Month: July 2009

I picked up the paint for the living room this week and spent all of this afternoon preparing to paint, painting and cleaning up from painting. Painting is awful. I think I probably spent as much time moving furniture, cleaning walls, wrangling tape and drop cloths, and cleaning paint covered implements as I did actually painting. I still have the section to do where the breakfast table is but I decided I was tired of painting and had other things that needed doing anyway. I’ll probably finish up next weekend. In the mean time I have a couple of pictures.

I have wanted a new TV for a long time. The TV I currently own is a fairly old CRT that I have had since I was in college. It is, in fact, old enough that it does not have an s-video connector and we have been through at least two other connector standards since the s-video was hip and with it. Samsung has started selling an LED backlit LCD television and I think I am going to buy one. I’d like one of the 55″ 8 Series but they’re apparently a little hard to come by right now and they’re a bit spendy as well. And, of course, you can’t just get the TV. I’d want a blu-ray player (probably a PS3) and a good surge suppressor to protect it since the only time we get rain here anymore it comes in the form of giant ice balls with lightning coursing through them. I have one complaint about the TV. It has four HDMI inputs but only a D-sub connector for computers, no DVI. That is silly. I realize that there are DVI-HDMI adaptors out there and that I could just get a video card that outputs HDMI but it’s just kinda dumb is all. I mean, considering how much the TV costs I don’t think it would have killed them to throw the extra connector on. Plus, who the hell still uses D-sub? Even DVI is getting a little long in the tooth.

No word on the chairs yet. It’s only been a week though so that’s ok. Since I’m probably going to have to take a half day from work to wait for the delivery people anyway maybe once I know when they’re coming in I could arrange to have a television delivered on the same day. How self-indulgent would that be?

Anyway, TV GOES HERE:

I ordered my chairs today. My sofa is a beautiful and unique snowflake. The design is no longer made, the upholstery (sadie driftwood) is no longer made, and the finish code for the wood bits is a code which is not used anymore. That said, I ended up getting two of the Ava chairs in “plaza – java” which is a brown stitched in a repeating concentric square pattern. I also decided on the color I’m going to paint the two walls in the living room: Sherwin Williams’ “Yearling”. I’ll need to get a gallon of that one day this week. They open at 7:00am and close at 6:00pm so it might even be preferable to stop in on the way to work instead of trying to leave early and fight traffic to get out to the nearest one.

The chairs are supposed to be ready in six to eight weeks which would put them here around my birthday. Happy birthday to me. Maybe if I’m really good Santa will bring me some toys for the Christmas in September.

I have a sofa called Ava. I bought this sofa from Storehouse furniture back before they imploded but I did not buy the chairs that went with it because money doesn’t grow on trees. I still have the paperwork and upholstery sample somewhere in the house from the sofa but I don’t remember where it is. Today I discovered that the company which made the Ava sofa, Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams is still around and making furniture. They don’t seem to make the sofa anymore but they still make the chairs.

They also make all kinds of other furniture including a pretty fantastic looking leather wingback chair called Gustave. I think that would be excellent for the study when I finish the shelves. I’m not sure a white leather chair would wear well but it would look pretty good in the room with the white bookshelves. I’m sure they’d be happy to put whatever color of cow on it I asked them to for a modest fee but the white struck me when I saw it.

I caught myself thinking it might be worth the trip down to Houston to go to the actual MG+BW store but then I remembered that Houston is actually terrible and that I have resolved to not drive there ever again unless forced to by cruel fate. The local Loft store carries some of the MG+BW furniture but not the chair. I believe they can order them though and they would almost certainly have the upholstery catalog and as a bonus I only have to drive into town and not into Hell.

I’ve been doing a short term contract for a company that several of my friends work for downtown which finished up today. It appears I did a good job because they offered to bring me on board full time and I accepted. It’s an interesting company and everyone has been very nice and welcoming. I also feel like I will be able to do some good there and it’s great to feel useful to the world again. It will also be nice to have a steady income again. Now I just need to figure out how to get four extra hours stuck into the day and I can start making some headway on some personal stuff that I had put on hold. Still need to finish the bookshelves. This weekend should be a good chance to get some of that done. That’s about it.