Demolition Day: The Living Room Shelves from Hell

Before we began demolition, we weren't quite sure how these shelves were affixed to the wall. The only way to find out for sure was to start dissecting.

Roland starts at a junction between wood and wall. (edit: Roland would like to point out that he did not actually start hammering here, it was just good for the photo. He actually pried off the front panel to have access to the screws).

After prying the cover off one section, we discovered that some of the wood was screwed into the drywall, other parts into studs, and some were just nailed into each other. There was also wiring running through each section for the special lighting effect.

Piece by piece, we unscrewed, pried, and yanked off sections of the shelves.

Roland is very tall, but even he had to employ the use of paint cans so he could unscrew high-up wooden blocks from the wall.

Finally, all the shelves are gone! Does anyone need 100lbs of plywood planks?

After the shelves were removed, we discovered that the yellow and gray paint peeled off the wall in long strips with next to no effort. Next up, repainting!

Home Ownership: The First Days

More on the sunroom behind us later.

As all or 90% of you know, Roland and I recently purchased our first home. Recently as in this past Wednesday. We had been looking all summer for something affordable, manageable, and not in a sorry state of disrepair (although we did come across plenty of those in our search). We originally thought we wanted a cute 60's era abode in Richardson (an older, established neighborhood just north of Dallas), but we found that everything in our price range there would take a lot of work and money to update to our modern sensibilities and tastes.

In late August, we finally found an 80's era patio home in Dallas (literally 100 yards from the Richardson border) that fit the bill. Fast forward past the headache and hassle that is mortgage processing and approval, and we officially got our keys on September 22nd. We still have a lot of work to do to make the house "ours," and luckily we have an entire month to clean, update, and fix anything we don't like before we have to be out of our apartment.

As soon as we got the keys, we naturally zipped over to our new place to roll around gleefully on the floor and really take stock of our new habitat.


Our new kitchen! With 22 cabinets!









Roland checking out the bathtub/heat lamp combo!







Look at all these wooden shelf things!
You can also see the ones behind him, which
seem to be neither nailed nor glued to the wall...



One oddity about this house is the sheer amount of wooden shelving. Every room has a custom-built, specially lit wooden unit that only seems to fit the knick-knacks that were there before. We can't quite figure out how they're affixed to the wall, but we're thinking that we might need to do a little demolition.

Lastly, a major issue when buying this house was termites. The previous owners had treatment back in April for a cluster of termites in the sunroom, which included placing termite bait stakes all around the perimeter of the house. Except the sunroom is an isolated space on the interior of the house, not outside. We don't actually want to lure any termites close to our home (we learned it's kind of a scam so you'll need another treatment when they come back for the bait), and Roland swore that the first thing he would do when we got the keys was pull out all of the bait stakes.



True to his word, Roland yanked out all 10 termite bait stakes.



Gross, there are maggots in there!

Anyway, we're super excited to start the move-in process and begin the homeowning part of our lives! More updates to come!

I Hate Ponies. Reason #1

Minnow, you're not even looking at the canvas!

Ummm...so, I just found out that this pony's "paintings" go for about $100 each on paintingpony.com. This doesn't seem fair. My elementary school art teacher told me that I definitely should not under any circumstances attempt to pursue art in any way or form. Ever. True, I could only draw cartoon cat heads, but I think with the right market I could have taken them far, given some encouragement. Anyway, so my cat heads are worthless, and yet this PONY chomps down on a paintbrush and rubs his face against a canvas, and suddenly he's an artist capable of "masterpieces?"

Sorry, Minnow, maybe I'm just jealous, but I am extremely skeptical of your love, dedication, and basic ability when it comes to painting.



Minnow the pony: Artist or Imposter?