On the 4th day of Christmas.....or: With a little help from a friend

Well, the attic is empty. We had a friend over to do the really heavy lifting today, remove the carpet and other remaining tasks. My current hobby room resembles a server room now, and I'm feeling boxed in like a sardine, and my muscles share the feeling.


We will suit up like moonmen and remove the insulation in the evening of the 1st, and besides putting covers down on the lower floors we are pretty much done. Which means I've been planning the stage after the loft has been painted. As it stands now, gettin g my workstation up and running has priority. Cabinets and storage second, getting all of the boxes upstairs third, and then....

I've decided a TV, a sleeping couch and a general relaxing area can wait. With all of the storage boxes back up in the attic we can start Nikki's room quicker, and I must go through all of the storage to pick out all of the stuff for sale, and stock that in the cabinets next to the washer and dryer.

And that is as far as I want to plan now. What TV, what couch, what sort of gaming table....it all can wait :)

Hope you all had a nice Xmas, a few more days till 2020 and I'll be taking more rest as the kids in their kindness made me sick with whatever virus was running through the school just before recess....<cough>

Don't stop thinking about tomorrow

 This weekend the kids are at my folks place for a short Xmas break, Kim is in Germany for her annual Xmas fair break , so I'm home alone till tomorrow evening.

Been hauling crates down from the attic all day, starting to feel very boxed in now in my hobby room....

 

My body has this nice habit of reminding me when I have done enough, even when I feel pretty good while doing it, and take plenty of breaks. I "only" brought down 15 crates today (edit - 25), and have another 15 and some boxes to go till my part of the attic is done.  Will pick up some dispoasable coveralls, masks etc for me and Kim so we can remove all of the remaining insulation the evening before they start, and some extra thick plastic to cover the washer and dryer that we will put on wheels so they can move it out of the way. There is no way we can bring them down beforehand, as we have to plug it back in in the evening to run them (kids and clothes, you kn ow the drill if you are a parent)

As we now (roughly) know how big the room is, i've been making basic sketches to see what works best, going over the pro's and cons of each variant, sharing the drawings with friends etc.

After sleeping a bit on them, and with advice, I've settled on this layout.

Windows (and thus sun) is on the left, in the midde you have the door towards the other part of the attic, and on the right the attic continues but we opted to cordon a large bit off purely for storage. And boy.....am I going to need that! Also a couch that can double as a bed and a TV. I've already prepped the left and right side of the room with extra network cables so the PC and Xbox and TV can just be plugged in.

not to scale!

 Right-o. In my previous set up I had 2 side by side desks, and they were always a godawful mess, so I sold the bigger one to a friend, turned my smaller 120 one to face the wall en went with that. Ok, this too turned out to be an awful mess. Hmmm.... Well, third time lucky, I've went for a L shaped desk, and I can fit a 180-180 with ease. Wall side is meant for the PC, printer etc. Window side is meant for the hobby, lots of natural light during the day.

South wall will be nothing but storage. If it fits like I wanted (and that is a big if as I have no idea how the walls will be finished and how much roof space I lose out) I should be able to bring in all my scenery cabinets and miniature drawers, plus my entire Moppe collection.

So, on the wanted/hunt list:

- 1 L shaped desk (180*180 preferably, secondhand as usual)
- Floor cover for wood flooring, big one (new one, unless I can find a local one second hand)

- Sleeping sofa that does not weigh a ton, or a normal sofa (again, not weighing a ton) and a fold up single bed on wheels 

Edit: was just picking up the kids and dad offered up his desk as he wanted to replace it anyway. Yes, he's really still using a ancient 15 inch screen.

 

Cutting a giant hole in your roof, and loads of other expensive things

Today was the day our new dormer was installed. I went around all of our neighbours, dropping a letter off with the date, time, and my phone and email to contact me if they had any questions.

So, by the time the dormer arrived plus the crew to remove most of my roof......there was a car standing smack bang where the crane should be ......

FFS....

I know all of my neighbours in my street, and this car wasn't from any of them. Did a round anyway, maybe they had guests, but no. Rang the rental agency that was listed on the licence plate. Nope, car was sold off a few years ago. Called the non emergency police hotline and they would send a car over. That they did, and the owner was contacted (she lives a block over but could not find a parking spot on that block), she removed the car and 15 minutes later the crane arrived. For a few minutes I felt like I was at work again, calling people to get stuff sorted. Dead on my feet now though.

Meanwhile, our roof underwent a make over and weight loss program. Funny to realize your roof is nothing more than a few tiles, a few bits of wood and some nails.

And then the dormer went on.....

 So, with the dormer installed we went from this:

To this:

We are right up to the legal limits for the dormer (without having to apply for a permit) and it actually turned out a bit bigger than I had imagined, due to our roof having a  unusual angle compared to normal, so we gained more space that way as well.

Lots more to do,the crew that will do (most of) that will be here at Jan 2nd and they should have it done in a week. Then we paint the lot. Then put in flooring....and then the big move upstairs.

Can't wait for it all to be finished nd get back to a normal routine. Sort of.

Sarissa Black Friday Sale. I bought stuff.

I bit the bullet and bought the 20mm factory and the extension pack at Sarissa's Black Friday Sale.

25 euros for the factory, and I added the Industtrial Factory Bundle 1 (Discounted from 67 to 59 euros) after realising the 20% off coupon worked on it, and I ended up charging my card for 63.50 Pounds including shipping, and this gives me a entire factory complex that I can use as a ISIS Tank repair shop (looking at Contact Front rules for that), a deserted factory near Chernobyl for Stalker (looking at Zone Alfa rules for that) or for a Cantonnage for TW2K. And probably a ton of other ideas, keep it basic, seperate details to be set aside. Also gives me a reason the long stretch of tinned sheet fence I made but have yet not painted.

Yes, Black Friday is a bit dirty......but it did save me some real money (no fake deals) and I used the day (and weekend) to sell a ton of model kits so I bought some proper shoes as well ((not)cheap trainers be gone, proper walking shoes in the house now as I'm walking more these days ....even though it hurts more) and the rest is going in the petty cash drawer. God knows I'll need it before the attic is finished.....

Ikea Norden; my new, next, best gaming table? Also: seriously stressed out!

So.....11 days till they chainsaw a large opening in our roof to install the 5 metre wide dormer, and the rest should be done by the end of February at the latest (then  we can paint, lay a floor (well, other people, I can get down to the floor but I'm not coming back up again), dad has volunteered time and tools for that) and I'm hemmoraging money like water. But the accident settlement will pay for that, and now I'm looking forward to the future again. I'd rather have a painfree and depression free future, but hey, beggers can't be choosers.

I've been selling off a lot of my kit collection....as much as I like all those aircraft, where will I put them when they are finished? Yes, my floorspace will increase, but my actual wallspace will be a lot less. My deskspace in front of the window will increase to 3 metres, more if I get a L shaped table for both ends, less if I get smaller ones and plant a a double stack of Alex cabinets in between, which makes all of my stock of resin, plastic etc easily available. Or get a slightly bigger desk and put 2 stacks of  Alex beside the workstation as that really helps out with the space.

Well, what I do know, is that I will not be buying anything till the attic is done, my current stuff has been brought upstairs, and I can see what fits that I actually have. All the stock and storage stuff can be put aside for the time being, at least then I know what has to go as well (and can fund new room thingies....ehm, furniture.

Sorry, bit stressed. So much money, so dependant on others to get things done and if there is anything I loathe is to depend on others as I feel I am losing control. But that is not just a Aspie thing, Kim is going slightly bananas as well atm with all of the planning work.

I also built stuff, and I am trying to rest my hands as much as possible.....but that is for another post.

Sarissa Precision Airstream trailers, also a mini-review

My Sarissa Precision Crisis purchases arrived today (together with my Zinge order, which was nice)

I picked up 2x Airstream Trailer (28mm) for my TNT Trailer park, 1x Russian Dacha (20mm) and Russian Timber townhouse (20mm) to go with my Russian collection for WW2/Modern (of which, to date.....nothing is built?)

I had planned to take a rest with my hands as ye olde hands are giving me all sorts of trouble, but when this lot arrived today I really want to stick to my guns......MDF gets built, Resin gets washed and based (and nothing for plastic as I've been selling a ton of that, not buying any new).

 It's a kit with 1 sheet of MDF and 1 sheet of greyboard/cardboard, and 2 pages of instructions, which are pretty clear, even if the cut card  at the ends of the trailer is different than what is shown on the instructions....but the end result is the same :)

Building an MDF kit isn't hard, take your time and dryfit after cleaning the parts, then glue and do it 1 step at a time. I'm using my knock off Mod Podge for it, for the drying time mostly and ease of use.

Rubber bands are your friend in this case, it makes sure you get a nice bond on all the curves. And this has a lot of curves.

 Even with my hands as they are, I made this in a bout 3 hours (so you people with functioning hands shoudl have it done in 60 minutes or so) as it's not a ton of parts you have to put together.

I did make 2 changes, the gastanks as supplied are a bit too basic for me, but that is why I picked up the Zinge small gastanks as it just looks better. And a Zinge breezeblock to support it as the cruciform stick that comes with it is a bit bare. I'm also looking at replacing the ventilation thingamajig on top with something else. Oh, the door doesn't come with a doorknob, but from the picture on the website I can guess they used the round punch outs from the trailer frame as a knob. Works fine, so I will do that too.

To ensure a long life, both of these will be based, and put in my Post Apoc collection. Not sure when I have these finished.  

All in all, a nice little kit for the 9 Euros it costs (when writing this), and for that, you get a nice caravan you can use as is, with other caravans, as an objective or as a LOS blocker, and equally at home on a Cold War, Zombie War or Post Apoc table.

Reccomened!

50 cent challenge: "Please hold"

Todays episode is brought to you by free stuff from the Goodwill. When asking what these 2 cost I was waved off and told I could have them for free. So....0 cents this time.

They are from a Burago playset I believe, as I had this as a child, with roads, and curbs, signs etc. They might be a tad large, but the shape is fine and and the plastic is decent-ish, pretty solid even, with a minor bit of flex.

So, with a Warlord 60mm base, some skellies, lots of dirt, paint, paper, some 28mm scaled books I picked up for Frostgrave, a old Chaos decal and a GW Imperial Guard telephone later, we have these 2.....

 And these go right into the Post Apoc collection.....

Rusty old hog

Finished the first of the GW 40K bike wrecks, only took like....forever. Wheels will get recycled some way, they live in my bits box now. No papers or anything, thought it was good enough and I want to clear the table. Goes straight into my Inq28, Necromunda and Post Apocalyptic pile.

Oh, and 2 aluminium canisters, like the ones I keep hoarding in Fallout 4. From TT Combat I believe. To be put inside scenery at a later date.

Gaslands Biker

Picked up 2 sets of the new Gaslands sprues at Crisis, and this is the first biker built and painted. Nothing earthshattering, small conversion with a Matchbox PaK40 gunshield and a old plastic Vickers from the Matchbox SAS set, and a blanket roll from the same set. And 3 other small bits on the exhaust and the gunsight. Decals are from the Revell 1/144 A-10 Warthog.