The Best Made Plans

Plans to slowly and methodically update the office here at home went out the window with a phone call on Monday afternoon.  The table which was due for us to collect sometime next week had come into stock and was available to collect now.

This threw the slow and methodical plans out the window and it became a much more pressing situation to attend to.

The final outcome was not as I had anticipated.  Trish always has had a better eye for aesthetics than I have had.  I tend to focus on the practical and don't care what it looks like whereas Trish keeps the practical in mind but with a much better eye on how it would look when finished.

Just to compound the furniture change over issue, we have been experiencing hotter and more humid weather than is the norm every day this month.  The temperature has been above average by three or four degrees every day with a corresponding rise in humidity.  This has made dismantling and removing the old office table a bigger chore than we had first expected.

We completed dismantling and removing the old table on Tuesday morning.  It now sits in about 20 pieces in the sideway or on the front lawn. The new flat pack furniture has been constructed and is in place.  The stuff I store in and around the computer is still in boxes in the dining area. We have now become adept at putting flat pack furniture together and being able to decipher the instructions.

The finished office sure looks better.  I had hoped to have 'open' access to the telephone and power points but this has not happened.  The computer table has plastic slider feet and by leaving plenty of excess cord length with items connected to power boards etc, it is a breeze to slide the table out for extremely easy access to everything behind or underneath.

The shelving above the computer table requires some further fine tuning.  They are a little too high so I need a couple of more pieces to add underneath.  I will get them this morning and have that issue sorted by lunch time.

The wire hanging over the bookcase is the TV lead which will connect to a monitor to go on the table beside the bookcase.  But that will all happen over the next day or so.

I am having a day off bike riding today.  With the busy day yesterday in quite warm conditions, I reckon I deserve a spell.

Yet another quite warm day is expected today with the temperature to get into the low 30's again.

These temperatures by them selves are fine, the problem comes when you have to do stuff in small rooms or out in the sunshine.  But the pool is quite pleasant.

Hutch Has Gone

The office furniture they built 20 years ago was built to last.  It was sturdy, strong and very very heavy!

As you can see the hutch has now gone from the office table.  The office table was cleared of the printer, the laptop, the speakers, add on drives, PC monitor and phone.

A heap of junk as well as the keyboard and mouse were cleared as well.

We went to lift the hutch from the office table and quickly found it would be too heavy for us.  So we lowered it to the floor by slowly and carefully tipping it.  It finished up top down on the floor.

Like the flat pack office furniture we had bought recently, it was mainly kept together with these timber lock fasteners as in the picture here.  Out came the Phillip head screwdrivers and we undid the shelves, the side panels and the back.

Each section was then carried outside and down the side way where it will await stacking onto a trailer and off to the tip!

I am not looking forward to dismantling the table.  At almost 70 years of age I have decided this type of work is a bit difficult for both of us to do all on one day and in a rush.  We move slowly, doing a new stage each day.

The bookcase will go together tomorrow.

From the top photo, the fridge will come across to beside the window, the new table which is somewhat smaller than the current table both in width and depth will go along the side wall under where the map is.  The new 800cm wide bookcase will go beside the fridge.  The filing cabinet will roughly fit between where the current PC monitor is and the side wall (with the map).

According to my measurements this should leave the current wall phone and power points exposed and easy to get to.

My next step today is to Bunnings to purchase 2 x 4point power boards, each with an individual switches.  Bunnings have them at two sets for $20.  The individual switches give you great control over what you turn on and off.

I have become a bit of a stickler for turning my PC etc off at the wall overnight.

I enjoyed the sport on TV yesterday, the cricket was great to watch.  I did the usual 12.5k bike ride this morning and I was in the pool (27.4º water temp)by 8am.  By 9:30 am the hutch had gone and the PC was reconnected and back and running!

30º or so again today.  It was sweltering work doing the hutch this morning.  A change of clothes followed along with a long cool glass of water!

The Conversion Begins!

We are still married, though perhaps not quite as happily as before we put together this filing cabinet.

The instructions were OK but as with many of these flat packs, the wording and illustrations were ambiguous in places.

The instructions said two people and would take an hour to complete the construction.  It took us closer to two hours I guess but we didn't rush.

We are fairly happy with the outcome.

The other large package still to put together is a book case but that may wait a day or so before we tackle it!

Today we removed most of the stuff from the shelving from the hutch above where the PC sits.  Some of the stuff has been stored away in boxes and will come out again for the final office update when it will go on shelving still to be installed above where the PC will then go.

The remainder is either in the rubbish bin or stacked in the boot of the car ready as a donation to the Salvos or St Vinnies.

Tomorrow the top or 'hutch' will be removed and placed somewhere outside for a final pulling apart.  A local Bellvista organisation has a "Community Trailer" for free use.  I will grab it, load it up with the old office table along with some other rubbish we have been wanting to get rid of for some time and all will be taken to the tip.

All offers for the table I have made to neighbours and friends has been greeted with a polite 'No Thanks!"

I did my ride as per usual this morning and enjoyed a dip in the pool afterwards.  It was a little under 27º in the water.  Yesterday felt quite hot to us.  Neither of us were moving at full speed but we did have a great night at a local Chinese Restaurant with friends on Friday night. The few drinks went down well too.

Plenty of sport is on TV today so that will most likely finish the day off nicely!

End Of The Week

We are recovering from a record breaking day yesterday as far as the temperature was concerned.  We had our hottest day on record for March.  Figures have only been kept for a little over 20 years so it may not be that earth shattering.  But 36º in March is quite warm!  The pool received a couple of workouts as you can imagine.

A blustery windy change around 1am this morning signalled the end of the hot temperatures.

Trish is back safely from her two nights away with girl friends from Stitchers.  She didn't bring any left over wine back home with her but that wasn't a huge surprise.  They had a great time, just lounging about doing stuff and chatting away.

My internet dropped out again even with the new router and it took around 90 minutes to get it 'back' on Tuesday.  According to my supplier, the problem is either in my home or at the RIM (the local connection point).  Our RIM is most likely the only one which hasn't been upgraded here on this estate, all the others out here have.

I took some steps to have our home phone connections checked.  The guy I rang wasn't keen to come and do anything but he will come Monday if really required.  He asked me to disconnect everything from the line except my Internet Connection.  So there are no filters, no phones, just my internet plugged directly into the phone point. I was to leave it like this for a couple of days and that time is just about up now as I type.

I have also put the modem setting back to "Auto", a less stable setting.  I am just waiting for a call back from my internet supplier now to see if their records indicate any dropouts in the previous 48 hours.

I have collected two of the three pieces which make up the Office Furniture we have ordered.  The 'flat-pack' boxes are in the dining area (see photo above) awaiting screwdrivers and careful instruction reading.  When I ordered it on Tuesday I was told most pieces were near at hand, but they would just have to get the table in from another store and that may be up to two weeks away.

The other big news is that our Visa Applications to travel to Saudi Arabia have been sent off.  Saudi Arabia is one of the most difficult places to get a visa for.  You virtually have to be invited by someone who lives there before you can even apply.  We had to have our plane seats booked as well.  But all has been done, heaps of forms from Kate have been emailed through as well as originals of Kate's marriage certificate etc have been required!

We should get the completed visas back in a a couple of weeks.

And it was Trish's birthday on Thursday.  She has had her Samsung Tablet for a few weeks now so there wasn't a big present for her.  We tend to do things that way nowadays.

Monday!

We are supposed to be into Autumn right now but the temperatures here don't reflect that at all.  At one stage today was going to be 32 but that has been dropped back to 28 or so now.  Here it will be likely to get to 30.  A 32º is predicted later in the week.  The pool was a whisker below 28º for my post bike ride swim this morning.

I had my first bike ride for a week this morning.  The heavy head cold has knocked me about a little and I haven't felt up to it.  Yesterday I decided to bottle the latest brew so I did that.  I didn't feel like bike riding after doing that, I am just not quite 100% right at the moment.

I managed Computer Club on Saturday morning but left early because there was what turned out to be fantastic cricket match on TV.  And we have had plenty of pre season footy as well as the cricket on TV.

I gave the lawn a quick mow as well.

We have been considering what to do with this office.  The 3 piece office set goes off special this weekend so we need to decide.  We think we will go with it at this stage.  Most likely the bookcase will finish up in the bedroom and the el cheapo bookcase we have in there will be moved on.

I will put up some 'off wall' shelving above where the PC will be for things such as PC speakers, pens, scissors, glues, spare batteries etc. This means we only need to put up exactly what we need.  The shelving can be swapped around to any desirable setup as well.

We will need to order the three piece office package this week though.

Trish and a few of the ladies from Stitchers are off to a holiday place one of them owns on Lake Cootharaba around 50k's from here, just north of Noosa.  They will have a ball.  They get on well and will have lots of fun. The photo above gives you an idea of what a pretty place this is.

I have a BeCA Public Meeting to chair tonight.