Dead Relatives Tour 2015

Our theme this year?  Feet!

At my grandparent's grave, that's Mom, Aunt Pat, me, Aunt Carol, clockwise from upper left.

At my great-great grandparents' grave that's mom, Aunt Pat, Aunt Carol and me. I had to step one foot out because I'm not Gumby.

At my Great-Great Uncle Tom's memorial, we have Aunt Pat, Mom, Aunt Carol and me.

Uncle Tom's bouquet is in the upper left corner. It looks like the space next to him is available, if anyone is interested.

The finished-for-now product

No longer do you see the white dresser when you come in.  Now you see bookcases.

My plan was to have two bookcases with glass doors and one without, but I've changed my mind and all three need to have glass doors. The doors I bought can be customized with panels of material and after installing one set of doors, I concluded that it will be easier to customize before the doors are installed.  So instillation of the other two sets of doors has been put on hold.

Even though Billy and I didn't get along at the beginning, I'm happy to have embarked on this project.

Mind blown. Sometimes you have a trapezoid instead of a rectangle.

Cutting three-quarters of an inch off the bottom of the bookcases fixed the height problem.  But as I was installing them I noticed something.  The first shelf went in and one side went further back than the other.  I did some exploratory pushing and things didn't even out.  So I kept on keeping on, which is often what I do when confused during projects. 

The next bookshelf had the same problem, but the amount of space covered kept getting bigger.  "Maybe this back part isn't square?" I mused.  Matt turned around, took one look and said, "nope.  There aren't two 90 degree angles on this end.

It took a while for my head to adjust, but these rulers prove it.  This end of the counter doesn't even measure 12 inches.  If you look at the other end, there is a silver 12-inch ruler that doesn't reach all the way across.  I've been living with a trapezoid and never noticed!

Here you can see how my trapezoid shrinks.  I'm pretty sure this was intentional.  Maybe to make the transition from great room to hallway/kitchen less abrupt.

Matt sorts the white dresser.

Matt went through the white dresser and managed to knock four drawers down to one cube.  Good job Matt.

He was sad to give away his autographed VHS copy of the Awful Truth.

Also his videotape of Red Dwarf.

And his copy of Run Lola, Run.

New bookcases. Or: Billy attempts to defeat me.

Here is our "before" shot.  Since we moved in this has been a storage area with the white dresser holding a mish-mash of things, and the two orange stands holding books and music items.  There used to be a stereo system with large speakers there too.

I never like how the white dresser was the first thing people saw when they came in the door. So it's (finally) time for a change.

I bought these two stands in Somerville.  At the time, downtown Somerville had an unfinished furniture place. I bought this one first, and it was my computer desk for the iMac I briefly owned.  That was the iMac that taught me I'm not an Apple person.  I bought the second one to hold my TV/VCR combo and all my VHS movies.  They've been good little soldiers, but it is time for them to find new homes.

What I found when I moved the shelves.  A lot of dirt and the resting place for Antares' mice.

Now that I've moved everything out and scrubbed the floor, it's time to assemble the three Billy bookcases I purchased from Ikea.

And look!  One is nearly done.  

But alas, it is about 5/8th inch too high for where it needs to go.  I swear I measured.  But I guess not very well.

I set aside that problem and Sentinel came to help me assemble the Kallax shelving unit.

That went together quite nicely.  I dislike the cubes we choose to fill the Kallax shelving unit.  They remind me of a set of plastic end tables from my early 80s childhood.  Also, they seem quite fragile.  But they will work for now.

I returned to the problem of the Billy Bookshelves and measured out a solution.  The clear ruler I bought for my pattern manipulation class came in handy as I drew the line for the cuts I needed to make.

Taking another break, I filled some of the Kallax shelving unit's drawers.  Look what fits!  Albums!  I'm pretty sure some Ikea designer must have a big record collection.  Thank goodness s/he designed some furniture to hold them.

I am now the owner of a mid-range jigsaw.

All set up and ready to cut.

Stay tuned!

Hanging out in my subconscious.

I came across this picture when I was mid-bedroom curtain project and had a hearty laugh about how things from childhood loop back around.  This is me in my bedroom on Oreana street.  I'm pretty sure it's a "before" picture because this room got transformed into a room with Strawberry Shortcake wallpaper.  But before that, it had a Holly Hobbie theme.  You can see the comforter on my bed has Holly Hobbie on it.  Well, I can because that comforter was made to last by my mom who sewed it out of sheets. That comforter went to college with me.

But look at the curtains!  I had forgotten these existed, but she cut out pictures from the sheets and sewed them to the curtains, giving me a coordinating set.

And look what I thought of doing. I wonder how I got that idea?

Recovering the new chair.

I stopped at an estate sale and fell for this chair.  After paying my $32.50, I went home, got the car and then convinced the chair and the car that they did want to come together so the chair could have a new home.  Sentinel is a fan of the new chair, though he wants it to face the other way so he can look out the window.

Sentinel continues to model the damage to the cushion.  The clever estate sale people flipped the cushion the other way so I couldn't see how bad this was.  Which is fine, I had to change the color anyway.

Antares also wanted to model.

I bought a twin sheet at Fred Meyer and used part of it to cover the bottom cushion.  Then I used the rest to drape around the back.  The whole thing came together in 15 minutes and will probably be fine until years go by and I get around to doing something official.

I bought a second sheet to drape over the official sheet, so I can easily wash away all the cat hair.  

On our way to a date at the Hollywood Theater

Fun things seen:

This coffee mug addition to this pedestrian crossing sign.

Excellent 8-bit video game homage mural.

The beautiful Hollywood Theater with the new mixed-use building next door.  It's not the best and cuts off a good vantage point of the theater, but what can you do?

Cool stuff from the upstairs lounge like this sign.

Cozy places to chat.

Even more cozy places to chat.

Interesting undercarriage to this table.

McMenamins History Pub

We attended a McMenamins History Pub at the newly renovated Mission Theater.  This picture shows us newspaper articles about the Trent UFO sighting outside of McMinville, which is the reason McMenamins has their UFO Fest every May at their Hotel Oregon location.  

We heard a short presentation about UFO encounters and then watched the movie Fire in the Sky, which a movie based on an abduction in the mid-70s.  The subject of that movie/the abduction will be speaking at the UFO fest this year.

Thirteenth Anniversary! It must be time for a superhero movie.

And time for a self-portrait under the sign!  But no!  No sign is in this picture.

Here is the sign!  Well, not the actual sign, because we took the picture after the movie was over, but that's the movie we saw!

Another self-portrait attempt in front of the movie theater sign.  

And instead, settling for just a picture of the sign.  The light looks totally different, even though this picture is only seconds older than the one above.

It was a good anniversary celebration.