The Great living room shuffle.

[From the archive of things-I-didn't-get-round-to-posting-at-the-time]

Since i moved in nearly 4 years ago I've been moving the lounge around bit by bit trying to find the best use of space and as yet I've not really found anything which is satisfying. Its get better each time, but never really been "perfect"

The latest arrangement I did about 5 months ago and it almost exactly the opposite of what it was when i move in (at least for the TV/Sofa anyway) and works pretty well. But still isn't what I envisage or exactly right, but i guess its the best i'll get.

The TV unit got moved from the right-hand wall to the back wall of the house, but the window faces directly into the sun, so wasn't ideal.

The sofa sectioned off the bar/bookcases from the main lounge and really didn't help when there were more than a few people round. (shown mid move, it was normally further away from the back bookcases)

The dining table was against the wall, which was fine until it was used. You ended up eating facing a wall, with the only light source in the room behind you, eating in the shadows. Plus the chairs and table got in the way of the cupboard door.

One day, move ALL the things! The TV unit came apart as it was too big to fit where the table was without obstructing the door a lot so it was reduced in size (too much as it turns out, but i'll post about that another time)

The TV ended up where the Table was, the table went by the bar and bookcases and made a kind of dining area, and the sofa went on the opposite wall to the TV. The downside of this is that the TV is a long way from the sofa, and despite being 40" looks, dare I say, small. Pulling the sofa into the middle of the room means there's a lot of dead space behind it.

UPDATE:
Alas, since writing this and before it was fully sorted, (although much tidier and better laid out than this) It's come up that I'll likely have to move this year, so all of this is for nothing. Back to square one for somewhere new!

Slacking

With the year getting busier all my blog plans have started to lapse and updates are getting dropped in priority, even though it's just publishing them, I keep forgetting :(. I'll try and do a bit more next month and actually get back on track.

On the plus side, i've now had over 6,000 views. Maybe by the end of this year it'll be OVER NINE THOUSAND

For now, here's one I prepared earlier.

Berry Brew!

In the last couple of years of brewing I've done one batch which has involved pressing the fruit myself, which was also my first batch. It was really satisfying but due to the 2012 crop being quite poor on the whole I didn't get to do it. I also borrowed the press from some friends which was really useful, however this year they too had a good crop to work with so I couldn't get it as they were (understandably) using it.

So, after a lot of looking around and pondering, i bought my own. Of the three sizes, i bought the largest, most because the price difference and capacity were less than linear. the smallest of this design were 2/3 the price and 1/4 of the capacity, the next size up, barely £10 less and half the size. Didn't really seem like a sensible choice to get anything less than the largest.

Another investment was a pack of plain cotton pillow cases, cheap and they'll help keep much of the pulp from entering the juice. 

First up, the blackberries which the pillowcase prove invaluable for as there are SO many seeds and bits.

First press, starting gently.

The press made a pretty good cake of berry pulp, but it still felt fairly moist.

A quick blast in a pan broke them down a little and they gave up quite a bit more. In the end I got nearly half a gallon of juice from them alone.

Sure enough after another press, the result was much drier.

The abundance of juice meant almost 1/8th of the batch was blackberries and the rest apple, more than i'd expected, but in retrospect 1/4 or even 1/3 would have given a slightly better colour.

LAN In A Box - Part 6, Cables!

eBay is a funny thing, sometimes you get screwed over in what you receive, sometimes you get a lot more. I came back one day to find a package has arrived, about 4 feet long, no idea what it was, nothing i'd ordered was this kind of size and weight.

As it turned out, it was a pair of 3U rack rails i'd ordered from eBay the week before. Only they were slightly bigger, 30U in fact. So if anyone needs a couple of dozen U of rack rails, let me know! Here they are besides the Box they're supposed to fit inside...

After a little while with a hacksaw and file the rails were trimmed to a more reasonable 2U (I thought 3U would be too big, but gave enough extra to play around with). The left rail attaches to a pine uprights which screws to the base and the other to the side.

Here's a picture of the power and switch (which should probably have been in the previous post about power installation. The second 4-way was shortened substantially to neaten it all up.

The first runs of cable go in!

After what felt like an hour of threading cat5 cables, the first batch were tidied together with cable ties into a 4x4 bundle. It looks incredibly neat, but it's also an enormous pain to do in a small space.

Next comes patching and testing and more threading of cables. So many cables...