Saturday, August 11, 2007

shelves!

Finally, I got some shelves up in my work area. Again, like my curtain rod, this took a lot of emotional preparation to drill into my wall. I purchased this set of shelving from Bed Bath and Beyond(BBB). I dealt with a Paul(Asian man) at the BBB between 18th and 19th street. He screwed my order up a little, but he did everything he could to fix it. You may be saying that that's what he should do, and you'd be right. But, you'd be surprised how many times I've come into contact with incompetent people when it comes to doing what they should do. Anyway, these shelves required me drilling eight holes into my concrete wall. So, as soon as I prepared myself to permanently damage my walls, I drilled away. In the end this shelving system is quite easy to install. It requires one secured steel plate that gets drilled into the wall and the rest all hangs off of that anchored piece. And, the great thing about this system through BBB is that they will cut the shelves in almost anyway you'd want them too. Well, any simple straight cut. No fancy designs and what not. If you look closely to my shelves, you'll see that there is a part of the wall that sticks out. I actually took the proper measurements and had the store cut the shelves to fit around this piece of the wall for a built-in feel. And, I was actually pleasantly surprised at how well it came out. And, as you can see, I've made part of the shelving my desk to hold my laptop, art supplies, and even my scanner. And, my personal DVD player that doubles as my tiny TV for when I don't need my larger TV on. Hells yeah, I hooked cable up to that bad boy!! Anyway, I got the idea of the integration from this design company ip20. I got the idea from their Japanese site. Of course, I could not afford their actual pieces(which are way too cool!), so I just used them for inspiration. So, if you can afford the actual shelves, good for you. But, if you can't and need built in shelving, I would recommend Bed Bath and Beyond. Just make sure you have all of your exact measurements that you need. If you can draw out what you want, even better. Happy shelving! I'm presently working on a kitchen set as well.

Friday, August 10, 2007

Sears.com SUCKS!!

I started this summer with my old 5000BTU air conditioner that I brought over from my old place. It was fine for my small room in my old place. But, now I'm in a studio and its larger than my old room. So, I attempted to order a new ac unit. I did my research and even joined ConsumerReport online. I decided on Kenmore because I've always liked the brand. Because I'm in NYC and do not have easy access to a vehicle I decided to order online. So, I called up Sears.com to place an order. I felt good. I was excited about my order. I waited about a week and the unit was on its way. I even took a day off to wait for the delivery. The door bell clinked as it does and there it was......... a mess. The picture you see with this post is of the box my ac unit came in. The box looked as if it had been rolled down a hill. Parts of the box were ripped and the foam inside would be showing through. Even part of the ac unit itself. And, the box appeared to have been opened and resealed again with plastic straps. Of course, I returned this package thinking that it was mistreated in transit. And, I reordered the same ac unit. I got worked up again and took another day to wait for my delivery. I opened the door and there it was. Another mess of a package. The UPS delivery person told me that this was how they receive the package. Of course, that's what he says. But, honestly, I don't see how UPS could do so much damage to a box. So, I assumed that it was on Sears side. On top of horrible damaged goods the persons on the phone at Sears were incompetent as well. Not all, but I did have troubles with returning my order due to missing bar codes and Sears employees claiming to reissue a call tag and really not. Which meant I waited to be notified about a pick up and had to call Sears again to find out what was happening. It was just a big mess and it took more than a month to deal with this whole situation. And, at the end, I was back to where I started. I don't know about other items, but I would not order ac unites from Sears.com. It's just an awful shopping experience. So, my little ac unit is still working hard to keep the place bearable. I've decided to go with GE and deal with a local appliance store where I've purchased other items before. So, its supposed to arrive in a few days. We'll see how that goes. Hopefully, I'll have a new AC...... by the end of summer.