WWC & more home improvement projects!

this week's WWC (look at me! half-assedly participating again!) were modern and primitive. i was all excited for these words, because they seemed so inspirational, but then.. uh.. i couldn't think of anything until this morning, when i took these two cameraphone pictures of my wrists. my first wrist is decked out in a modern timepiece: ...and the other wrist is sporting a bracelet that my friend amanda brought back for me from hawaii, made of kukui nuts - a lovely and primitive piece of ornamentation.
so! last week in my list of 5 addictions i mentioned that i loved to pretend i was handy. and BOY DO I EVER. and recently, i've been increasingly annoyed at the fact that i don't have a desk at home. printing was a huge hassle, because there was no set place for my printer to live, and every time i wanted to download pictures from my camera i had to locate my external drive and connector cords, which could be anywhere.... since i didn't have a desk or anyplace reserved for Computery Type Stuff.

and then i realized that i had a huuuge closet in my room that wasn't being put to good use. in fact, it's been storing my drums, mostly.

i don't really have a place to set up my drums, nor is an apartment a great place to OWN drums, what with all the neighbors.. so they've been lying dormant in that closet since i moved here. but really, they don't need to take up a WHOLE CLOSET. not when the closet has some built in shelving and could TOTALLY be made over into a Computer Area, right??

i went to the container store and bought a few odds and ends from their elfa shelving system, because i am Brilliant and Resourceful like that:

then i started the hardest part of the endeavor, getting the *#@&^@%"# doors off the *&#^*!& closet.

one door off... farewell, my drums

turns out you should definitely start by uninstalling the little doohickey on the floor that keeps the sliding doors on track. just fyi.

GAH JESUS MOTHEREFFING #*&^#@ both doors off THANK GOODNESS

putting up the shelf/desk was honestly the easiest part of the entire process. the elfa system is actually pretty brilliant. you buy a top track which needs to be affixed directly to the wall, but then every single other component is technically hanging from that, or attached in some way, and requires no additional screws or even tools. i was mightily impressed.

my process was simple: i held the track up to the wall and, using a level, marked off the four screw holes (heh), pre-drilled the holes (heh heh), and had the track up securely using plastic expansion anchors & standard screws all within about five minutes.

the two vertical pieces actually hook right on to the top track, and then the horizontal brackets just clip on to the struts:

put the shelf into place, and voila! a home for my computer!

it needs a little bit of decoration and love, since it looks a little.. um.. sterile? shall we say? i hung a few rodin postcards that i framed ages ago, and one of those cheesy name paintings in faux-asian style, but it still needs some love.

and i'm now lusting after these nifty little gadgets from x-tremegeek to clean up the cord clutter and allow me to plug in my camera, external drive, and printer all at once, AND only have to remove one usb plug when bringing my laptop into another room. so, uh, still a bit of a work in progress. i'm still inordinately proud of it, though.