Larger Tortoise Terrarium

Tammy the Tortoise spent the Spring and Summer gorging on our well-watered grass this year, and grew too big for our current terrarium:

Getting a new glass terrarium is prohibitively expensive. We decided to build a new one from scrap wood.

Brianna and I talked over some design ideas, and then Brianna took the lead on the build, doing all the measuring and cutting, with me supporting her. We did most of it in one afternoon while Lincoln napped.

There's a 25W silicone-pad heater under the left end of the plastic liner. A spare desk lamp is repurposed with a incandescent heat bulb, and the white fluorescent fixture is a special UV lamp to Tammy gets the desert-like radiation needed for a healthy shell.

The lights and heater are controlled by a Quirky Pivot Power Genius power strip, which has two smart outlets. These outlets are on a pre-programmed schedule (but also have voice and smartphone control), and I added an LED indicator light to show when the heating pad is on.

Eventually I would like to have some sort of presence sensor, so the terrarium shuts down when Tammy is out in the yard. I haven't nailed down how I want to do that yet, though.

Artwork above the Fireplace

Brianna and I went to Goodwill last weekend, and stumbled upon a set of frames for a total of $62, and thought they'd be a good fit above our mantle.

The big picture in the center is the Veil Nebula, and in my opinion is the prettiest picture in the Hubble's Image Archive.

The image on the left is supposed to be a scanning electron microscope image of flash memory (like you find inside your phone). That doesn't match what I understand of the imaging capabilities of scanning electron microscopes, but I still think it's a cool picture.

The image on the right is a transmission electron microscope image of pollen.

So: an image from the deepest reaches of outer space, spanning light-years across, framed by microscopic images of artificial and natural structures. I'm pretty happy with it! And the total cost was $110!

New Shelving Unit in Family Room

We picked up an old, used IKEA shelf from a family a couple neighborhoods away who were moving house. Got it for $13 *with* delivery. It's definitely seen better days, but for $13 we can use it for a year or two and then upgrade once stuff higher on the priority list has been taken care of.

This enabled us to finally unpack the last two cardboard boxes (well, there might be one or two cardboard boxes in the basement, but we won't mention those).

Before:

Now:

The shelf is anchored to a wall stud, so now all the toddlers that live in or visit our house can use this new climbing wall secure in the knowledge that it won't tip over on top of them.

Home

This is our home and family. We like it a lot.

Sputnik Lamp Above Piano

Brianna and Link gave me a day to myself today! Rather than catch up on sleep, or reading, or anything like that, I opted to do some electrical work.

We have been meaning to put a light in above the piano for awhile now:

There is an outlet at the base of that wall, behind the piano. The opposite side of that wall is the laundry room.

Inside the laundry room, I cut an exploratory hole to see what I was dealing with:

Turns out there were already wires back there (I left them alone). I cut another hole just above the counter, where I would install a switch for the new light, and add an outlet - for some reason there is only one outlet in the entire laundry room, behind the washer and dryer. This project was a great opportunity to add an outlet on the opposite wall. Who knows? Someday we may even use that outlet to iron our clothes.

I ran a wire up from the outlet on the piano-side of the wall, installed the switch and outlet, and buttoned everything up:

Regrettably, I installed the switch upside-down. Oops. I don't expect to use the switch much, so I left it as-is for now - I was tired for turning the circuit breaker on and off.

And here's the new light!

The bulb is a color-changing LED. It came with a little remote control, which will be the primary method of turning the light on and off. I installed the switch mainly in case of an emergency.

Thanksgiving Prep

Nothing like a combination of nesting instinct and knowing relatives are on their way for dinner to inspire some clean-up:

Wood Burning Fireplace

We used our fireplace for the first time tonight.

In the course of building the fire, I discovered two things: 1) there is a connection for a natural gas insert in the fireplace, and 2) I don't have any fireplace tools. I'll have to get myself a poker right away!

We didn't really do much else tonight. Brianna made a week's worth of sloppy joe mix and froze most of it. We both did a few chores, and we spent a lot of time watching funny internet videos together.

Piano Moved

We got the piano moved with very little drama!

Here's the removal process:

And here it is, moved into our house! It happened so fast I didn't have a chance to take a picture of the piano in motion.

The piano movers did misspell our street address, and made it "almost to I-70" before they figured it out. We saw them on the freeway on our way home, so we were wondering what made them arrive at our house an hour after we did.

The Piano looks great! We'll give it a week to get acclimated to the new house, and then bring in a tuner at some point.

Now we just have to figure out who's going to play the blasted thing.

Tortoise Terrarium Improvement.

While I was at IKEA, I saw two tables for $4 each. I figured this would be a good time to get the tortoise's terrarium off the floor, and maybe clean up the whole area a bit.

The tortoise likes to find dark corners to hide in when we let it out to wander the house. Unfortunately for Tammy (the tortoise), we don't really have dark corners in this house. Tammy has actually scraped the finish off the trim in one corner of the kitchen, trying to get further under the cabinet toeboard.

I built a "cave" out of a used cardboard box. It's nice and shady, fits perfectly under one of the tables (I love it when standards overlap) and I made a few cuts so the top flaps easily open so I can grab Tammy out of the "cave" and put her back in the terrarium at night.

Of course, Eva had to photobomb. The tote under the right table has scrap newspaper and junkmail, to line the terrarium in the future.

The best part is, now that the terrarium is elevated, my pregnant wife voluntarily cleaned out and re-lined the terrarium! Success!

IKEA Finds

Finally found a mattress for the bed in the nursery. A latex foam mattress for $175, marked down from $350.

Now I need to finish painting doors in the other bedroom, and we can move the extraneous furniture out of this room so we'll have room for a crib and changing table.

While I was in the IKEA as-is section I spotted a pair of candlesticks, and in a different bin found two LED faux-candles. I picked up a set for $4.

I kinda like them.

Weekend Post-Mortem

Well, this weekend certainly didn't go according to plan.

I did manage to get most of the Great Room prepped for painting. However, the windows still need to be taped off, and I need to put plastic down over the carpet.

I did get some more blinds hung up:

Getting those three blinds on the right to hang up next to each other was tricky - they're designed to be hung independently with 2 anchors apiece. I used 4 anchors total to get the blinds nice and close to each other.

Throughout the weekend, I also managed to paint all the doors and trim upstairs (well, except for the trim in the Master Bedroom, which is still sitting in the garage):

I spent way too much time on the toilet in the main floor bathroom. Turns out it requires a custom seal - the universal version I bought at Home Depot just doesn't work.

Anyway, that's more or less the work I did this weekend. I spent a significant part of Saturday just vegging out in the cool basement. I have pretty mixed feelings about that - I really wanted to get the painting done this holiday weekend, but I hit a wall Saturday morning and needed a break. On balance, I'm pleased to have had the opportunity to recharge after hitting my limits.

Curtains

I took down some curtains in the Great Room, so I put some back up in the Family Room:

Nature Abhors a Vacuum

Finally pulled up the rest of the plastic in this room, and moved most of the paint cans into the garage. Brianna vacuumed and mopped, and it looked fantastic:

Then we turned around for just an instant, and when we looked back, furniture was just swooshing into the room to fill the space:

It actually looks like a useable family room!

The couch and loveseat were a wedding gift from my my parents. Thanks Mom and Dad! We're still using them, two apartments and two houses after we got them! And they look great here!

Painting Trim on the Main Floor

Brianna and I painted trim in the kitchen and family room this evening.

When I originally painted this area, I neglected to prime the trim around the doors to the laundry room and basement, and both those sets of trim are going to need a second coat tomorrow. Other than that, though, it is pretty much done! Just need to peel the tape, clean up, and move furniture back into these rooms!

Updated Kitchen Photosphere

I updated the photosphere in a previous post to include the floor.

Detail Work

Yesterday Brianna helped me re-install the ceiling fan in the living room:

I bought a combined light-and-fan-control switch, which includes a dimmer function. The CFLs we have don't work with dimmers, and we're out of Cree LED bulbs, so there are incandescents in there for the time being. Unfortunately, one of them exploded the second time it was turned on:

Fortunately, all the glass landed on painter's plastic, so I was able to just roll up the plastic and throw it all in the garbage.

We also put a lot of finishing touches on the hallway.

I re-installed the Nest Protect smoke alarm, installed a new light fixture (which matches the ones in the kitchen) and replaced the return-air grill in the lower right corner. I wound up cutting off the old security system control panel, putting up a low-profile conduit box, and wrapping the spare wire inside of it. I'm not sure what I'll use the wire for eventually, but I'm sure I'll think of something.

While I was doing all that, Brianna took pity on me, and did all the taping work yesterday, taping off the trim in the kitchen. Once the trim is painted, we can start moving things back into the room, and the house will look a little less like a construction zone.

I was planning to do some electrical work (replacing switches) in the afternoon, but it started to thunderstorm, so we went to see the latest X-men movie instead. Brianna and I both enjoyed it! Wish they could get the X-men back into the Marvel Movie universe so they could tie-in with the Avengers, but oh well, it was still fun.

Painting Mishap

I got the ceiling in the hallway painted yesterday, and we spent a lot of time removing tape from the kitchen.

Unfortunately, I got a real-world reminder of why I wanted to do ceilings before walls:

That was annoying, but it's already fixed this morning.

Here's a shot of the kitchen:

Need... Coffee...

I'm probably going to regret last night sometime around 2 PM today when I fall asleep in the middle of a boring meeting or something equally embarrassing, but: I stayed up til about 1:30 AM last night to do (most of) the second coat of wall-white in the kitchen, family room, and hallway, and clean up afterwards.

I still need to do the cubby area under the counter (left of the stove) and the area above the cabinets on the fridge-side of the kitchen. Those are (by far) the most difficult sections for me to paint. Someone smaller or taller might not have a problem with them, but they are my kryptonite on this project.

I pulled off some of the tape this morning so I could get the stove and fridge back in their respective places. And while most of the edges are going to need some touch up, the kitchen is useable now, just in time for Brianna to get home this afternoon. Hopefully the paint smell dissipates a bit before then.

First Coat of Color on Main Floor

Huh.

I really shouldn't be, at this point, but I am still surprised at how well the colors Brianna picked work. Even with just the first coat, the kitchen, family room and hallway look warm and welcoming. Still can't wait to be done painting this huge area, but I am also looking forward to seeing this room with all the plastic removed and some furniture and lights moved in.

Still need to sell that china cabinet. Anyone interested?

Taping

Freaking 2+ hours just to tape everything off. And this kept happening:


AAAARRRRRRGGHH!!!!

So ready to be done with this room.