.
I plan to run a low voltage cable tray along the permitter of the room’s ceiling. For my purposes, it would be similar in appearance to a lighting soffit, but with a “ladder” like structure for the bottom (not really a “soffit” anymore, eh?). A stained wood fascia/cornice might look nice. However, painted should be okay too, as I’m considering hanging noise abatement materials over the front edge. I know that I once saw a picture of some professors’s office where the LAN cable was literally “dropped” this way, and I thought it would be easy to find manufacturer’s of this kind of thing. So far, the best I can do are some generic looking (but still expensive) cable trays. I can’t find any research materials on a cable tray with an attached fascia or cornice. Guess I’ll have to design one myself.
I’ve removed the Up Dux in both rooms, and installed a new one in the Office about 6 feet closer to the center of the house. I went ahead and cut a hole for the other one, once they get in stock at home Depot. In both cases, I’ve used the cutout part of the ceiling to patch the old one’s hole. I’ve also mounted the 4″ plug from the cabling problem on Sunday.
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Got most of the drywall patching done. May need another layer, depending on how much shrinkage happens. Sealed the baseboards in the office to the floor (to minimize bugs). The SW room was sealed like that before the old carpet was installed.
Today’s Damages:
$ 28.94 Home Depot, Shelving and cable tray parts, +misc. Total to date: $1196.62
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Sanded and textured the drywall. Didn’t have a lot of time to get anything else done. But, I’m thinking there is a very goo chance I will be ready for painting Saturday.
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Midway through preparing to roll paint in the two rooms, one of my housemates offered to call a friend with a paint sprayer. But, my housemate really wanted the hallway painted too. Prepping for a sprayer is much more work. Adding a hall way that I hadn’t spent any time on all week didn’t help. I worked from 9a to 11p, when I just finally gave up.
Along the way, I’ve installed some boards under the windows to create an edge for supporting the Styrofoam we put in the windows during the summer. Once I discovered the tricks for using the anchorless concrete screws, anyway, it went well. The first trick is, use a #3 Phillips, not a number two (okay, I deserve a duh for that one as). The next trick is, pre-drill and countersink the board before you put the concrete screw in. The final trick is don’t ever go back. Once you take one of these screws out, the hole is useless.
So, I decided that was easy enough, so I installed a header in the upper corner of the exterior wall and the ceiling, using the same screws. Now I will have something to attache the cable tray to.
Today’s Damages:
$ 28.99 Home Depot, Boards and hardware for the cable tray $ 10.31 Home Depot, More hardware for cable tray, +misc. Total to date: $1225.61
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We were still masking right up until the friend with the sprayer showed up. We put him to work to help finish. Admittedly, we intentionally saved some steps until the end (like the bathroom door). I had to leave, but on returning, things hadn’t quite gone as planned. There wasn’t enough paint. At $22/gal, I didn’t want to end up with a lot of extra paint left over, so I only purchased one 5 gal bucket the week before. Then, when we added the hallway the day before, I expected we might be close, but the general consensus was that I had enough.
Fortunately, the majority of the remaining work is contained in one room. Unfortunately, it involves the ceiling.
Today’s Damages:
$ 10.00 (est) Dinner for the painter dude Total to date: $1245.92
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Bought some more paint this morning.
Went by Home Depot to find some new hallway lights. They just don’t offer anything that clearly looks like it would belong in a guy’s house. They were all terribly ornate. I simply wanted something that looked like a you took a tube about the diameter of a 1 gallon paint can (without the top and bottom) cut it in half vertically, the slapped it on the wall. It would be great if it had a brushed chrome finish. And, of course, it would be most thoroughly cool, if it used white LED’s. Al la these LED fixtures
and these LED fixtures.
While at Home Depot, I picked up some other things, including white sockets and switches, a new door chime, as well as some brackets from a shelf in the entryway. The brackets are cool, the claim to support up to 1000 lbs each (please don’t come over and test them, thanks).
Today’s Damages:
$116.64 Dunn Edwards, Paint $ 61.65 Home Depot, switches, sockets, shelve brackets Total to date: $1424.21
“Finished” painting. Painting is never really finished until the whole project is over, when the scuffs and other accidents that happen get re-painted. Taking down the painting masks is much quicker than putting it up. Also, I’ve started re-installing some of the sundry fixtures including the ceiling fans. I replaced the power cord going to the light fixture in the SW room with a white cable. Hopefully that will hide it better.
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Went to Home Depot once again. I really should learn the art of making a list and sticking to it. The items I really need are a tall Up Dux (still not in stock, try back around 2nd week of April, oh joy), about 40 more brackets for the cable tray (also, not in stock), and new light fixtures for the hallway.
Yesterday, of course, I didn’t like any of their light fixture choices. However, there was one that was reasonable, but it didn’t appear to be in stock. Today, I went back, searched a little harder and found some in the very back of the bottom shelf. Actually had to crawl into the shelves to pull a pair out. Unfortunately, they are a ceramic, which (a) will probably break someday and (b) means they will hold oils from people touching it, making it really hard to clean. But, the box claims they are paintable… And just yesterday, I thought I was done painting.
Oh, you are probably still wondering why I think I should have a list. After getting the fixtures and on my way to the checkout stands, I walked past the displays with all the light bulbs. In particular the florescent low-heat bulbs; it seems like should be a good idea to use these bulbs for the hallway. Right next to them were some florescent exterior “bug lights.” Last night I cleaned the brushes in the dark as the outside lights had both burned out, so again, it seemed like a good idea to get some new bulbs for that. I ended up spending about $40 on 4 bulbs. They better last the 10 years the package claims.
Today’s Damages:
$115.01 Home Depot, "Sconce" light fixtures, florescent bulbs, +misc. Total to date: $1539.22
Installed the new white sockets and switches. Painted and installed the new hall light fixtures. Installed the SE room’s permanent light fixture, the SE room had one installed several year back. The rooms are starting to look almost habitable now. Just need that carpet. Oh, and the shelves, and a bunch of other little things. Almost habitable.
Popped two circuit breakers. The first one happened when I was returning power to the rooms after replacing all the sockets. I returned to the room, but couldn’t find any sign of what happened, so I started opening the sockets I had worked on. The second one I opened had a ground wire holding clip that looked dangerously close to the black wire screw terminal. I moved the clip and life was good. The second breaker was much more of a sup rise when, later in the evening, I was completing installation of the hall light fixture. I had the switch to the light off, so I “knew” the box was unpowered. But, as I was screwing the mounting post in, it touched another wire that happened to be passing though this box. As it turned, it slowly wore through the insulation until finally, 6″ in front of my face, “boom” immediately followed by dark, then a moment later followed by the smell of burned something. Interestingly, the smoke detector about 2′ away never went off.
All of the $10 light bulbs were a bummer. The base of the bulbs are too wide to fit in a weatherized fixture. Oh, the hall lights, were I planned to put the cool florescent bulbs, apparently have weatherized bases as well, so the didn’t fit. I went back to regular incandescent bulbs, but they to stick up over the top of the fixture. The florescent bulbs are actually taller, so they would have stuck up really tall (assuming I could screw them in, anyway).
However, I’m not completely bummed with my $10 bulbs, the recessed light over the kitchen sink had a timely demise, so I used one there. And, I’m betting I can find some socket extenders for the exterior bulbs that will let be use them. While talking to one of my housemates, it was pointed out that the bulbs are more likely to get broken before they would die in 10 years. Well see.
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Well vehicle problems arose, its not good when you see a puddle of transmission fluid under your car. I had to wait for a housemate to take me in to work. While waiting, I figured might as well get something done, so I did a little clean up; I’ve got tools and parts I’ve spread around the house. In the process, I moved the neato power-saving florescent bulbs to the top of the fridge near where we normally store bulbs and the like. Just after I turn around, I hear this bounce, partially masking the sound of shattering glass. Sigh. There went one of my $10 bug-away lights. Fortunately, the yellow plastic “bulb” contained the broken glass.
On a side issue, and after re-reading the suggestions posted March 1st above regarding DSL, I started doing some thinking. I currently have Sprint Broadband’s one-way RF Internet service. Downstream is RF and upstream is via a phone line. Its okay, but for uploads, everything goes slow at 33.6 kb/s. The Sprint Broadband service its self is around $45/month plus the phone line is about $25/month, meaning I’m spending $70/month on Internet service.
Now, I recently learned from Telocity that DSL service is available to my house. This is counter to what the local Telco Qwest says about DSL at my place:
We’re sorry. Although service is available in your area, our records indicate that your telephone line does not qualify for Qwest DSLSM service.
Telocity only wants $60/month (for up to five computers, or it is just $50/month for one) and they offer up 768 kb/s downstream and 512 kb/s upstream uploads. So, for a net of $10 less a month, I would get the ability to upload files faster and get multiple IP addresses. At least, I assume that “multiple computers” means multiple unique IP addresses, I’m waiting to get a reply from them on that question.
I’ve also considered Speakeasy, but their prices seem prohibitively high, perhaps that means they are good, I know they are highly geek-aware. Anyway, for the moment, I’m seriously considering Telocity.
I belive I made every amateur mistake possible with the doors today. The simple goals were 1) install new handles and 2) provide a better air return path to the hallway. The first mistake was made last Sunday when I painted before doing the modifications to the door.
Apparently, in the early 60’s, the internal workings of a door knob used a smaller diameter hole than present day knobs, and in particular the new ones I have for these rooms. I actually discovered this problem several years ago when I originally purchased the knobs. At the time, I couldn’t figure out how to re-drill a slightly larger hole in the middle of an existing one. My Blu-Mol hole saw requires a pilot hole in the center, but there was no material there… Well, over the 2½ years I had relayed this problem to enough people, that someone had an answer: my brother-in-law suggested C-clamping a scrap board to the far side of the door, then extending the pilot bit all the way through. Worked like a charm! Cooler yet, I was able to mark the center on the board and use it as a jig for the other doors.
However, the first amateur mistake I made is really bummer; ultimately, I may end up replacing one of the doors. The instructions for the Kwickset knob apparently were designed for two different models. One of them having a longer latch mechanism. Both were drawn on the instructions, but the correct one for my knob set was done in a dashed line, and the wrong one was drawn in solid lines. As I had only taken the instructions out of the package (I didn’t want to get sawdust all over the parts), I didn’t see the problem until after I had drilled the wrong hole. Fortunately, the C-clamp idea continued to work for the next hole too. The rest of the knob went together okay, and mostly blocks the wrong hole. Still, on close inspection, its a little ugly.
The second amateur mistake fortunately was the same door. But first some background. For efficient A/C, one must have the room capable of returning at least the same amount of air to the hall intake as can be delivered by the room’s vent. My original plan was to cut a new vent near the bottom of the door and screw simple fixed register covers over each side. Similar to how the closets are done, with registers on both sides. However, in talking to one of my housemates, it quickly became clear that, to him, this solution stunk. The alternative, and more traditional solution, is to increase the gap at the bottom of the door.
Lets do some calculations. For those scared of algebra, just think of the following as a practical example of a real-life word problem, including a real-life solution! For both room’s the incoming register measures 11.5″ by 5.5″, yielding a total area of 63.25 sq. in. (ignoring the area consumed by the air directing slats). The doors are 29″ wide, meaning that for an equivalent area, the gap would have to be more than 2″ Height Above Average Terrain (HAAT), where the terrain is the carpet. I don’t think I could live with a 2″ gap, so I gave up on the math, and eyeballed what I figured I could live with: about ¾” HAAT.
Of course, none of that tells you about the second amateur mistake. I failed to put masking tape over the line I was cut across the bottom of the door, so the circular saw ended up ripping up the front and back of the door’s fascia. Nothing more paint won’t fix.
I actually ended up replacing three knobs, leaving three other hall doors (closets) with the old knobs. They are all of the same size and style as the old ones, so I was able to mix and match parts to make all the closets work correctly. Previously, one was missing most of the knob, and another only opened when turned counter-clockwise.
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That need-a-list issue keeps coming up when I visit Home Depot. This time it wasn’t the problem of getting too much stuff, but rather the opposite: failing to get what I went their for. The real goal was simply to get some colored string to use as a marker between my yard and the neighbors. That project doesn’t really relate to the home office and general remodeling I’ve been doing, so I won’t go into it here. But, while at Home Depot, I discovered that the Up Dux are finally in stock, as well as the sufficient brackets to start work on the cable tray. Woo Hoo! Also, I found extenders that will allow the bug lights to fit in it’s socket. That, of course, meant I had to replace the broken bug light for another $10. But, in the end, I forgot the string.
Today’s Damages:
$ 74.16 Home Depot, Up Dux, bug light, +misc. Total to date: $1613.38
If you are wondering what all the “misc.” is about, I’m collecting parts to construct a custom cable tray in the SE room. I’m taking pictures along the way, and hope to write it up once I have a complete solution.
The socket extenders worked great, but I can see they were not intended for outdoor use. Oh well, perhaps that is what circuit breakers are for? While I did get a few little things re-installed, like the brackets for the blinds, most of the available evening’s time was spent trimming the bushes that had grown over into the neighbors yard. I really just need to get rid of those things; a block wall would be much less work to maintain.
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The majority of the day was spent away from the office project, and instead I did yard work. Just for the record, I hate yardwork. I bought a house with a rock yard just so that I might avoid yardwork. Rocks rarely need to be mowed. Unfortunately, when they are on one’s neigbors yard, they need to be moved.
I did get started on the cable tray construction and installation. And, I avoided spending money on any more parts. Woo Hoo!
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For the first time ever, I visited Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse. While they aren’t quite up to Home Depot standards, i.e., they didn’t carry the cool mix-and-match Leviton Telecom Connectors, it turns out they do carry the Spur Shelving brand Twin-Trak shelf materials. The very ones I can no longer find at Home Depot.
I’m not really liking the shelving rails I bought a few weeks ago at Home Depot. They are shorter, stick out from the wall further, and require an extra horizontal rail at the top. But, of the biggest concern, they simply are not like all the rest of the ones in the house. As the cost of this project has gone up, I was considering returning some of those original shelving parts I had purchased, being some of the more expensive items still in returnable shape. Having found the Spur rails at Lowe’s I’m now considering returning all 9 non-Spur rails (and the 2 horizontal supports), then buy only 5 Spur rails to go with one of the leftovers I have around the house (demonstrating the advantage of keeping it all one brand). As a guess, my net savings would be around $50. In retrospect, I really should have bought the Spur rails today while I was there, but at the time, I wasn’t sure if this was a good idea.
Fortunatly, Lowe’s did have some screws I needed as well as a matching mirror clip to replace the one broken while preparing to paint the hallway. I also found the 8-32 threaded bolts I need for the wire tray. However, neither Home Depot or Lowe’s have the matching 8-32 wing nuts in boxes. I could have bought 2 per bag at about $0.50/bag, but that would have ended up costing something around $17; I’ll just use regular hex nuts instead.
Today’s Damages:
$ 19.70 Lowe's, screws, mirror clip, misc. Total to date: $1624.08
Finished installing all the shelving rails for the SE room, leaving whatever I decide to do with the shelves for the SW room. In the past, its been hard to get those rails perfectly level with each other, so I tried a new trick this time: I temporarily installed a level aluminum U-channel across the bottom. While it did make the process easier, it didn’t help make the rails any leveler. I still may use it on the SW room, but I now know I need to check pair of rails with a level before moving to the next rail.
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At one time, the house had a gas furnace in one of the hall closets. The furnace used a pair of air intakes, one complealy below the closet, under the closet’s raised floor, and one in the door. Both vents had old registers, and I had planned to replace them with some white ones. Once again, Home Depot let me down, they have the 14×10 size in the door, but nothing close to the 25×10 needed below the door. So, add to my tasks a good wire brushing of the old register followed by spray painting with my favorite Rust-Oleum white (which I just discovered is not called “Rustoleum” or “Rustolium”).
Today’s Damages (A):
$ 6.31 Home Depot, Register Total to date: $1639.39
This evening I made up my mind and I went back to Lowe’s to get the Spur shelving rails. Oops. Turns out the rails were not Spur, but some other brand, not a biggie as they were almost identical. They do have some Spur products there, just not the rails. As I pulled some of these other brand rails off the display I discovered a show stopper, they only had sufficient stock in the 70 inch length. I wanted the full length (80 inch?) rails. I already have 70 inch rails in the new Home Depot style. I surrendered and purchased nothing.
Lowe’s, just like Home Depot, does not carry registers any larger than 24×8, and I still needed 25×10. So, I bought some Rust-Oleum and went home.
Now I’m stuck using the old register. Someone once put masking tape on the front of it, and the tape is caked on. Using a wire brush, I was able to get most of the tape off before painting. The register gets installed about 2 inches above ground. Unless you are under a foot tall, or you have read these pages, you will probably never notice the extra texture that patches of caked on masking tape provide. I’ll wait for the paint to dry and install it tomorrow.
Mounted the remaining Home Depot style shelving rails in the SW room. The extra top rail this new system uses negated the need to use the aluminum U-channel; I think these rails are more level than any I’ve done before. However, to get them level still required some extra care. Baring any radical adjustments, I am now done installing the shelving rails (woo hoo). I still have to acquire the brackets and boards to actually be shelves. However, until the carpet gets installed, there is no rush, and a good chance the melamine surfaces would get beat up during the wait. Only if I get caught up on everything else will I go for it with the shelves.
Regarding carpet, I found out today that my carpet is in town. Now, understand, I can accomplish many improvement type tasks at my house. Add to that several times in life, I’ve tried installing carpet. I’ve learned that when the task involves carpet (or pluming), I need to get a professional. I called the installer to set up a time, but I have yet to hear back from him. I know he is busy finishing another job, so I will just hope to hear form him soon.
Today’s Damages (B):
$ 6.00 Lowe's, Rust-Oleum paint, misc. (yes, exactly $6, with tax an everything) Total to date: $1645.39
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Reinstalled the final hall register this morning. The masking tape texture is a little more noticeable than I had hoped it might be.
Also, installed the Up Dux in the SW room. However, that didn’t go as well as hoped, and when I left, it still has an issue. Initially, I encountered a piece of 1960’s style Romax (don’t know what they called it then), that just happened to run near the hole. Didn’t discover I had that problem until the Up Dux unit was about halfway in, somewhat past the point of no return, when it didn’t want to go any higher. Not knowing I was stopped by an electric wire, I forced it. The fact that I’m able to write this today shows that I was lucky.
Once I had the Up Dux screwed in, I checked to be sure the flap was unimpeded. It was impeded. First the aforementioned electric cable, which I was able to convince to get out of the way by sliding it over the edge. The second impediment is a little more challenging; when the lid is fully open, it gets stuck on a roof support. I tried to find an easy solution, like bending something, but no luck (I must have used up my luck on the electric cable, when it counted). So I gave up for now. Maybe inspiration will hit while I do other things.
This evening I heard from the carpet installer. April 17th. Two more weeks. One day short of the one month mark for this project. Arrg, that seems like forever. Well, now I have all the time in the world to finish the cable tray. When I finish that, I may as well start purchasing and cutting the boards for the shelves too. By the time the carpet is installed, I should have everything else done.
“Fixed” the Up Dux by bending the lid’s edge. I’m sure I’ve violated the warranty or something. The instructions really shouldn’t tell one to install it flush to a rafter if the same rafter is going to block the lid from moving freely. Just my $0.02 worth.
Started work on the cable tray in earnest. While using a screw-drill to attach the mounting brackets to the back of a piece of mortise board, the tool slid off and proceeded to make a hole in my finger. Finally! After two weeks on this project, I get the first Blood Sacrifice. I was starting to wonder if the project would finish in a cursed state. It was a good gusher too, so now I know that the project is fully blessed.
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One of the remaining hall related tasks: install a shelf in the entry way. We have almost always had a “staging area” by the front door. Basically, the idea is when getting ready to go someplace, one needs to collect the stuff you want to take, e.g. when I go to work, I always take a lunch pail and my book bag. For years we had always used a saw horse with a table top. Rather ugly, but very functional. Previously mentioned were some 1000 lbs. shelf brackets for this task. Today, I came to a most annoying discovery: there is no stud I can reach on the left side. At one time, the house had “saloon style” swinging doors at the kitchen portal. Perhaps because of the low weight, the builders didn’t double stud the frame around that door. The only stud available is complealy covered by the portal’s door trim, preventing me from screwing the bracket into it.
One possible, and compleatly ugly, solution under consideration is cut a whole in the door trim and gain access over the stud. I don’t think that one will fly. Another solution suggested by one of my housemate’s had a great twist. His idea is to cut the wall open using the Milwaukee Sawsall. You see, I must sadly admit that I have yet to use the Sawsall on this project. I usually try to find at least one application for it on every project. Once, I even resorted to doing some baseboard miter cuts with it, but they didn’t turn out as well as one might hope. Anyway, once the wall is cut open, I could install all the studs I want where ever I want, then just patch the drywall. But, it is a lot more work than I want to do for a simple shelf.
My current plan is to wait until I finish the mortise boards for the cable tray. I anticipate having at least four feet of board leftover, which I can mount horizontally on the available stud, and, using some long screws, I can toe-nail (toe-screw?) into the otherwise unaccessible stud. Once I have a pair of those installed, I can paint them, then mount the brackets to those boards. While not a perfect solution, it should still look acceptable.
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Didn’t have a lot of time available, so I concentrated on solving the register problem created by the cable tray. The top edge of the cable tray is about four inches down from the ceiling, which unfortunately crosses the middle of the air-conditioning register. Not wanting to block the register, I’ve decided to stop the mortise boards on each side of it, and install end caps. However, the stud on the right is mostly covered by the edge of the register; once a bracket was installed into that stud, it didn’t leave sufficient room for a end cap. I considered leaving end caps off, but after I constructed the end cap for the left side, I can see they really make the it look complete. Now I intend to carve a custom end cap for the other side that fits around the mounting bracket. I can easily see this one thing taking half a day plus a full days worth of patience.
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Completed the majority of the cable tray, including carving the custom end cap to fit around the mounting bracket and the air-conditioning register. Also, installed the via to get cables into the closet. Wow, those sentences don’t really communicate the amount of effort consumed. Tried cleaning the cable tray’s mortice, but now I see it will need to be repainted. More painting, oh joy.
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With the wait on the carpet installation, I’ve decided to take the plunge on the shelves boards now, so I could cut them and put the edging on. In the past I would just head to Home Depot, and grab “enough” boards, then get home and cut what I figured was good. This time, I’m assembling shelves at four different locations, some of which already have the old boards cut. I needed a plan. I actually measured, and decided on a few “standard” sizes. I’ve never been this organized on shelves, it was weird. I even made a made a list!
When I arrived at Home Depot, I headed straight for the wood, and gathered everything I needed there. I guess serendipity was with me, ’cause while in the wood section a) I heard the saw used to cut wood for customers, and b) in my hand was a list of the final cut lengths. I made the connection. When I finally left the wood area, shelves half done! I’m certain that saved me the rest of the day. I headed straight for the register, then on to load them into the Jimmy. There was another unanticipated benefit of having the wood precut: fitting it into the Jimmy was much easier. Went back in for the rest of the items on the list.
After returning home and unloading everything, I discovered I that once again, the whole list concept must escape me: I failed to get some of the items I needed. After lunch, I drove back to Home Depot and finished my list. With all of these purchases, the (sorta) good news is the project hasn’t broken $2000 yet, but that is tempered by the realization that shelves actually have three components: rails, boards, and brackets. Fortunatly, I had a plethora of brackets around the house, however, I’m sure I won’t have all the right sizes. Oh, and I still have to plan to pay the carpet installer.
Today’s Damages:
$189.24 Home Depot, Melamine shelve boards $ 73.75 Home Depot, Screws, nuts, telecom/LAN jacks (and on trip two...) $ 43.89 Home Depot, Melamine edging, Goof off, misc. Total to date: $1952.27
Started edging the boards. This is a simple process of de-burring the board’s raw edge, cutting a length of edging material, temporarily taping it in place, ironing it down, then using a file to trim off the overage. Initially, I had 8 full boards, one cut each that yielding 16 boards, four of which were too small to be useful. Of the remaining 12, two raw edges each, yielding 24 edges. I didn’t finish edging today. Perhaps if I didn’t have to go back to Home Depot, I might have pulled it off.
Installed the telecom and LAN connectors. If I haven’t said it enough, these Leviton Quick Connect sockets rock. With the right tool, assembling an Ethernet “RJ45″ takes maybe 5 minutes each. (By the way, I recently learned that RJ45 is a wiring specification, not a connector specification; I don’t know the correct name for the connector, but everyone calls it RJ45 anyway). Of course, it did take a little while, between the two rooms, I had 11 connectors to install. Should have been 12, but apperenly I left an end of a LAN cable in the attic over the wiring closet. More attic climbing, oh joy, I’m not looking forward to returning up there to find it.
For the entryway/hallway shelf, mounted a pair of poplar (one of my housemates corrected me, its not “popular“) boards horizontally to the studs. I predrilled and countersunk everything. The “toe-screw” worked out perfectly, I hit the kitchen portal’s stud on the first try. Woo Hoo! After getting the boards mounted, drywall patched over the screws. In wood, the patch stuff dries really fast. However, it tends to shrink a lot. I was able to rework my mistakes three times. But, at the end of the day, I still have pits over two of the screws.
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Finished edging the shelves, now they are all neatly stacked in the living room with a blanket to protect them from any casualties. Also, finished patching over the last two screws for the entryway/hallway shelf.
I’ve always been little annoyed at the way the screw heads stand out against the shelving rails. I once tried using whiteout to hide them, not only an expensive solution, also a time consuming solution. I have a plan. Simply take a piece of card stock, cut a hole to match the average screw head, and use it as a mask to spray Rust-Oleum white over the screws. Now I just have to work up the nerve. I’m not a big fan of spraying paint inside the house.
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Got a lot of little things done, feel like the project is so close now.
Everything that needed more painting is painted. For the screw heads, followed my plan almost exactly, except instead of a card stock for a mask, used a piece of rigid plastic packaging. It worked great. Also rolled paint onto the cable tray’s mortice, the supports for the entryway/hallway shelf, and a bunch of the “oopses” that happened while installing various things. Anticipate one more possible round of painting touch ups once the carpet gets installed, so I put some paint in a ZipLock re-closable sandwich container. Hopefully that will keep me from having to stir the remaining 4 gallons next time.
When cleaning the paint brushes, discovered one of my $10 bug-away lights isn’t working. Bummerage. My hands were wet, so I didn’t fill like trying to diagnose it.
Climbed into the attic. Life was kind to me, the “missing” LAN wire was easily found and shoved through the via to the wiring closet. Once new labels are made, all the new LAN sockets can be added into the patch panel. While in the wiring closet, discovered the wiring to the phone in the back yard had never been finished, it was still using the old Cat-3 cable, so started working on that. Add one more thing to the to do list: get more Leviton Quick Connect sockets to wire up the other end.
So close. Its starting to feel like fun again.
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So far, the cable tray has just been a series of brackets attached to the studs, mostly hidden behind a mortice. With the average stud spacing of 16 inches, its a far cry from a true tray. To have more frequent support, the plan is to bend a strip of 14 gauge garden fencing into a “U” channel.
I wasn’t really sure what the best size/spacing would be. Fortunatly, when purchasing the fence, Home Depot had rolls with three different widths. Spent most of this evening trying various shapes from a cut sample. One issue to consider is “drop outs.” Traditionally, when dropping a cable from a cable tray, a “drop out” (example commercial drop out) is used to provide a larger radius than just an edge of the tray. This prevents kinks forming in the cable, which would be really bad for Cat-5 wire. My solution is to take a PVC pipe joint and hang it on the cable tray wherever a drop out is needed. PVC pipe joints are relatively inexpensive; a bag of 25 was under $4. Finally arrived on the idea of constructing a staple shaped hanger from a piece of scrap wire. The hanger will run across the width of the tray and through the center of the PVC pipe.
The two inch width of the PCV joints drove the overall size of the tray. It ended up being a two inch wide by two inch deep trough. Hopefully, I’ll never fill that much space up with cable (but if I do, it would be really cool). The only section of the fencing roll where I could get the a 6 inch width (two sides and a bottom) with the right spacing (two inches each) was just about in the middle of the rolls width, meaning I ended up with twice the work to cut both sides of that area out. Once the needed area was extracted, I cut off a 12 foot section, and bent the sides up to form my first cable tray.
When placing the cable tray onto the brakets, two things were quickly apparent. First, the blackened spot welds holding the wire mesh together really stand out, so the tray must get painted. Even more painting. Fortunatly, its spray painting and can be done outside, with my favorite, Rust-Oleum. The other problem resulted from not watching what was happening as the edges were bent up. A slight twist was introduced along the length of the tray. Suspect it can be forced straight once a way to secure it to the brackets is addressed, perhaps cable ties. Securing the cable tray is a planned step anyway; it must not move should a cable be yanked.
Now constructed one 12 foot length of tray. Ultimately, the need will be for two at 12 feet, and two at 10 feet. Plus whatever extra it takes to route cables around the air conditioning register.
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Visited my favorite Home Depot to get paint for the cable tray. While there, remembered the abandoned pool phone project, so got the connectors needed for that. Woo hoo, got the needed stuff; no list required (unless I’ve forgotten about anything I might have forgot).
Today’s Damages:
$ 28.60 Home Depot, Rust-Oleum paint, Leviton telecom jacks Total to date: $1980.87
The wire mesh for the cable trays is now formed and painted. While letting the paint dry overnight, finished more little stuff.
The entryway shelf is done. Now in its final form, it just doesn’t look as “clean” as I wanted. Almost wish I went with the alternative plan of finding some kind of furniture. If ever I stumble onto the right piece, I will seriously consider pulling the shelf. However, certainly wouldn’t look forward to patching the wall back “factory.”
All of the telecom wiring is completely in place, and some is even tested. Got the LAN patch bay put together, albeit with some scribbled labels. Realized somewhere along the way, I jumped ship on my cable labeling conventions. When this re-cabling of the house was first started around 1996, panels were lettered and cables were numbered. For example, a given LAN wire might be marked “NW, LAN-B2″ meaning it was in the Northwest room, its purpose in LAN (vs. Phone or CATV), it shows up in panel B, and finally it is the second such cable in that panel. However, somewhere in life, I’ve taken up a preferable convention similar to “NW-2, LAN-3″ where the order is more in line with how one would locate the cable and panels are numbered. While pulling the new cables, didn’t even cross my mind to ensure they matched the existing convention. So the new cables are labeled differently than the rest. So much for consistency.
The pool phone ended up being something of a bummer. Replacing the old Cat-3 wireing was not the only motivation for redoing the cables. The phone would intermittently cut out the send audio; the local user could still hear the remote party, but anything said locally was not sent. Fortunatly, one could still put the line on hold to pick up the call elsewhere. Over the years, tried replacing the station, the handset cord, and even the wall cord. All to no avail. Really thought it was down to the wiring and/or the wall jack. After finishing the process of replacing both, basically it is a compleatly new station from end to end. Unfortunatly, on the very first try, it continued to be intermittent. On a whim, I swapped the ends of the wall cord, and its started working fine. Don’t know how long it will stay that way.
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The cable tray ran into a minor snag while mounting the wire mesh behind the mortice. The wire mesh it about 2 inches wide, but the mortice stands out from the wall an average of 3 inches. When a cable is dropped from the tray, I would prefer it be as close to the wall side as possible, but the tray is not always flush to the wall. In fact, it is rarely flush to the wall; it generally sits in the middle of the available space, about ¼ to ½ an inch out.
Two solutions come to mind. One is to staple the side of the mesh to the wall. The alternative is to pack the space between the mesh and the back of the mortice, forcing it against the wall. While I prefer the latter, the former would be easier.
Went to Islands Tempe instead.
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Throughout this project, I’ve found myself gathering supplies from various places around the house. Right now, the living room has four big piles of supplies: drywall patching, panting, electrical supplies, and just plain miscellaneous. Once the project is finished, there is no point in just spreading it all out again, so the plan is to get some plastic crates for each category. Visited Home Depot once again. While there, I also picked up some rounded wire staples for the staple gun, in case I decide to just staple the cable tray’s wire mesh to the wall.
Today’s Damages:
$ 21.31 Home Depot, "12 Gallon" plastic crates, Wire staples Total to date: $2002.18
Oh, mark today, Friday the 13th, as the day the project went over $2000.
Tried stapling the wire mesh to the wall. Think the staples were too small, but remembered a package of long staples from when the cable staple gun was new. Searched everywhere, but couldn’t find them.
While contemplating the alternative idea of stuffing the space between the mortice and the wire mesh, kept coming back to the problem that the width is different everywhere in the room. Then it hit me, I needed springs! Spent the rest of the evening figuring out what they aught to look like, building them, and then finally painting them.
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Installed the springs in the cable tray between the back of the mortice and the wire mesh. Now the mesh is held flush to the wall. Very cool.
Once the mesh was in place, the remaining issue was drop outs for the cables. Already purchased were a bag of PVC joints, and so spent most of the early afternoon figuring out how to attach them. The final solution was trivial, although installation did take a lot of labor. Ended up putting parallel notches on opposite sides of each tube. These notches are then aligned with the bottom rails of the wire mesh, and cable ties are looped around the rails and through the middle of the tube. The hard part is getting the cable tie back out from inside the tube, so I used a few pieces of scrap wire (got a lot of scrap wire left over from the mesh building), and made some cable tie sized hooks.
Started cleaning up the mess throughout the house. There is a lot of mess.
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With a new phone cable in hand, I went after the pool phone. You may recall I left it in a working state, but wasn’t compleatly sure what fixed it. I thought it might have something to do with the cable between the station and the wall jack, so when a friend was building a cable for someone else, I asked him to put new ends on my cable too. After installing the new cable, the phone station stopped working again. Took it inside, and started swapping parts and cables with another station. Turns out the actual problem is the microphone wireing inside the handset. This, of course, is an annoying discovery: leading up to it, every time I would change something, I would lift the handset to test it. But, simply lifting the handset would change the failure state of the system, often leading me down a rabbit trail. Arrrg. Anyway, its all better now. Well, for now.
Cleaning. Spent the time cleaning up, putting tools away, organizing the left over supplies. Finally got the remaining stuff out of the rooms in preparation for the carpet installation this coming Tuesday. Found the longer cable staples… not that they are needed anymore.
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Cleaning. More cleaning. Got the driveway washed down so the carpet installer will have a reasonably clean place to work. Then I promptly drove over it, spreading some fresh mud about. Fortunatly, it doesn’t take long for mud to dry on concrete, so later was able to sweep most of it away.
Went to Staples to look at chairs. Everyone has been telling me to go ahead and spend the big money on a comfortable chair. Still, started out looking at some chairs under $100, and found one on closeout that was reasonably good. Things I want include adjustable arm rests, rugged cloth material (vinyl sucks when the humidity gets high), and a seat that can be tilted back. Its weird, but for some reason all of the chairs with adjustable seats go from level to “slide off the front,” but few seem to permit tilting back. Finally, I made it to the “expensive” chairs, those that sell for more than $150. Ha. They were only marginally better.
Just as they were closing, I saw one more chair to try. This was it, the uber chair! It had everything I wanted. All for a mere $299. Uhg. I complained about the prices to the manager on the way out the door. Honestly. Without missing a beat, she said I must have good taste. Later I went and looked at these chairs online, and $300 is just over the median price, one can easily find chairs like these for $550. I’m gonna have to do some more thinking before I solve this one.
While at Staples, I saw they had some floor mats (“chairmats”), mostly tiny (36″x48″) and mostly around the $40 to $50 range. I remembered seeing larger ones at Lowe’s. Headed there, and found they were both larger (45″x53″) and less expensive. I got 6. While there, tried out some of the office chairs Lowe’s offers. That $300 chair at Staples is looking pretty good.
Today’s Damages:
$128.38 Lowe's, Chair mats Total to date: $2130.56
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Today is carpet day. Woo Hoo! Woke up to a phone call from the carpet installer confirming his visit today. Good thing too, ’cause I apperently forgot to set my alarm. Just before leaving the house, put a bead of Roach and Ant power (Boric Acid) around the perimeter of the rooms, hopefully that will minimize bugs. Corporeal bugs, not code bugs, but if it helps with code bugs, I’ll start ordering it by the drum.
Heard from the carpet installer again. It is installed, but he encountered several issues. Basically, the carpet may not last long. He did indicate that the pad is a good and should never need to be replaced, but the rest of the news wasn’t so encouraging. Apperently, the carpet, pad and tack strip combo must all be matched properly, but the tack strip already present in the SW room is the wrong size. If I had known it was a issue, would have pulled the old tack strip up before he arrived. He suggested installing “quarter-round” over the carpet applying pressure to keep it down. Another issue arose, the hall carpet is in such bad shape that it could not be seamed to the new carpet; he cut the new carpet long and slid it under the hall carpet. I like his suggested fix: install ceramic tile in the hallway. However, that wont be happening anytime soon. Finally, the carpet is a “commercial grade” carpet, which apperently wont help it last long, at least, as best as I can understand.
The good news is: I like the new carpet. Like it a lot. One concern that arose after ordering it was that it might not be dark enough; recall that just about everything else in the rooms are white. Fortunatly, once installed, it looks great.
Started installing the shelves. The concern over always purchasing the same brand of shelving parts proved itself via a negative argument. After installation, several shelves were rocking across the brackets, and others were not touching the brakets. Turns out that the brackets from each manufacturer install to different heights above the slot. So, not only must the rails be the same manufacturer, each shelf must have a matched set of brackets. Fortunatly, it wasn’t too hard to identify what went with what. More fortunatly, sufficent quantity of matched sets were present for the shelves.
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Started moving computers around, and routing LAN cables in the cable tray. The cable tray rocks. By the end of the night, there were two 8 port switches and four computers all working without a single LAN cable on the floor.
Picked up a cheap web cam. Got exactly what I paid for, but it did work. In the setup application, anyway. But when running any of the video applications that came with it, the very first thing they want to do is set the video resolution to 800×600. This already being a cheap machine, planning to be a web cam only machine, it had a cheap monitor. A monitor only capable of 640×480. Will have to search for some other teleconferencing application compatable with the camera. Not going to include the cost of the camera in the damages, mostly because I can’t find the receipt.
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Away for a business trip, three job interviews in one morning. Belive they went well. Visited up town Manhattan in the evening. It was fun.
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Well, the chair decision has been lingering for awhile. Everyone has been telling me to just spend the money and get a good chair, figuring that I will be in it anywhere from 8 to 12 hours a day. The business trip wasn’t as expensive as I anticipated, so finally did it. Got a chair. From Staples. The sticker claimed it was regular $577 on clearance for $299. However, after getting it home and pealing the clearance sticker off, the one underneath said $299. What a rip. Doesn’t matter though, its the right chair. Man is it the right chair!
Today’s Damages:
$322.49 Staples, Chair Total to date: $2453.05
At this point, everything on The List is done. There are a few lingering items that arose during the process, but may not get done…
First, still waiting for Telocity to finish installing the DSL line. According to their web page, I’m on step two, which should only take 1 to 2 days. However, step one was also only to take 1 to 2 days, when in fact it took one day short of two weeks. Not holding my breath.
Second, considering adding noise abatement. It doesn’t take much noise to distract me from work, anyone who has visited me in my current office, knows that I work in a “cave” that does a resonable job of eliminating noise. Basically, my noise abatement would be home made acoustic tiles hung on any convenient vertical surfaces. Perhaps sheets of 2′x4′ fiberglass insulation (normally installed on top of the tiles in suspended ceilings), wrapped with cheese cloth, and all that wrapped with dyed burlap. But, prior to rushing into another project, it might be best to recover from all of the expenses encountered so far.
Next, there has been talk about the possibility of rolling blackouts hitting Arizona, should local power companies be forced to sell electricity to California during the summer. If so, a UPS may be called for. Actually, a UPS for each machine may be appropriate anyway.
The final item: getting an extra machine for the office to function as a local file and print server. The original plan had budgeted a second machine, however, that may now be covered. Should that happen, some funds will be freed up. This is a wait and see option. I should probabaly spend some time working from the new office first. By the way, if you are wondering why not use on of the machines I moved in last week, know they are ancient boxes, at best suitable for running Linux.
At this point, until I actually move into the new office, there probabaly wont be much more to report here.
I’m happy.