Self Storage Shelving

My wife and I are renting a storage unit while we spend ~7 months living in Florida. We are keeping a good amount of the stuff we do not need to take with us (but we would like to have when we finally have more permanent living quarters or a house) in a self storage unit.
We have done this before but found that we wasted a lot of vertical space and had to be very concerned with how things we stacked.
This time we bought a few Husky Steel Garage Shelving Units in order to better maximize our storage space and it makes a world of difference.
The shelves are 77 in. wide, 78 in. high, and 24 in. deep. Each shelf (when evenly spaced as here) is rated for 2,000 lbs. per shelf.

Knife Sharpening

I have had this Calphalon Contemporary 8" Chef's Knife since around fall 2008 when Linens 'n Things was undergoing liquidation and I decided to buy a chef's knife on sale while a college student. It is not a bad knife per se, it is just not a great knife, and you can probably do better by spending a little more (I currently have two Fibrox® Pro 8-Inch Chef's Knife and they are much better knives, but I digress). Within the first year of ownership of the Calphalon Contemporary 8" Chef's Knife one of the people I shared an apartment with put this big nick in the blade by cutting a spaghetti squash on a granite counter top with no cutting board (do not suggest).

Desktop PC Overhaul

I was having some temperature and blue screen issues on my desktop recently. For one the original fan on my Cooler Master V8 CPU cooler died on me. I performed a little surgery and replaced its fan with a non-PWM case fan I had as a temporary solution (without removing the CPU cooler). I was regularly sitting at ~40 C idle which was rather warm.
So, I decided it was time for a CPU cooler change and figured I would try one of those close loop liquid systems. After reading lots of reviews, forum posts, comparisons, and so on I elected to go with the Corsair Hydro Series H110i because it used the CoolIt water pump and had good performance reviews, even if deemed a bit noisy.
One problem though is I use a Cooler Master HAF X full tower case. This case has been fun so far, but one issue for this particular cooler (which I knew when I ordered the cooler) is that this case only has holes for mounting 120 mm radiators at the top, not 140 mm radiators. So, some light modding would be involved.
I apologize for the image quality, lighting in the room was not great and I was doing this late at night and also had to use flash on a lot of shots. Thinking about it I should have taken of the circular polarizing filter as it would have let more light in.
Corsair Hydro Series H110i  box:

Glasses from Used Bottles

My wife and I occasionally end up with interesting looking bottles. We have decided to convert them into glasses.
I suggest wearing mechanics gloves or something that offers both dexterity and protection when doing this in order to prevent harm to your fingers and hands. Goggles and a mask are also a good idea for safety equipment.

Remodeled Bathroom

Friends of mine recently remodeled their bathroom and it came out gorgeous.
It was also my first chance to try out the Kohler WaterTile body sprays. They were very pleasant and relaxing.
More so than anything though I love having two shower heads (hand and fixed) to use at once but being off center from one another on a horizontal axis. This provided a wonderful coverage in terms of water and full body width spray, even more so than my current shower head, and where the two streams met there was wonderful outflow for washing shampoo and conditioner out of long hair.
Also, when using such setups you need to be much more careful with what valves you use so as to insure good pressure through all heads, this is a level of complexity not necessarily included in an ordinary single head shower or single head shower plus hand shower setup.
So, while I'm renting for now, these are definitely things to take note of for when I buy a home and design a shower.

Home Theater PC (with more fans)

Changed the Home Theater PC so that it had better cooling and wire management, also should be, on the whole, even quieter now.


Home Theater PC: Custom
Case: Cooler Master HAF XB EVO (Fans: 2x 140 mm front, 1x 200 mm top, 1x 120 mm exhaust)
MB: MSI 890FXA-GD70
CPU: AMD FX-8120 @ 3.1 GHz Socket AM3+ 125W
HSF: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus (setup with 2x 120 mm fans in push-pull)
RAM: 2x 2 GB DDR3 1600 G.Skill Ripjaws PC3 12800 [4 GB total]
GPU: 1x Asus HD6450 Silent (1 GB DDR3)
Sound: On Board
PSU: PC Power & Cooling Silnence Mk II 950
HDD: 1x Mushkin Chronos 120GB SSD
Networking: Dual Gigabit, Asus Wireless-N PCE-N15 PCIe Adapter, 2x TP-Link Antenna TL-ANT2408CL (because this will be placed in the living room far away from the router)
Optical: LG Blu-Ray Combo Drive UH12NS30
Primary Monitor: Toshiba 37AV50U 37" LCD HDTV
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Home Theater Software: XMBC

Twin 120 mm fans that came with case:

Bathroom Improvements while Renting

So, first, I'll start with a mistake.

I bought these  InterDesign Axis Loop Shower Curtain Hooks from Bed Bath & Beyond because I really liked the look. And I still do like the look and there have been no rust issues or anything. It's just that if you're not careful when moving the shower curtain one or two has a tendency to fall off the bar and this annoys me. So, we'll probably replace these.

Bicycle Storage - Thule Bike Stacker Storage Rack

Not wanting to put holes in our walls or ceiling we decided to go with free standing bike storage.

We ordered a pair of Thule Bike Stacker Storage Rack from Jenson USA.

I wish I had taken a picture of the mess of bikes before, but it was a mess of four bikes all piled upon each other and not at all convenient for accessing the bikes or storing anything else in the same space.

Home Theater PC

Built a home theater PC out of spare parts I had plus a few new parts.


Home Theater PC: Custom
Case: Cooler Master HAF XB (Fans: 2x 120 mm front)
MB: MSI 890FXA-GD70
CPU: AMD FX-8120 @ 3.1 GHz Socket AM3+ 125W
HSF: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus
RAM: 2x 2 GB DDR3 1600 G.Skill Ripjaws PC3 12800 [4 GB total]
GPU: 1x Asus HD6450 Silent (1 GB DDR3)
Sound: On Board
PSU: PC Power & Cooling Silnence Mk II 950
HDD: 1x Mushkin Chronos 120GB SSD
Networking: Dual Gigabit, Asus Wireless-N PCE-N15 PCIe Adapter, 2x TP-Link Antenna TL-ANT2408CL (because this will be placed in the living room far away from the router)
Optical: LG Blu-Ray Combo Drive UH12NS30
Primary Monitor: Toshiba 37AV50U 37" LCD HDTV
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate x64


Power supply, hard drive, and Blu Ray drive installed.
 

On Storage while Renting

So, one of the things that makes renting interesting is from place to place you move you wind up with very different storage arrangements.

The place I lived a few months ago I had a garage, a place to put my tools, and a large cabinet in my kitchen that I used as a pantry, and a linen closet.
The place I lived last (for a few months) did not have a garage, I used a storage unit to keep a lot of my stuff in, and had a walk in pantry.
The place I live now has no garage, no pantry, and no linen closet.

What this means is I need storage.