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Saturday, December 22nd, 2007
Thursday, July 5th, 2007
Thursday, June 21st, 2007
Sunday, June 3rd, 2007
2007-06-03 @ 20:21 - I built Karen a bookshelf!
You can get a bit of an idea of what it looked like before. It used to be an opening to the room next to it, but a previous owner made a wall, but only had it flush to the small room, leaving a recess in the master bedroom... perfect for a bookshelf!

Rounded edges of course. The 45-degree corners are a nod to Battlestar: Galactica's cut corners theme.

I'm also replacing all the baseboards in the house. It makes the house look a bit messy, as you can tell on the right where the wall has no baseboards. I'm getting close to done, you can see all the corner pieces to the right of the chair. Once done, I'll caulk the tops and edges and grout the bottoms on the tile. Finally I'll seal all the grout in the house to give it that nice glossy look and to prevent discoloring or cracking. If only I had more time to do all this!

Working with power tools is quite satisfying, which in itself is rather relieving considering the amount of classical music and opera I listen to in the car! The garage is my work area:
 The miter saw was essential because of the BSG corners, which required the round edges to match perfectly. Before this project, I used to cut baseboards with a handheld jig saw, which was not only laborious but subject to many more errors.
After all the pieces were in place, it was time to prime it. I thought that 6 shelves would be ideal and evenly spaced them. The stud finder I have for the baseboards was a great help because it also has a laser level, which was quite useful when aligning the mounts on the sides (which each have two heavy screws going into the studs of the frame), which you can see in the photos above.

After another coat of primer and two coats of high gloss (that I then let dry for two weeks to keep the books from sticking to it), it was ready to use:
 (see it on Flickr with descriptive notes)
I was only allocated the top shelf (because Karen can't reach it!), but ended up also using the left half below the top and the left part above her shoes for text books. I'll probably thin down mine to at least one and a half rows. Karen has a lot more books at her parents' house still, so soon it will be completely full!
current mood: proud (6 comments | comment on this)
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Tuesday, May 8th, 2007
2007-05-08 @ 21:35 - My new Nissan Versa
Yesterday, on my birthday, I bought a new car!
I spent all day researching cars, creating a spreadsheet in Google Docs, after finding out how much it would cost to fix my old Honda Civic. Ironically, when I came across the car I ended up buying, I almost instantly dismissed it and only wrote down the name on my spreadsheet.
The three top contenders on my list, the Honda Fit, Toyota Prius, and Honda Civic Hybrid, were all a bit disappointing when we saw them... they all felt very plastic-y and cheap yet cost a decent amount. When leaving the local Honda dealer I asked if they had anything else in my price range (around 20k or less) and would be good for a commuter car. The salesman suggested the Nissan Versa. Considering my primary interests were a bust, we thought we'd at least take a look.
Turns out we loved it, at least the sedan version. It's taller than the other compact cars which meant the sitting position was a lot more comfortable on my previously-broken right ankle. Today I noticed I was about a foot higher than most compact car drivers on the road.
Since it's a cheap car, around $15k base like the Fit and Yaris, I was able to add basically every package, which makes for quite a nice car. Bluetooth, great satellite radio, ABS, CVT, sun roof, etc. It has better gas mileage than my last car, but still no hybrid. Maybe next time!
It's silver with a charcoal interior:
(16 comments | comment on this)
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