Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Room - basically done.

We picked up the bed and dresser last night and brought it over. I had to glue two of the drawers but otherwise it was in pretty good shape. We set the bed in and put the dresser beside it. We moved the metal cabinet over by the desk and turned the TV so it was viewable from the bed.
It’s starting to look like a room.

I still need to work away at cleaning out the desk but he can start moving his clothes in to the dresser and closet and start getting settled.

Task 1 – basically done. There is still a bit of stuff on the extra desk that needs to be moved but that is now a lower priority.

Still need to get G’s room adjusted once his stuff is out of it. That is not a big change.
Still need to finish cleaning and rearranging the family room.
Then I can move the stuff from the kitchen down there.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Desk out!

I was able to put some good time towards it on Friday night and we took a load to the storage locker on Saturday. I did the last little bit on Sunday and was able to clear my desk right down. We took apart the spare bed in the family room and the boy and I were able to fight the desk out of the room. That took a bit of effort.
We had to take all the shelves out and we were unable to take the desktop off so we had to flip it on its side and slide it through the doorway. Even with that we had to take the door off of the hinges.

The only part of the carpet that was damaged was in the corner where we had some wood piled up when it had flooded years ago. The rest of it looks passable. Since that corner will be covered by the bed we should be okay with keeping it for now.

My folks had previously said that we could have my old bed and dresser to use for D3. I called my folks on Sunday about getting them. They still had to clean off the stuff they had piled on it. It seems even though we had told them weeks ago that we would take them, they hadn’t cleaned it off yet either. So we’ll try and get them this week – ideally tonight.

With the desk in the family room, the push is now on to empty out a few bookcases to start the slide puzzle that will need to happen. To that end, since we were unable to get the bed last night, I packed up another box of books. I could pack them away much faster but I am writing up cards for the books that are going into storage so we can find them if we need to.

Friday, August 26, 2011

more headway

I got downstairs last night and put some more work into it. I cleared off the bed in the family room and packed down a few more boxes which got moved into the storage room. Which I suppose is technically ‘my new room’. I also picked up some nice packing boxes and put a few together for use with the books.

If I can get some of the books boxed up tonight I can take them with the boxes I have to the storage unit tomorrow. I need to empty out two bookcases worth. One of the bookcases will go into storage and the other will go into the boy’s room. With those two out of the family room, it should free up enough space to tuck the other desk behind the door and then I can move my desk out of D3’s room.

The carpet is looking not too bad so far. With a carpet cleaning, it may be able to be kept for now. That means that he can start moving clothes downstairs into the closet. We can take over my old bed and dresser from my folk’s place and he can decide where everything goes.

This should give him a week or two to settle before school while I plug away at the family room.

Monday, August 22, 2011

What weekend?

Where did that last weekend go? On Friday my brother came over. They had recently moved and we got their old stove to replace our older, flat-element one. The previous owners had also left behind an older washing machine so we got that to replace our washing machine – which has been having issues. With fighting unsuccessfully to remove the stove door and then having to remove the side door and then hooking up the washing machine, that ate up most of Friday night.

Saturday we were busy at Cindy and Alain’s nuptials. It was a very lovely ceremony at St Vital Park by the duck pond followed by a nice reception at Harbour View. The meal was very nice and G would have danced all night if she could have. We wish the happy couple all the best.

On Sunday I had some vital issues to deal with on The Floating City. I missed out on an important sortie but was able to cast my vote in the trial. We’re coming down to the last few weeks and the storylines are winding up. It has been a very exciting game – I can see how people can get caught up in these sort of games.
I was also able to get downstairs and put another two hours into cleaning the family room. A few more hours tonight and we should be closer. I’m fast running out of time on this.

Monday, August 15, 2011

The dog ate my homework

To no-one’s surprise but mine, I’m still not done yet. We ended up having an issue with the white car – in the belt/flywheel area. Haven’t had time to get it looked at but it created a lot of squealing and then smoke.

The other computer finally went. It’s been hobbled together a few times in the last 10 years and finally gave in. So we popped over to XS Cargo on Saturday and bought a refurbished Dell for $99. It’s not great, but it has 1GB RAM and I spent a chunk of time getting it connected for the kids.

Plus my dad’s been a bit short of breath for the last while. We finally convinced him to go in and get it checked. No heart damage but he had an angioplasty done to clear two blockages – one was 95% and was 70% blocked. So we popped over on Saturday to see how he’s doing. He’s much better now.

Our neighbor came over last week to talk about our crab apple tree. Some of the branches are over his yard and dropping apples onto his lawn. We haven’t pruned back the tree in a few years. The last time we did he complained about how much the missing branches opened up his shade. But we spent about three hours on Sunday climbing a ladder into the tree and we cut off a few branches. Then we cut them down and took them into the back. The kids helped with that, more or less grudgingly.

Also, the bumpers on one of D3’s Xbox controllers were not working. A check on the internet showed that this was a simple problem to fix – as long as you had the right tool to open them, a T8H torx screwdriver. I checked and don’t have one yet – I have torx but none with the security hole. I ordered one off of ebay but also popped in to Digikey while we were in the area on Saturday at XS Cargo and picked up a set of torx H screwdrivers for $10.
On Sunday, I got him to open up his controller and we put small pieces of duct tape on the back of the bumpers as the internet instructed. He sealed it back up and it seems to be working fine again. Problem solved.

I did manage to get down there and put a few hours into it. With a bit more tonight, I should have enough for another load to the storage unit and should have cleared out a lot of the mess from the family room.

But we’ll see.
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Update
My dad, who's not really supposed to be doing anything this week and next, popped over and looked at the white car. He thinks it's coming from the air conditioning unit. The one we just had fixed.

Friday, August 12, 2011

closet cleared

So, it took all of the extra six bins to pack away the model kits. That makes twelve bins of models, plus a big box, plus a bag of three kits. There are still three kits that didn't make it but they will hang around for now.
We took them all to the storage locker and they stand in two big rows of blue bin happiness.

So I hope to clear my desk and move it out of the room by tomorrow. Then we need to decide on the carpet - maybe clean it, maybe pull it out. Then we can move the bed and dresser in there. Then the boy can start moving his stuff down while I finish moving the furniture in the family room.

It's like one of those sliding puzzles. I have to move this to move that, in order to move this over there. Then I have to move it all back.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

cubicly packed

It's a term I often used to describe my room. It's definitely appropriate to describe the closet. I had packed the closet with model kits. I mean seriously packed.

Home Depot is having a sale on bins. I had picked up 6 of the flip top ones to clean up the assorted bits from my desk and to have solid boxes to put on the bottom of the stacks. I had gone back and picked up some regular bins for the model kits. I don't need super strong ones as the model kits aren't that heavy. When I found some big ones for $3.99, I picked up 6 of them.

While it made a serious dent in the pile, it didn't clear out all of them. So I went back last night to get another six bins. I can't help but feel a bit of smug satisfaction when I think about all the kits I have stored away. That and a bit of apprehension about the amount of space the take up.

The boy has expressed an interest in doing some models when we have the time. That was part of the reason I had picked up all the kits when I could find them on sale. I figured they would come in handy at some point.

Monday, August 8, 2011

Room excavation

I’ve gotten into the corners and gotten most of the boxes out. At this point, I still have the closet full of models and the two desks to clear off. I picked up some more tubs from Home Depot and took another load to storage. I did more work on Saturday morning and more on Sunday afternoon. Hopefully tonight I’ll get some more big tubs to pack away the rest of the models and keep plugging away at the desks.

I have also cleared a bit more out of the family room where I have been pulling the boxes into in order to get to the rest of them. It’s also a bit of a staging area that I am using to sift the boxes together before taking to storage. I’m combining stuff that has been put in different boxes over the last 8 years together into the same boxes.

By this weekend I hope to see what we’re doing with the carpet and move the bed into that room for the boy. When I cleared into the corner, I also cleaned an end off of the desk that we are leaving to put in the spare TV. He’s got it hooked up to his x-box so he’s been spending quality time in his new room already.