Thwarted Again

Month: August 2009

  • Hardware

    I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I’ve been looking for curtains for what started as chairs and has turned into the living room makeover project. I’ve been to many stores and I’m starting to narrow down what I like and part of that is that today I went to Restoration Hardware and bought curtain rods and other curtainy things. Unfortunately I was not able to get all of the hardware that I need to hang curtains but I did the the rods, rings and finials I wanted. The double rod conversion kit was not in stock in the store so they ordered it for me and it should be here next weekend. That’s just the basics though. There are also tie backs, and “drapery wands” and those can get spendy as well.

    I got hardware for the two windows in the living room. The windows are each 74″ wide and their tops are 82″ off the floor. This means I need four 50″ X 84″ panels when I actually buy the curtains and I will also want four of the same size sheer drapes to go behind them on the smaller rod. I need to figure out how high to mount the hardware. I don’t want the curtains to drag on the floor but if they hang free from the floor how far off it should they be? Should you be able to see the entire baseboard? Should they just barely brush the carpet? Who knows. There are probably interior design books dedicated to the topic of how to hang your draperies.

    Here’s what I ended up getting:

    Crystal finials
    Finials


    Double rod conversion
    Double rod conversion


    Rings
    Rings

    Plus the actual rods and the base plate on the rod holders is rectangular rather than round. I’m going to see if Santa Claus will bring me the accessories for Christmas.

    Also, Vienna Teng is coming through town in November and tickets went on sale today. I missed out on the seats but general admission will be fine. It’s at Stubb’s and I haven’t actually been to a show at Stubb’s before except during SXSW. That’ll be interesting. I missed her the last couple of times she was here so I’m glad I heard about this one. I like her new CD, Inland Territory. It’s a little different from her previous work but it’s good.

  • Queen

    It’s a good thing that Dillard’s is not as cool as Macy’s because I can actually find clothes that don’t look silly at Dillard’s. Not to say anything bad about silly clothes mind you. I’m sure a big, illuminated skull with wings is a completely fine thing for someone to have embroidered across the front of their shirt but that someone is not me. I got a shirt with a little bit of purple in it and some pants with tiny pin stripes and I was feeling adventurous. Clothing aside, the real reason I’m making a post this evening has to do with the dressing room.

    Austin has a fairly large gay community and for the most part they are not terribly noticeable because, much like everyone who is not gay, they go about their day doing their jobs and eating their lunches and driving their cars and surfing their internets and so on. But every once in a while they go shopping with their boyfriends and have the awesomest conversations in the dressing room next door and then you get to go home and write in your blog about how you heard a man exclaim “Oh my god, this shirt is so fabulous. If I had this I could be the queen of the gays.” Apparently, the shirt in question had some shiny bits and a few painted on crowns and all of the other silly, modern men’s clothing accoutrement and while the consensus over the wall was that it fit well, it was perhaps a little too fabulous and after a serious discussion of the shirt’s relative merits and deficiencies they decided to leave it.

    I also saw huge man with a big, bushy beard wearing a tie-dyed, peace-symbol t-shirt playing a harmonica like someone was going to kill him if he didn’t. Today at work it rained (I know! Who knew it still did that?) and being up on the 16th floor of a glass walled building in a storm is really cool. I can only imagine what it must be like in a really tall building. I bet it’s awesome except for the swaying.

    The world can be entertaining.

  • Strand Brothers for the win

    After I called Strand Brothers a technician (John, nice guy) called me back within an hour, showed up at the house in fifteen minutes (he lives in the neighborhood, sweet) and had the thing fixed in another fifteen. Plus the service call charge is good for thirty days so if it goes out again I don’t even have to pay again. The A/C is humming away, cool air is blowing out of the vents, the electric meter is spinning like a top (curse you inefficient A/C) and all is right with the world. For those of you keeping track at home that’s less than two hours from broken A/C in the hottest Austin summer on record to fixed. If I decide to upgrade the system I’m definitely calling them again.

  • Too Hot

    Today was our 52nd 100+°F day this summer and apparently also the straw the broke the camel’s back. When I got home today my A/C was not on and the house was at 89°F. No amount of fiddling with the thermostat or the breakers has produced an improvement in the situation. I submitted a help ticket with Fox Service and called Strand Bros. and I suppose we’ll see who gets back to me first. If you ask me, six years isn’t very long for a system like that to go before failing but since it seems to me like it could just be a relay or something so I suppose I should withhold judgment. It is very hot though and I’m feeling cranky so I think I’m going to indulge myself and call it a piece of shit.
    It’s not like it’s the most efficient thing in the world and if it were to be irrevocably dead it wouldn’t be so bad to get it replaced with something that didn’t use so much electricity. It’s probably not though. I think it might be dinner time. Dinner time somewhere with working A/C. Which would be just about when someone from a repair company would call me and say, “I can be there in five minutes, are you home?” I best be quick about it and then.

  • Brown

    I’ve finished painting the living room. No pictures today since it’s still kind of a mess but the back wall is all brown now. I still think the brown is a little too red but it mostly looks off when it’s night and the kitchen light is on so maybe it’s just that there’s a little more red in the fluorescent output that’s messing with me. It looks ok. I’ve been thinking about some curtains for the living room windows too. A big, flat TV will have problems with glare coming off the windows that it is facing and curtains would help tie the colors together. I saw some nice ones at Crate and Barrel and at Z Gallerie.

    Z Gallerie also had some pillows with nice fabric but they’re square and I think I’d prefer some of the cylindrical pillows. I think they’re called bolster pillows but you get the idea. I think I’m going to have a look at Etsy and see if anyone in town makes pillows and would do a commissioned lot.

    This week I also got my annual nastygram from the home owners association. As per the unpublished quota bylaw, some insignificant horticultural transgression of mine triggered the release of the hounds and a three page letter informing me that I had weeds growing in my driveway expansion grooves and that if I was insufficiently speedy in remedying the condition or if that or another issue like it appears again in six months I’ll get fined $75 and be further threatened. I love my house but being beholden to this idiotic cadre of petty tyrants is galling. It makes writing the dues check in December a bitter pill to swallow knowing that the only real benefit I get from my $330 is my annual correspondence and the sight of the human whales beached in the outdoor public urinal pool down the street. My friends have offered several suggestions for how best to strike back at my suburban oppressors but instead I pulled weeds and mowed like a good little sheep. :|

    Finally, I went shopping yesterday. I don’t really care for the proliferation of exaggerated embroidery and paint on Men’s shirts these days. Some of my friends can pull that look off but I think I just look silly in it. Too bad for me. I also wandered into the home store at Macy’s thinking they might have some pillows and they had a few but nothing like what I wanted. I did see a nice bed set that was on sale. It came with curtains and decorative pillows and all kinds of other good stuff. I’d need to break down and get the bedroom furniture and a new mattress though and I’m not sure where that’s going to fit into the finances with the chairs and the TV. I probably ought to buy the bed instead of the TV since I spend 6-8 hours a day on the bed and don’t watch much TV anymore but that would be the smart thing to do and since when have I ever done that?