Moving, mats and Ikea - one hell of a combo

If you think I have been a bit quiet, you are right. Been spending most of this week babysitting the kids and getting stuff done like clearning out the hobby room. Almost everything is packed up, ready for the move. Erik (Modhail) is coming over tomorrow to get more stuff into the attic and to clear out the cabinets and I want to be basically done by friday evening. No gamesnight Friday as I ran afoul of Kim by not sharing enough information about the roomswap and repaint, and she got quite cross with me. I'm lucky to be able to go to Impact on Sunday, but I have quite a few trades to do there so it is a bit essential.

In my view the kids leave on tuesday evening, I have wednesday to either repaint the walls from purple and turqouise back to white, or wallpaper them, extending into thursday. While things are drying I'll dissasemble the kids stuff and move it into our bedroom, then move my hobby stuff into the old girlsroom as it needs no wallpapering or painting of any kind (the ripped wallpaper is hidden behind cabinets). So, done by friday at the latest so we have 2 days to ourselves.

Kims view is a bit different. I need to dissasemble all of my cabinets and the kids stuff and haul them into the attic so the room is clean, then paint on wednesday and thursday, wallpaper on friday. She is even thinking of putting in new carpet. My room can wait, the girls room has top priority and if it isn't finished by saturday I just have to put all of my needs on hold for at least 2 weeks untill they have another sleepover at my parents place.

2 wildly differing views.

Compromise sofar is that I disassemble some bits from my hobby room, move it all into the middle of the room and cover it with plastic or I disassemble the kids stuff during wednesday and move in my stuff into the kids room asap. Kim's mother and her friend have volunteered to help with painting on wednesday evening only so the hobby room has to be sorted (just the furniture) by then. I must get most of the clearing of the room done by fridaynight, so she can spend one of three evenings (sat-sun-mon) clearning her desk, her pc and her small cabinet. We will buy enough paint for 1 coat on 2 walls and enough wallpaper for 1 wall tomorrow when she gets back from therapy. Both are on sale this week so at least we are saving a buck there. While the stuff is drying I can start getting boxes down again and put them in their place in the new hobbyroom.

On the bright side, my knee isn't nearly as bad as it was before. Sure, bending still causes agony, sitting down for longer periods cramps it up, but I'm feeling progress here.

Another bright note is that I just got got a FB message from Urbanmatz. A while back I commented on their concrete mat. This one:

I'd like to buy one for my post apocalyptic and Necromunda table as I didn't see myself using a badlands mat anytime soon but I have 2 problems with it. Slighlty off centre is a big square that is lined with bones. Lot's of massively large bones. In the bottom right corner is a whopping Dragons skull. Yes, you can cover it with scenery, I know, but I don't need that kind of stuff on my Postapoc mat (which also doubles for a modern day decrepit factory yard and Rogue Trader citytable). So I gave them my honest feeedback and they replied within a day. They had more comments like mine and were reworking it, possible release date in April. April is around the corner, and they have since released the bloodless Cobblestone mat I am after but no news about the Concrete one. So i popped another message yesterday. And today the reply, with picture:

Well that looks pretty brilliant to me :) No bones. Mind, the mat I'm after is a 4x4, so trim off a bit from the sides (this is a 6x4). Release date May/June, pre orders a bit before that.

So I'm now looking at ordering 2 mats from them:

Concrete 4x4 and Cobblestone 4x4. Cobblestone looks like this:

 Meant for Frostgeave and Mordheim

That is 45 euros per mat for the 4x4s and 16 euros in shipping, for a grandtotal of  106 euros. This IS a lot of money for me, but I feel the added visual interest is worth it to me. Now, I'm currently selling off stuff to fund 2 projects, namely the mats and the mobile gaming table for the new room.
I've sold off my 2 Bommerz over da Sulphur River games for 65 euros this week, I have reservations for 70 euros worth of stuff at Impact. +Edit: add another reservation for 60 euros worth of GHQ stuff for Impact +. This brings my current sale total up to 195 euros. 106 euros of that go to the Mat fund, leaving 89 euros for the mobile gaming table.

I budgetted the mobile gaming table at around 500 euros, but let's do the math again. And run into a immediate problem. The cabinets I selected for the gaming table? They are out of production!

The variants with the many drawers has become 30 euros more expensive and no longer has a split lower drawer. A 80x37 piece with nothing but 8 drawers (like the cabinets that I have) now retail at 300 euros for the cheapest. Yikes!

After some searching the replacements (157 pages of it.....) I've looked at them with a different eye then I did last year. Last year I chose these:

324 euros worth of kitchen cabinets, just because I wanted additional space to put more models in the base of the gaming table. After having almost fully cleared the 3 chests of drawers I use now for that, I now know I have more then enough space do last me a decade of painting. What I do need is space for scenery. So, with that in mind I now chose these 2:

2 Much simpler kitchen cabinets, 1 with 2 sets of drawers for the rulers and tape measures, dice and markers plus 2 doors and planks, and 1 with just 2 doors and planks, all for larger scenery. So from 324 euros to 155 euros, that is a instant 169 euro saving!!

Wheels I got for free, might need 4 longer bolts though. Then a multiplex baseplate to bolt the wheels onto and put the cabinets on, a multiplex plate to bolt on top of the cabinets, 5x 15cm risers and another 80x80 multiplex board on top of that (4 on the corners and 1 in the middle, raised area so people can put their drinks underneath the table and not on top...personal pet peeve of mine), some white paint and some knobs for the doors, 2 multpilex 2x4 plates, 2 hinges and black paint for the foldable 4x4 to go on top of the 80x80 so I have a full skirmish table that the mats can lie on.

So, 155 for the cabinets, another 100 or less for the wood panels, screws and fittings etc maybe 25, paint either from the rejects bin at the DIY or when they have another 50% sale on certain paints so roughly 30 euros for white and black paint and a can of varnish and that oughta do it. Makes for 310 euros and I can get some off that if I shop around. Compared to the previous 500 euro budget, that is quite a saving!

It's way late again. Time for bed, better discuss all of this with Erik tomorrow.