It's Showtime

After talking about it lots, my mom and I finally are making good progress on the curtain. She got the necessary hardware from a medical supply place and we installed it and hung the un-altered curtain!

I'm pretty damn happy with the way it looks. The curtain is 22' x 16', and the wall is 19'3" x 10' so a significant portion of the curtain had to be cut off. The width was fine, but yesterday we cut the bottom portion off and plan to use this to make curtains for my bedroom which will use the same type of track that we used in the living room. I would ideally like to not alter it and let it lay on the floor, because it makes it look really cool, but considering that I don't want to ever dry clean this thing and it doesn't make opening and closing it very easy, it's far from a reasonable option. Sanchez really seems to like the curtain material (and fortunately not in a manner that involves lots of scratching) so while we were working on it, she'd stroll up and down the length of it like it was her own catwalk (pun intended):

In case it's not obvious, I got some furniture in the living room by now :P I don't think I posted about this before, but I brought over my old futon that used to be my bed that's setup like a chaise lounge, a small single seat chair that can be used as a bed if folded out and in combination with the ottoman, and then a full size couch that folds out into a queen sized bed (or close to it). I'm using my old dining room table for the time being, which is far from "nice"
or "cool", but it works.

After talking with my friend Nick about the layout of the place in general I changed the approach from what I'd originally planned. I'd planned to have a really large living room setup and have the dining room table sort of in the kitchen area, but once I filled it with furniture a bit it became obvious that I could have both the dining room and living room in the one large room and leave the kitchen more as a kitchen. I think I'm going to get a metal island w/ a wooden top (maybe butcher's block) for kitchen but at this point I can't decide if I want to have shelves under it, have it be open so I can slide stools under it, or maybe even both.

Unrelated, I've started stripping the paint off of the large cabinet of drawers that I got with the garage. It's pretty much a huge pain in the ass because there are something like 70 drawer openings, and each one has 4 corners that need to be scraped with a tiny knife etc etc. It's gonna look really cool when it's done though, and it will be a great place for me to store random stuff.

Changing topics again, I had my first "get together" this Saturday. It wasn't the official house warming party (which everybody keeps asking about, and will happen), but just a fairly lengthy bbq/hangout session. It went well, with the whole back patio full of people, one of my friends drunkenly peeing in the stones surrounding the paver stones at the end of the night, and even a little impromptu dancing. A few people stayed over, and the futons came in quite handy. Here's a bad pic from the top of the spiral stairs of the bbq in action:


I think Sanchez had a little too much to drink herself:

The Mysterious Noose

I featured some pictures in the last post of the demolition occuring next door. Well, when I woke up two days later I looked over to see if any changes had occured that were picture worthy... I saw this:

Can't see anything special about that picture? Take a closer look:


Yeah, that's right... there was a noose hanging in the old jail. And when I came back at lunchtime, it was gone! My first thought was that one of the construction guys put it up that morning to pull a joke, but then I went back into the pictures I'd taken two days earlier and sure enough, lurking in the shadows is the noose still.

It's still possible it was a joke, but a tad creepy none the less.

Destruction...

I posted an HDR picture (high-dynamic range image made from combining different exposures) a while ago, and have been dying to do some others. I've used a program called Photomatix Pro to do these.

Note to people familiar with image editing: A trial of the program is available which leaves watermarks on the image saying PHOTOMATIX PRO in 3 places. I realized today though that you can get around this by processing two sets of files separately: one set that's the original pictures, and one set with the original image re-arranged on the page. After you do this you just re-arrange the altered image to match the original and cut out the areas where the watermark was in the original image. Paste over the original image and it's as good as the registered program.

This is the view from my window of the demolition going on next door. I set up a bookcase in front of my window as a tripod and plan on taking more of these to track it over time. Yeah... I definitely shouldn't started this before they tore it down.

(I'd highly suggest clicking through to the full size version)

**Jump back in time 3 weeks ago**

As I think I mentioned, the old jail across the street is getting torn down. Apparently they decided it wouldn't be worth trying to save it.... which really is too bad considering how cool it was, but I can understand that financially it might just not've made sense... or at least they didn't care enough to make it work.

I really had wanted to take lots of pictures of the progress of it being torn down... but didn't do the best job. I did manage to get some before it was torn down and then I took some HDR pictures tonight (make sure to check out the end the post for this).

The side facing my house:


The side facing Carson:


The side facing 13th St:


A couple crops showing the facade's detailed brickwork:
Early evening lighting:

I'm a bad blogger.

It's been quite a while since my last update on here, and I'm afraid that this isn't going to be a proper post either. I've been wanting to put together a blog for a while now, but haven't for various reasons. Some of these are legitimate ("I don't have internet at my house yet, and rely on just barely stealing neigbors wi-fi signals." or "I want to finish sanding and polyurethaning these transition strips") and some aren't ("I reallllly want to finish this Arrested Development 3rd season disc!" or "Man.... last night was a doozy.")

Either way, this post is more of a holdover than it is a real post. I want to take good pictures of a lot of stuff that's been going on and give proper explanations.

The Reader's Digest version though is that they've started demolition on the jail across the street, my mom and I are slowly making our way through the to-do list, I'm getting my furniture and other things into their places, and the contractors have finally started coming back to deal with the odds and ends that are left to complete that they're responsible for.

OK, more to come soon.... promise :)

Flattery

They say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery....


... I just call it being a copycat :P

Granted, it's pretty different than mine, but this was just put up on the front of an old brick building in Larkins Way, along the way I bike to/from work. Same red color, and laidout (partially) vertically, like mine. I'd be pretty surprised if my place wasn't a direct influence on this.

Transformers Preview!!!!

Here's a sneak peak at the new Transformers movie. Watch how the VW Golf turns into the 3 story tall robot:



Oh wait... wrong video. Apparently that wasn't more than meets the eyes, it was just my garage door opening and my car sitting there.

Sorrrrrrrrry

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted an update. Lots of things have been happening, though compared to some of the major updates that have happened in the past, the newer stuff seems significantly less exciting. At this point, I'd really like a break from it all, but at the same time I enjoy it a lot and will miss it when i'm finally "settled".

One of the biggest projects was the painting of the spiral stairs. The ones I got came only primed (this saved a bit of money over galvanized or aluminum stairs). Any places where the stairs got scratched up during installation or just places that hadn't been covered by primer had begun to rust. This rust had to be sanded off, and then we primed those spots with some rustolium spray paint. You can see the red primer spray paint in this shot:


My mom and dad helped paint the stairs, which was great because every single railing rod had to be painted nad it was quite the task. Here they are, as requested by my dad to be in the blog:

We had to add what basically is sand to the paint that we used for the stairs themselves so that it added grip to the paint. Otherwise I would've needed to put some sticky strips on the stairs that invariably comes off.

One things that's really made it feel like I'm living "at home" is finally getting my washer and dryer hooked up. I got the washer for $25 off an old woman in the Hill that was moving, and the dryer from my old roommate when he moved to DC 3 years ago. Both work, but are nothing special. After struggling for a while to get the dryer vented to the duct work properly I went to plug the dryer in and found that the plug didn't fit. Turns out that the plug had been switched to be used for my old place's antiquated wiring. I went to Lowe's and got a new 4 wire plug, wired it in, and now it works fine. My washer and dryer, in all their glory:

The other day I put the knobs on the bathroom sink cabinets. I chose some clean, simple knobs that sort of feel art deco to me (in a good way... not in a pink and turquoise flamingo kind of way). I'm going to hold off on posting a picture, because all I have right now is a camera phone pic, and you really can't tell what's going on.

The last time I made a post I was talking about the theater curtain I wanted to get. Well, I went and got it... and it's pretty awesome. I haven't done much with it since I got it, because hanging it up is going to be a bit of an ordeal. I think I've figured out a way to do it using these right angle metal strips that I got from Lowes tonight, but it's still going to be a little while before it's up. My friend Casey's a sewing queen, so she's gonna help me alter the curtain to turn one 22' x 16' curtain into a curtain and a valence. The valence will hang down from the ceiling a bit out from the curtain to hide the track system I'm creating, and to also hide the projector screen that'll hang from the ceiling (or so the plan goes). The material the curtain's made out of is some serious stuff... 16 oz "Jezebel Red" velour. Unfortunately, from what I've read it has to be dry cleaned, which I'm sure would cost a fortune and will never happen considering the size of it. It seems fairly clean, so hopefully I won't have to worry about that for a while/ever. Here's a crappy camera phone pic of it spread out (it's HUGE):



OK, I'm feeling a bit under the weather, so it's time for sleep for me.

The Black Lodge Southside Chapter

My livingroom/diningroom/kitchen from the spiral staircase landing:


Yes, indeed, the sun is nice... but it also is making my dark cork floor fade. I talked to a guy at Performance Lighting in Lawrenceville today and am going to be scoring a large red, velour, theater curtain to drape over the wall the sliding doors and spiral staircase door are on.

The other day I was telling somebody about my plans to do this and they said "Oh, you mean like the Black Lodge. (from Twin Peaks)." I almost entirely forgot about the Black Lodge because I must've been 12 when Twin Peaks was on, but after googling it, the similarity in floor color and the curtain are surprisingly similar to my idea:


Let's just hope Bob doesn't start appearing in my mirrors.

The Uxor Uxperience

So I've been living here since last Thursday night. All and all it feels prettttty, pretty, pretty good (to quote Curb Your Enthusiasm). There's still lots of things still to do both on my part as well as loose ends the contractors need to tie up, but as of now it's at least livable. My mom and I made a good bit of progress on my closet this weekend, so that's underway. Still to come is painting the spiral stairs, painting the basement/garage interior, finishing the bedroom closet shelving/organization, and doing the pantry closet shelving. The closet's looking good so far, and I've taken before pictures/video to compare with what it looks like after.

So far I've been pretty happy with the floor poly job. There are a couple place which were missed though, so once other projects are completing I'll put another coat on a few spots. Once area of concern doesn't have to do with the poly, but with the actual installation. The floors were supposed to be leveled, but in some places, apparently they weren't leveled enough, making the flooring gives a bit under your foot. They're not bad visually, it's just that I worry that over time the movement will break the tongues/grooves and the tiles will separate. Only time will tell.

Here's a picture of the floor using a new technique I found out about called high dynamic range photography (HDR). To do it, you take multiple exposures at different shutter speeds. The images are then combined together to create a single composite picture taking the properly developed portions of each picture.

The best I could get this picture without this technique was either very underexposed or very overexposed. I'm going to try and use this same technique with the outside of the building. Taking pictures of the house against the bright sky can be tough.

Sanchez (my cat) was very freaked out when I first brought her over. She went and hid under the bed, in the nook in the bathroom, behind the toilet, etc. etc.


This continued for a few days and is now starting to subside. She's getting curious about the rest of the house. Whenever I go into the garage area I can hear her crying because she doesn't know where I am.

She also hung out in "her" window seat a couples times, apparently missing the birds in this instance:


One thing I'm definitely not happy with is that the air conditioner condenser unit on the roof makes a considerable amount of noise in my bedroom. This is something I was assured wouldn't be a problem, so I definitely expect this to be taken care of.

There's lots more....
Sometime soon.

Not Perfect, But Pretty Close :)

Quick update: I went and checked out the floor this morning and although they're not "perfect" they're pretty darn close.

The finish on the new coat is the same as the old coat (which is still in the bedroom). There are a couple of missed sections by the top of the stairs and between the two rooms, but they're not too noticable. Other places here and there throughout the big floor have tiny spots of the very flat finish poking through, but I would be surprised if anyone other than me would catch them.

Also, we used 3/4 of a gallon, so there's still 1/4 left that I can use for touch-ups and the like.