Seems unfair to blame Manuel for that.

Or...did I miss an Office Space reference?

I said 'no salt'

Manuel's Manual. That could work.

So far, I'm the only one that thinks this place stinks because of my own ineptitude. I'll bet everyone else is just being kind, though.

If I may, it might be time to call in Jackie Chiles:

Yeah that’s going to be a problem. It’s gonna be a problem for them.

"This a clear violation of your rights as a consumer. It’s an infringement on your constitutional rights. It’s outrageous, egregious, preposterous."

Step 5:

Pictures of Pina Coladas Paint

I'm taking a break from serious structural questions to do some easier projects.

Seeing all the pretty white pegboard (What up, Pegboard Nerds? I'm still jamming to your Queen sample of We Will Rock You!) all of the sudden my unpainted upper shelves in the car part of the garage started looking strangely out of place. You can’t see it in this picture, but half the upper shelves (on the left side) were painted white at some point prior to our purchase of the house. Now, this one area is the only un-white place in my garage. I could make a very un-PC joke about this, but I choose not to, even though my future political career is already totally derailed at this point.

These shelves are Compaq in an Apple world

There is actually some white over-spray on these unfinished shelves. You can see it in the “before” picture here. WTF, prior owners? I can’t quite figure out a situation where one random section would be unpainted. Maybe the painting crew just ran out of paint and said “F it!”? Perhaps that extra section was too expensive to finish? I'm going to imagine that they had a very expansive collection of Bradford Collection plates up there and didn't want to risk breaking them in order to move for the painters.

"No thanks Grandma. I'll just take cash for my birthday this year."

Would YOU want to be responsible for tenderly moving these?

Three days later...

Stark

Kind of feels like a 1950's psych ward.

Better times.

(By the way, type "1950's psych ward" into Google Images if your day isn't already disturbing enough.

Step 6:

Remove crap hanging on wall; patch; paint; enjoy.

Two weeks ago, this was the sitch:
Look at that square of unused space. What a waste.

(Wayne's World dissolve)

This blank wall is a metaphor for the isolation and disconnectedness of society in the modern age

About 10 years ago, a good friend of mine was in a production of Art, a play in which the main character buys a $200,000* painting that is essentially white. He keeps talking about how it has white stripes on a white canvas, but clearly it is just a white piece of junk. This wall reminds me of that.

Look, I make no judgement about art – but I tend to feel that anything that I (someone who struggles to sketch stick-figure drawings) can do, shouldn’t be legitimate art.

I give you Robert Rauschenberg’s White** Painting, 1951

The White Stripes' favorite painting

This is hanging at MoMA, so what do I know?

*Boom! I know what Odin can spend his money on now! https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/212000-to-spend-what-to-buy
**I kid you not, I accidentally typed “Shite” initially. Well done subconscious.

Wife's car is white. Mine is...BLACK; floors are gray. Whirlwind will provide all the color i need.

Bump for a real renovation thread.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/backyard-gameroom-in-the-desert

Crazy-like-a-fox stuff.

Thanks.

My basement is accessible through the garage, so stairs weren't going to be an issue. However, the (barely 30") door into the basement combined with the stair landing right on the other side of said door will always be a real bee-atch to navigate. My old EM barely made it and it is 26" wide. It wasn't happening with modern pins.

I spent a few years in West County and went to college across the river from you. What's your take on Imo's?

Barf on cardboard

PSA Inbound.

PSA Coming

I just received a great welcome gift to the Whirlwind club - a custom LED light mod for my topper courtesy of @rock914! What a guy. He wouldn't let me pay a dime for it or even contribute to the shipping. Chris, you have some good-ass karma heading your way.

I'll post pictures of the install when I get to it.

Chris has some cool stuff on his website for anyone that is looking for great custom mods:

http://www.rockcustompinball.com

I generally don't like people and expect nothing from mankind so when I see, let alone benefit from, unselfish kindness it restores my faith in humankind. I might have to do something nice today.

Step 7:

Fill joints and float floor.

Cracks in the floor

Yes, there is a chance that by filling the control joints, my floor might develop additional cracks. As I mapped out my tile placement, one joint in particular was going to meet right at the carpet tile seam. Moving everything over had me running into another joint. So, I’m playing with fire here, but frankly, I’d rather have some additional cracks under the carpet than have any of the associated issues with not doing so.

Also, I’m in California. Have I mentioned that? The floor is already as wavy as a Pringles potato chip. Actually, Pringles aren’t that wavy. Wavy Lay’s are wavy. Hence the clever branding. Is anyone here hungry?

Crack. Literally. (No, not literally)

Nom, nom, nom

To me, if I have some sort of sour cream-type dip, Lay’s get the nod here. If I’m eating chips sans dip, Pringles are pretty frickin’ sweet.

If you were on a desert island and could only have one type of chip, would you choose Lays or Pringles?

Poll? Poll.

[EDIT: Wait, what? I can't have two polls here? What is this nonsense Pinside?]

Blank post in order to continue edit rant from previous entry.

Step 8:

Carpet tiles, baby.

So…the cheap-ass tiles that I wanted to buy from Home Depot (this is the 1987 Ford Escort of renovations, remember) can’t be sold to people in California. When did I find this out, you ask?

Great question, imaginary voice in my head!

I found out that the five cases of carpet tiles that I wanted to buy were illegal after logging in to my Home Depot account (which lists my local store) putting everything into my online shopping cart, entering my credit card information, getting my credit card information stolen by Nigerian hackers* and then giving them my shipping address.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/TrafficMASTER-Hobnail-Gunmetal-Texture-18-in-x-18-in-Indoor-Outdoor-Carpet-Tile-16-Tiles-Case-CN14N4716PKS/202467020

Nope!

Home Depot did kindly offer to search local stores to see if anybody had some of these in stock, which was a kind gesture, except for the whole not-legal-here issue.

Want to buy some carpet tiles, friend? Psyche!

I did some research** and found that the fibers for this carpet are made from a mixture of nicotine, broken glass, battery acid, lead and asbestos. For $1.19/ sq. ft. I was willing, nay happy, to deal with some potential side effects from this mixture.

Sadly, I’d already bonded with these tiles in a way I haven’t bonded with anything since my unborn child was in utero. I loved the pattern, the color, the magical moisture-wicking properties, etc. We were going to spend years together playing pinball and fixing stuff. I NEEDED THIS CARPT.

So, I did the only thing I could think of – I “muled” them into the state.*** My AP Style Book tells me this isn’t a word, but it should be.

*Probably
**In my mind
***I did not. I found a reasonable facsimile that was Prop 48 (or whatever) approved from another online vendor and paid double what Home Depot would have charged me. Boo.

If my elected officials have anything to do with it, I will not die because of my carpet

I love you carpet

The arrows tell me which way each tile goes down, which helps create the cool pattern that will make my game room the envy of everyone no one.

Floaty floor

The lighting fails to capture the beauty of this

I’ve got to say, I found the process of laying carpet tile to be very therapeutic. I even (Pegboard) nerded out about covering the leveling shims that keep my shelving units from toppling over on my wavy, California floors.

I

have

problems

Because I always buy in bulk, I had extra carpet tape and foam mat tiles from a previous project. So...I decided to “laissez le bon temps rouler” as they say and add to my workload and make the raised section in front of my workbench feel some love.

The sea is foamy

The step is stripey

If I had a twitter bio, I'd totally use this.

I'm not even sure how this would work, but having a spare would either be totally awesome or make life more exasperating than it already is. When I WAS 17, I certainly couldn't have handled doubling my frustration.

Yeah it is!

Feelin' good my man!

I'll assume this is negative feedback about my project. That Fiesta manages to be even more pathetic than an '87 Escort.

Look at the Windex. This is clearly a man (assuming here) who takes care of his crap. I think Stevie Wonder said it best in "Living for the City" - Her clothes are old, but never are they dirty.

So good

Respect, brother.

OT (Non-renovation)

I was at the store over the weekend stocking up on essentials and was struck by this:

Accurate pricing:grocery shopping::Clear information:buying pinball machines online

As you can see, the price per oz is badly off on one of these. The 24 oz jar on the left has the correct per/unit price; the same-sized jar on the right is off by 100%. There's an analogy here to pinball, I'm just not sure what it is at the moment.

Drewscruis - you got me thinking. Can we get from this:

Crap

to this:

Kind of sweet

to THIS?

I would drive this TODAY

I'd say it is a solid and reliable thread. Excellent is stretching it.

And zip ties. Man, those are awesome and have replaced duct tape as my favorite thing ever.

It's like they aren't even trying at this point.

STEP 9:

Electrical.

My new pinball palace (which is definitely not a man cave because I totally could put these machines anywhere in the house that I want if that's what I decided but I'm choosing to put them in this space carved out from the back of my garage thankyouverymuch) lacks electrical in the zone, so I'm going to handle it Clark Griswold style, obvi:

Both the second best Christmas movie and the second best Vacation movie of all time

Done.

As long as you don't use too many grounding adapters, you are fine.

Optional third prong eliminator