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Fun Stuff => CHATTER => Topic started by: C Patrick Carolan on 02 Feb 2008, 15:58

Title: Home Improvement!
Post by: C Patrick Carolan on 02 Feb 2008, 15:58
I feel like such a grownup! A year ago I bought a condo and just a few weeks ago I decided to install some wall-mounted glass shelving on a space of wall above my TV. I was so pleased with the way it came out, I figured I had to post about it. :P

Not pictured: First I used a level to line up where I wanted the three shelves to sit on the wall, and a stud sensor to find the best spots to drill into (insert joke here). I used plastic drywall plugs to support the weight of the shelves.

(http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j67/chris_parasyte/DSC00203.png)

The mounting brackets on the wall. They're evenly spaced out so that the three shelves will sit 20cm apart when mounted. I probably didn't need to use as many plugs as I did.

(http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j67/chris_parasyte/DSC00204.png)

The glass shelves just pop into the mounting brackets. Simplicity, really.

(http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j67/chris_parasyte/DSC00209.png)

Of course I put Transformers figures on them/. Really, these are perfect display shelves for my Binaltechs and Alternators. :)

I've got two more shelves like this to install, but they're about twice the length of the ones above the TV. I'm planning to put them above the computer desk in my office, spaced out a bit farther apart to accommodate some of the bigger G1 figures in my collection. I need to pick up more plastic drywall plugs before I can do that, though. :)
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: tommydski on 02 Feb 2008, 16:00
Good work, Sir! Tomorrow I am going to pwn this thread. Fair warning.

Not a typo - Pwn.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: C Patrick Carolan on 02 Feb 2008, 16:04
Haha, fair enough. I'm just happy that these things haven't collapsed yet.

Bob Villa I definitely ain't.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: Cartilage Head on 02 Feb 2008, 16:31
Man the installation of those shelves and the objects you put on them was an incredible tacky-acceptable-tacky combo there, C.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: tania on 02 Feb 2008, 16:32
i thought i was pretty clever for knowing how to assemble ikea furniture all by myself but glass shelves takes some serious courage. well done!

also, not sure if this was your intention or not but the minimalism of the shelves makes your transformers collection look surprisingly classy.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: Boro_Bandito on 02 Feb 2008, 17:00
Man I wish I still had transformers, of course if I did I'd be playing with them when I wasn't displaying them.... And also the cool thing about displaying them is when you invite people over and don't want to be as nerdy you transform em into the car shape, that way people think you're just really into automotives/car models.

I've built the shelving in my room, but I need to put in some more, God knows I need storage space and there's so little floor room in here...
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: ForteBass on 02 Feb 2008, 18:33
I used plastic drywall plugs to support the weight of the shelves.



The mounting brackets on the wall. They're evenly spaced out so that the three shelves will sit 20cm apart when mounted. I probably didn't need to use as many plugs as I did.


I'm not sure how much weight is on those shelves, let alone the weight of the shelves themselves, but you may want to reconsider those plastic plugs. They work alright, but at work I've seen those things bust out too easily. Given that you say you used a lot it should be ok. However for your next batch of shelves I'd recommend getting a batch of small metal molly screws. They're a lot sturdier.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: Lunchbox on 02 Feb 2008, 19:30
Ohhh man look at all the Transformers
That is a fantastic set-up. I'm sure the plastic plugs will work fine in this suitation given that they're neatly and evenly spaced and Transformers don't weigh all that much to begin with.

I would love to put up shelves and a picture rail and change around the kitchen and paint walls and stuff in my apartment, but sadly I am not even allowed to put blu-tac on the walls. Damn rental agencies.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: ForteBass on 02 Feb 2008, 19:59
I have a similar problem in my apartment, but it hasn't really stopped me. Mostly because I know how to patch my own holes.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: Lines on 02 Feb 2008, 20:06
Yeah, patching holes is pretty easy. That's kind of silly you can't use blu-tac, Lunchy.

Nice shelves! And I agree with eph, the shelves fit really well with the transformers.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: jodizzle on 02 Feb 2008, 20:44
The boy and I are looking into buying a house in the next 6 months or so (gasp like grown ups!) and we have plans already.  Mostly I plan to get one of my brothers friends to do a big mural on one of the walls.  We pay in beer.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: Boro_Bandito on 02 Feb 2008, 21:24
pay the beer after the mural is done for god sakes! Drunken painting is like a lot of other things drunken, sloppy and puke-stained.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: jodizzle on 02 Feb 2008, 21:28
Well OBVIOUSLY.  Even he said that.
This is his things.  Both the boy and i love his style, which is rare for us.  He does alot of gig posters in Brissie. http://sam-m.deviantart.com/
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: Tom on 02 Feb 2008, 22:10
Your mural is going to look sweet
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: Boro_Bandito on 02 Feb 2008, 22:24
I'm going to put this out there, your muralizer, Sam, does he do tattoo design? Because, I mean, effin awesome shit.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: jodizzle on 02 Feb 2008, 22:42
Probably.  He is also very attractive and lovely and I get free food from the pancake place when i hang out with him and my brother.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: Patrick on 03 Feb 2008, 00:14
I want him to paint everything I have ever owned.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: Blue Kitty on 03 Feb 2008, 00:23
And also the cool thing about displaying them is when you invite people over and don't want to be as nerdy you transform em into the car shape, that way people think you're just really into automotives/car models.

That would never work for me, even the women I know would walk over, pull an arm out, then call me an asshole for trying to disguise the fact that I am showing off my Transformer's collection
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: C Patrick Carolan on 03 Feb 2008, 00:36
I just find it easier to not make excuses or apologies for being a toy-collecting nerd.

Maybe that's why I never get laid without the aid of roofies and duct tape.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: Johnny C on 03 Feb 2008, 01:00
Conversation with friend from today.

Me: "Yeah, I really dislike gay jokes."
Friend: [joking] "...Don't be such a fag."
Me: "Hey, dude. Hey."
Friend: "Maybe you'd be less uptight if you'd get the dick out of your ass."
Me: "Listen, the doctor said they'd take it out if they could."

Lesson here: it is okay to make jokes about a dick being somehow permanently stuck up your anus.

It is not okay to suggest you have raped a woman.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: C Patrick Carolan on 03 Feb 2008, 01:02
Who said anything about a woman?
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: Johnny C on 03 Feb 2008, 01:04
It is not okay to suggest you have raped anyone.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: calenlass on 03 Feb 2008, 01:16
Maybe he raped a goat, or a horse. The horse'd hardly notice anyway.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: Ozymandias on 03 Feb 2008, 01:18
Can we just leave the subject entirely now?
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: calenlass on 03 Feb 2008, 01:23
Good call. When I am less high (read: in 6 or 7 hours when I am no longer high at all) I will go back to my house and take a picture of the DVD shelves I put together for my books.


I should really take a picture of the bookshelf that is in my old room at my parents' house, though. It is probably one of the nicest pieces in their entire house. It is a lovely 7-foot-tall oak coffin-style piece with removable shelves and done in a standard oak shade stain and 3 coats of polyurethane sealant, instead of just one. I built it about 6 or 7 years ago with my grandfather one weekend, on a whim. I love it.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: Verergoca on 03 Feb 2008, 04:50
Eh, my wall is pink. Hot Pink.

Im not motivated enought to change this.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: KickThatBathProf on 03 Feb 2008, 07:26
Your wall is HOT PINK

How can that not motivate you?
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: imboden on 03 Feb 2008, 10:32
Anyone else think of the show when they saw the title of the thread?
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: Chrasstor on 03 Feb 2008, 11:13
I thought of this guy: (http://www.adrants.com/images/canadian_tire_guy.jpg)

And then I remembered why I make sure my doors are locked at night.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: clockworkjames on 03 Feb 2008, 12:55
I used a stud sensor to find the best spots to drill into (insert joke here).

Hahahaha.

I like the shelves, so very nice. Plastic rawl plugs held my guitar neck hold-onto-a-wall thingy up and supported an aria pr0 2 bass or my lead guitar and that was just on plasterboard, not even a stud so it will be safe :)
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: Johnny C on 03 Feb 2008, 13:05
Tommydski has broken a promise he made to this thread.

Just another in the long string of failures that make up his life.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: Jimmy the Squid on 03 Feb 2008, 17:02
I am jealous, because your shit is classy. The bookcases I keep my books, dvds, videogames, vinyls and skulls on are made of chipboard and covered with that brown veneer that was oh-so-popular in the 1970s. If I had a brown velvet couch with some unidentifiable stains on it my apartment would look like the set of the nerdiest porno ever*. Seriously, fuck you guys and your nice places.


*The walls are covered in posters ranging from Ghost in the Shell to X-Men to a big fucking dragon to The Ramones... Actually, my place is pretty awesome.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: tania on 03 Feb 2008, 17:30
read literally, putting up posters counts as home improvement i think. show us pictures!
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: Boro_Bandito on 03 Feb 2008, 18:00
Hell, if we're doing pictures of just our posters I'll take a picture of each wall in my room. See, this is impressive because not only are the walls covered in excellent posters but me and my dad built the walls. My room was originally a dry bar area, we had to convert it so my brother who moved up later would have a room to sleep in and he stole my room while I was away at school. So I now live in it.

Come to think of it, we just got finished tiling our basement and replacing all of the shitty dark wood paneling attached directly to the studs with drywall.

Not to mention the door I replaced after breaking through the old one. Pictures will be forthcoming of all... mwuahaha, MWUAHAHAHAHA!
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: jhocking on 03 Feb 2008, 19:03
Getting any furniture at all was home improvement for me (photo taken shortly after moving to Chicago):
(http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y120/jhocking/apt.jpg)

My only addition since then was a painting hung on the wall over my couch.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: stella on 03 Feb 2008, 19:50
We have the same carpet.  In case you were wondering. 

I need to paint my room, and I'm fluctuating between a light blue and a light green.  The walls now are stark new-house white, so the pre-existing color really has no bearing on my decision, which only makes it harder to choose.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: calenlass on 04 Feb 2008, 02:31
Pastels are for pussies.

(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a300/calenlass/DSCF0004-6.jpg)


Real green, muthafuckas.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: 0bsessions on 04 Feb 2008, 07:13
I have some various home improvements to work on. My projector screen, while fine for the sake of being a half-ass solution, really needs work. I'd like to get it a little better worked out.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: CardinalFang on 04 Feb 2008, 09:17
Good work, Sir! Tomorrow I am going to pwn this thread. Fair warning.

Not a typo - Pwn.

Did I miss the Pwnage?
Wasn't there supposed to be Pwnage?
I want my damn Pwnage!
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: jhocking on 04 Feb 2008, 09:27
Gentrification.
Where I used to live in NYC, there was once a poster campaign in the neighborhood decrying the landlords displacing long-term residents to bring in new tenants. Most of the posters were in Spanish, but fortunately I know enough Spanish to be able to read them. For about a week, those posters made me nervous that I was gonna get beat up on my way home from work.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: OnewingedAngel on 04 Feb 2008, 09:31
I'm moving into a house on the first of march, (Yay upgrade!) but it has the most hideous old lady wallpaper. The landlords already gave us permission to redecorate "tastefully" so it's going to be gone. My question is, does anyone know the best method for removing wallpaper?
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: Lines on 04 Feb 2008, 09:33
The way you're supposed to. You basically steam and peel, steam and peel. They make machines for it, just don't know what they are called. People in the hardware store will know exactly what you need.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: jhocking on 04 Feb 2008, 09:37
The way you're supposed to.
so helpful
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: ForteBass on 04 Feb 2008, 09:39
http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/rm_walls_wallpaper/article/0,,HGTV_3807_3529742,00.html
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: yelley on 04 Feb 2008, 09:42
can't remember which home dec show i saw this on... but get a newspaper and hold the sheets up to the wall and soak them with hot water using a spray bottle. the newspaper sheets should stick to the wall and keep the moisture in, making it easier to peel off the paper.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: Lines on 04 Feb 2008, 09:56
so helpful

Thank you, Joe.

Just don't try to pull off the paper without loosening the adhesive.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: psyne on 04 Feb 2008, 10:57
Closest thing to home improvement I've done since moving into my apartment is taking a cue from the Rolling Stones and spray-painting a hideously peach/pink lamp black. And put a screw-in hook next to the door for keys. Also we briefly had a DVD tower made of cardboard and tape (and spraypaint) until we got a real one.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: Luke C on 04 Feb 2008, 12:46
Those glass shelves look pretty badass actually. I havn't attempted any solo DIY work but I have aided in the construction of a fair few things around the house.
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: Dissy on 04 Feb 2008, 13:28
I'm moving into a house on the first of march, (Yay upgrade!) but it has the most hideous old lady wallpaper. The landlords already gave us permission to redecorate "tastefully" so it's going to be gone. My question is, does anyone know the best method for removing wallpaper?

*Shudders*

Wallpaper Removal is the suckiest job you can ever do.  Here's what you'll need.  Scrappers (painting scrappers work best), wallpaper removal (Use a product called Dif), and a prayer that they use "professional" grade glue. 

The professonal grade stuff comes off relatively easy, the chaep shit is horrible to get off.  Be prepared for a week's worth of work if its the cheap glue.



Also, goddamnit Katie, why are you the perfect woman?
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: negative creep on 04 Feb 2008, 21:51
Wallpaper removal is fun!
Title: Re: Home Improvement!
Post by: Patrick on 04 Feb 2008, 23:26
Seeeeeriously. Why do you think my cat so heavily adored the woven wallpaper in my dad's old house's dining room? God I wish I had a photo.

Incidentally, that stuff was ugly as SHIT. It was brown and the kitchen right next to it was a godawful That '70s Show yellow. I am pretty sure (like, not even joking) somebody went from the kitchen to the dining room and had a seizure, that's how horrible it looked.