2025-01-11
The original H.M. XV Post dates back to 2023-06-26. That was the point where the outer walls stopped being the backs of bookcases and became blackout curtains. That's also when I began to acquire baker's racks. There were updates in November and December of 2023. November's post started with, "The curtaining of the Owner's Suite is complete." That turns out not to be the case¹. For the record, I have:
Four 78x84 inch white curtain panels.
Four 54x84 inch white curtain panels.
Four 40x84 inch white curtain panels (2 off-white or light grey).
Two 40x76 inch burgundy curtain panels.
Two 40x68 inch black curtain panels.
Five sets of curtain rods of various widths
Lots of worthless curtain rod hardware².
The interior of the Owner's Suite has been the subject of a number of posts. The entire south wall is now occupied by five baker's racks, with a sixth and seventh backed by the curtain wall³. There had been a gap in the wall necessitated by ventilation ducting that hung lower than the ceiling joists. That section is now "walled" in by the two burgundy curtain panels. There is also a storage rack, the refrigerator, a five-shelf bookcase, and a room-divider bookcase. The outside of the "wall" uses all four 78x84 inch panels and three of the 54x84 inch panels and both burgundy panels. If you were counting, the wall accounts for just nine of sixteen panels. The rest turned out to be superfluous to needs and were folded neatly and stored.
Compare the photo above to the next one.
The furniture still needs to be lightened and repositioned. There will be updates.
2025-01-13 [update]
As pointed out above, the old curtain wall was slanted at the foot of the stairs. The new wall has a right angle. There is probably an off-the-shelf way to accomplish that, but I was dealing with Amazon, not At Home or Marshalls. I bought a package of 1-inch plastic pipe tees.
I used two of the tees. The first one was screwed directly to the wall at the base of the stairs where the Owner's Suite Wall ended. That tee was oriented with the two arms vertical and the stem of the tee pointed away from the wall. The curtain rod was inserted into the tee as shown above and then a screw was driven through the tee into the rod to anchor it. The next part was... complicated. First, all the hooks² were installed in the ceiling joists.
The hooks had to be in place because the corner required the curtains to be in place before the assembly could be hung. The rest of the first rod was screwed into the second tee (the actual corner), then two separate curtains were installed onto that unit and the perpendicular rod inserted. Then that rod could be placed on the hooks and that rod could be screwed to the tee to keep it from shifting around.
Once all the curtains and rods were hung, the old hardware was removed. They might all become plant hangers.
The furniture has been moved. Cleaning⁴ is still in progress.
Down and to the right from the Christmas stocking is pinned a pad to identify the opening to the Owner's Suite (from this side, the opening to the basement. All this moving of the curtain walls added roughly fifty square feet to the suite.
2025-01-19 [update]
Once the furniture was in place, I had to deal with improved lighting. Before I added new lights, the Suite contained only two fans and their associated lights.
Outside the Suite, lighting is mostly standard basement lighting. Dealing with that issue got its own post. Inside the Suite, lighting consisted of two ceiling fans with three "40 watt" bulbs. The LED lamps are actually 6.5 watts, 760 lumens. The first change to Suite Lighting was to change the six bulbs for 8.5 watt 1,000 lumen bulbs equivalent to 60 watt incandescent bulbs. The change was surprising. Next, I installed five LED under-the counter units around the periphery of the room. Four sets are
The lights are in essentially five zones, each defined by the remote control that turns it on or off.
The only important addition to this discussion is that the lights in the picture above needed to be swapped, so the very bright lights to the right of the fridge (mounted on a 6’x1″x2″ trim) would exchange places with the not-as-bright lights to the left of the fridge. The lights to the left are similar to the lights over the desk.
Anyway, I took down right-lights (the Enbrightens) and plugged them in where the Kibhous lights were. Then I unplugged and started unscrewing the mount for Kibhous lights. Those are the lights mounted on an 8’x1″x2″ board. When I unscrewed the first screw, the assembly dropped on my face, knocking my glasses askew and bending the frames a bit. That freaked me out. I suppose I should mention that I was on the second step of a two-step stepladder…
"Wrong," said Renner. "The tactful way," Rod said quietly, "the polite way to disagree with the Senator would be to say, 'That turns out not to be the case.' " Renner's face lit up. "Hey. I like that. Anyway, the Senator's wrong. The Moties think everything of their children. The only religion they ever told me about teaches that their souls divide to enter their children. They practically worship the little darlings." - The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
The hardware includes screws, anchors, and mounting brackets. The mounting brackets are intended to be screwed to a wall horizontally with the rod resting in the "palm" of the "hand" thus formed. Instead, a series of hooks are screwed into the ceiling joists.
Curtain Wall
Curtain wall (fortification): A curtain wall is a defensive wall between fortified towers or bastions of a castle, fortress, or town. – Wickipedia
Curtain wall (architecture): A curtain wall is an exterior covering of a building in which the outer walls are non-structural, instead serving to protect the interior of the building from the elements. Because the curtain wall façade carries no structural load beyond its own dead load weight, it can be made of lightweight materials. The wall transfers lateral wind loads upon it to the main building structure through connections at floors or columns of the building. – Wickipedia
Curtain Wall (me): A curtain wall is a bunch of blackout curtains suspended from the ceiling or naked rafters serving to provide privacy and heat retention to the enclosed space in my basement called (by me) The Owner’s Suite.
Cleaning - at least the cleaning required by the project - is complete as of 2025-01-14-18:00. Routine cleaning is still (as always) in progress, never to be completed as there will always be more dirty plates and cups and detritus to deal with.
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