The Light At The End Of The Tunnel

The end is nigh! Well, not really. I’m pretty sure we’re not going to spin out of orbit anytime soon. But who knows what tomorrow will bring.

For me, it brings one more step closer to the end of my room renovations. The flooring was finished today and that means that we’re in the home stretch now. All that is really left is fixing a few noticeable paint mistakes, putting up the baseboards along with the window and door casings and cleaning up the mess. Once that’s all done then I have the wonderfully fun job of building some more IKEA shelves and then moving all my stuff back in.

Of course there’s also a couple of doors to hang and some transitions to install as well but those are relatively minor.

Overall, the project will fully be done by end of the month but my room will be ready for entertaining by the weekend!

I’m sure you’re all just as sick of these renovation posts as I am. Don’t worry, once I’m back ensconced in my batcave, I’ll get back to burbling on about more nerdy drivel.

If you’re looking for pics then you’ll have to wait till closer to the end. I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise.

Episode III: Revenge of the Renovators

It is a dark time for the renovators. Laid low by sickness and malaise the renovations crawl to a snail’s pace and progress is slim.

Okay, that’s not entirely true but I had hoped to be further along than we are from the last update.

It’s been a month since I last posted in general and in that span both Tam and I caught a nasty flu bug that laid us on our asses for about two whole weeks. We muddled along though, and managed to make some progress despite the affliction.

Right now the subfloor is 100% in, drywall is also completed and first and second coats of mud are done. I just have to finish sanding the second coat and possibly do a third in a few places as they’re a bit sketchy quality wise.

Next up is paint which I’m not looking forward to and then flooring. Once that’s done then I’ll start moving stuff back in. I’m hoping to be done by the end of the month but it will really all depend on how distracted Tam gets with the hallway just outside of the room.

It became a project unto itself when she realised that the flooring would need to continue to the stairs and for that to happen we needed walls and such to base size off of. She’s been focused on the intricacies of that room while I’m stuck sanding.

Here is a panorama of the project somewhere between first and second coats of mud. It’s about 2 weeks old. I haven’t done one recently because a fine white dust from the sanding has settled over everything.

Once I get the dust cleaned up I’ll throw another pic up to better show our progress.

That’s all for now.

Obligatory Renovation Update

So I’m going to try and resist posting a plethora of updates about my games room renovations. I’d rather just show the end result when that comes about and be able to contrast the before with the after. I feel it’ll have more impact.

As it stands now, we’re still in the demolition stage, though we’re pretty sure that we’ve torn everything up that we need to and barring a few small tweaks here and there we should start the actual construction right away… well, once we do another dump run or six. Hard to believe one room can generate so much garbage and construction waste.

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Let The Games Begin!

A little over a year and a half ago, my wife and I started discussing what we were going to do with our basement. As it stood, it was a hodgepodge of tool rooms, odd shaped (and cramped) bedrooms and the world’s worst bathroom. It was in dire need of an overhaul.

We discussed options and talked about tearing down walls and expanding the master bedroom. We dickered back and forth on which way we would go and what we’d do. Ultimately her practicality won out.

We would renovate the old small bedroom that I was using as an office and the tool room and turn it into a new master bedroom. We’d revamp the bathroom and laundry room and we would turn the old master bedroom into a new office/nerd cave. It was really the only concession I got on the whole plan and I think I only got it because, I said I wanted a secret door in the bookshelf.

Last winter we tore into it and started on our master bedroom. We finished it sometime in March or April and it was glorious to have space to walk around in.

Summer came and we left the project alone to focus on the garage and other outdoor projects. However, we both knew the Stark motto was true: Winter is Coming.

Christmas was the usual hectic gong show but now that it’s over, we decided to get stuck in. As we had decided to leave the bathroom and laundry room for last due to the “fun”, finicky plumbing and tiling bits, the next job was my nerd cave

Go! Go! Gadget Sledgehammer!

Eventually, it’s supposed to look something like this:

I’m hoping we’ll be done sometime in March or early April. I can’t wait! Mainly because then I don’t have to lug 40kgs of Star Wars books all over creation every time we game.

I’ll keep you posted!

Unexpected Downtime

Well, I didn’t expect that. Firefox crashed while I was updating a wordpress plugin… and when I came back to the site, it was deleted. I managed to eventually recover a backup from December 9th, but it was a last ditch effort on my part. I had very little hope of it succeeding.

For the two of you who even noticed, sorry for the interruption. For the rest of you. Carry on!

I was going to blog tonight about the latest renovations going on in the house and progress on the Nerd Cave but all my time was spent trying to fix the error.

I shall endeavour to update you tomorrow. Until then, good night!

Signal Disruption

Oh look. There goes all my plans for regular posting. It’s been about a month since I last posted and it irritates me that all my good intentions and plans were derailed. I blame the holiday season. Working retail at Christmas messes with my routines, my sleep habits and my time.

Normally I’d come home from work, cook dinner, tidy up and then ensure the kids did their chores/homework. Once they are settled, I’d then disappear downstairs to my cave and type up something here, paint a miniature or work on my Star Wars game. Since the beginning of November though, I’ve not done any of those things. My RPG stuff sits stagnant in the bag I use to carry it all and has been there since the beginning of October. My paints sit similarly unused and obviously the blog has been silent for the past month as well.

There’s hope that as we near Christmas and the retail nightmare that is my life, subsides to little more than a bad dream I will get back to a much more regular routine.

In the meantime, have fun without me. I have laundry to fold.

A Dream of a Thousand Cats

My cat is an asshole.

I was supposed to go and see Neil Gaiman tonight, but my cat decided that I would be spending time at home with a tweaked back.

The little #&$@!! tripped me at lunch time in the kitchen today. I managed to catch myself but the effort twinged something painfully in my back. Then, one of the day home kids pulled a stupid and I had to haul him up from where he’d wedged himself in between the wall and the bed, further exacerbating the issue to the point where I’m hobbling and immobile.

You have no idea how much I hate and disappointment I have flowing through my veins right now. If Palpatine ran out of hate lightning, I could easily refill his supply about 1000 times over and still have some to spare.

This was something I was really looking forward to. Beyond anything else this year and it all comes crashing down because of a stupid cat.

Somewhere, Bast is laughing.

Excelsior!

One of my heroes passed away today.

Stan Lee shaped a lot of my early life without even knowing it. Through the pages of Spider-Man, The X-Men and the rest of the comics that make up the Marvel Universe I learned to differentiate right from wrong. I learned that good guys win. Most importantly, I learned that with great power, comes great responsibility.

He told stories about heroes. Heroes with super-normal powers. Those heroes were flawed. They struggled against adversity. Those heroes fought for a better world. Sometimes they stumbled, but they never stopped fighting the good fight.

I remember watching some mid-80s Incredible Hulk cartoon with Stan’s iconic “True Believers” narration and being instantly hooked. I watched the cartoon because it was cool and it was the Hulk, but I went back every week for more because Stan’s voice over made everything cooler.

He will be missed.

‘Nuff Said.

7-Day Book Cover Challenge: Day 8 – The Honourable Mentions

Here’s the problem with challenging a creative type like myself with making a list about something I’m passionate about. It won’t stop. Limit myself to seven books? I’d rather cut off my good right arm. Like I said at the beginning, the number of books that have influenced me may be closer to seven hundred rather than seven and while paring it down to seven was challenging, there were definitely a few that I left out.

I purposefully left out a number of books that my friends had already posted, even though they meant a lot to me because I didn’t want to dilute their contributions by saying ” Oooh! Oooh! Me too!”. There were also quite a few books that I debated over for various reasons and while they influenced me, and were definitely among my favourites, they have been supplanted by the books that made the list.

This list is by no means comprehensive. I may revisit this theme again in the future and go a little deeper down the rabbit hole of my favourite authors and/or books but in the meantime here is a glimpse of a few more books that orbit the being that is me.


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