Network and Storage Upgrades

Holly and I have been married since August 2014. But we have not yet had a chance to set up a central storage location. We finally did so! Or as Holly has been putting it: "We're finally married!"

Workshop Build Out

For Thanksgiving this year we went and visited my parents. They are under two hours away and part of our bubble during the COVID-19 pandemic. They recently bought a new house and I helped my dad to configure his woodworking shop.

Due to space constraints the miter saw and saw table are staying in the garage while other tools are expected to end up in a work shop. Unfortunately the workshop does not have enough space for the saw table and the larger lumber.

Desktop PC, New Build

Having not built a new desktop since January 2012 it was time to build a new system. The old rig was last updated in September 2016 when its decade old power supply died.
This is my most complicated build to date, in some ways. It has seven RGB fans. It is also simpler in others, as current cases are much easier to manage wiring than prior cases.

Shot of all the boxed parts prior to assembly, as this is the current way.

Cleaning Out the Storage Unit - Part 2

Our last trip to empty our self storage unit. At this point all that was there were some items going to my parents (tools, shelves, a microwave) and a bunch of car parts for Nausicaa, the 1993 Honda Prelude project. We moved with a Penske Ford F-350 16' rental truck.
It did not take us all that long to empty the unit and fill our oversize truck.

We are happy to be done with storage units.

This End Up, Classic Queen Platform Bed - Update and Improvements

We emptied out our storage unit of everything coming to Boston. One of the items we brought, that we have not had with us for two years, is our This End Up Classic Queen Platform Bed (my posts about the bed). When we went to reassemble the bed we found that the brackets for holding up the sides were rusted. We took a trip to Home Depot and looked for brass brackets as replacements but could not find what we wanted. Instead we wound up with brushes to remove the rust and paint to cover the brackets.
For brushes we used HDX Assorted Mini Brushes (3-Pack) and for paint we used Rust-Oleum Professional High Performance Enamel Gloss Black Spray Paint. I also used Permatex Fast Orange Fine Pumice Lotion Hand Cleaner as a lubricant with the brush and to help clean off the rust.
Here are some of the rusted brackets next to some of the cleaned brackets.

 

Cleaning Out the Storage Unit - Part 1

We are finally living somewhere long enough to empty our storage unit. This was done in two moves. First move brought stuff to our current residence. We used a 15' truck rented from U-Haul for this move.

Breaking down the shelving units took nearly the same amount of time as emptying the storage unit.

Shower Flow Restrictor Change

Holly and I moved in June 2018. We like the new apartment. The shower head had a nice enough spray pattern and adjusted  to a location that we liked but it did not have sufficient water pressure. In a prior post I stated that one of my favorite things to improve a rental bathroom is change the shower head. In this case we like the shower head well enough, but not the flow rate.
We still have our Moem shower head but have not yet installed it (though, now that I look at its flow rate and consider how much I have liked it, maybe I should).
Initially we removed all flow restriction from our shower head, but it was a bit too much and also seemed quite wasteful in terms of water usage.
So we bought a flow restrictor kit. We then tried each restrictor from 2.0 gallons per minute (GPM) to 4.0 GPM which is what we currently have and are happy with.

We removed the shower head using Vise-Grip. We then laid out all the flow restrictors. It looks like the shower was using a 1.5 GPM restrictor by default.

Whitmor Supreme Baker's Rack

I wanted hanging storage for pots and skillets. I wound up with the Whitmor Supreme Baker's Rack because it was well reviewed and would not involve drilling holes into the apartment's ceiling or walls.

It works well enough for the desired task. We also bought Cuisinart Pot Rack Hooks for extra hooks.

Custom Island Cabinet

The new apartment came with a table / island that is excellent for additional counter space and kitchen prep work. It seems to be empty underneath to allow medium height bar stools to be used so that it can act as a table.

Since we already have a table and were a bit short on cabinet space we elected to build a custom fit cabinet to fit beneath the table.

Closet LED Strip Lighting

New apartment, new closet. This one is fairly decent in size.
It has two doors, but with the furniture arranged we really only have access to one.

But the new closet did not come with a light.