Home improvement project

In September I looked at my tired old rattan bookshelves and my 15 years old monster couch.

15 year old rattan bookshelves, half the books removed already

Huge couch, same age, if the foam was any softer, it would have swallowed me

As there was no end to various coded lockdowns in sight, money, before wasted in bars, was piling up, since most bars were closed for 1.5 years already, I thought about making my living room a bit brighter. And since travel is still very restricted, time spent at home became less enjoyable.

Wall painted blue. Started painting the rattan shelves white with self made chalk style paint

Chalk style paint is simply ‘plaster of Paris’, a bit of cold water and latex paint. It covers well and evens out the rough surface, and it’s extra matte.

Carpenter brought the wood doors and rack extensions on top (100 USD)

The carpenters help installed the doors and top shelf. The next day, I uninstalled all of it and started painting the wood. Door handles from China, around 6 USD per piece. The rattan ‘artist’ next door delivered the 6 baskets (another 80 USD). Should I have not overpainted the 2 doors on the right and declared it “ART”?

Roughly 600 books fit in (3 rows stacked behind each other)

The rattan shelves weren’t straight from the beginning, and the 80kg of books bent them even more. Spent 2 days fixing rectangular doors to bent shelves, until I could live with the imperfections.

Looks alright I think.

The old Panasonic stereo with CD player didn’t survive the dust. Replaced with Philips FX10, which takes a USB stick, and is loud enough to wake up the neighbors 🙂 On the right you see a sports device which has never been used for sports.

The carpenter and his furniture maker made me a proper armchair and a footstool (150 USD)

The new luismanblog workstation

I bought a ‘single size’ Uratex mattress (200USD) with memory foam and had them make a daybed (roughly 180USD). The last order was the three new tables you see here, for 250USD. I painted them and put tiles on them (the side table isn’t finished yet). I got a 2000Wh UPS with LiFePo4 batteries right below the ‘puter’. This lasts around 8 hours, instead of the lousy 20 minutes the APC UPS provided. The chairs for the dining table are still under construction – well next year.

The logo you see on the pics is the FastStone photo resizer, which I lazily used.

The last 2 years were a bit boring for the reasons we all know. After shouting myself hoarse about the government insanity the whole year, I thought sharing something constructive may soothe me over the often quiet time between the holidays. Merry Christmas and a happy new year to all of you.

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