Lonely planet

Wiped the board clean again today (the whiteboard that is), and relisted all of my current running projects, and BFG is on top atm. 6 Planets and 2 ships need to be painted. For the ships I have settled on the bone hull and red/gold prow for now. As my paint was all still stored in a big bin I started by sorting all of that, putting them in my new paint rack and labelling all of the (vallejo) colours accordingly. Works like a charm.

First things on the painting table are a planet and a moon, I went for a grey dusty moon with 2 drybrushes , and for a yellow/orange planet with several layers of drybrushing. Nothing fancy.

Moon left, planet right

Simple cheap o wallfiller smeared over the cut in half foam balls, then sanded down again. The moon had craters made with greenstuff, just a ball here and there and then smooth out the edges, then use the back end of a file to make a hole in the middle. Painted right over the filler, no primer coat (just in case it had not sealed everywhere, using a spray can on styrofoam can have Alien acid kind of effects - which you can put to good use) and I just gave both a nice sealer coat of gloss polyurethane varnish, and a good matte coat tomorrownight after it has time to dry properly. Then on with the next 2 planets. And the other 2. When they are done I only have 1 styrofoam ball left to do something with, and 3 already painted balls that I want to get rid of the styrofoam structure so those will get repainted too. After that I will try and grab a few smaller balls somewhere for use as (more) moons like the one on the left. And get 2 of the >25cm half shells and do something fancy with those. That should be enough for starters, and warrants a daytrip to the big city for the art supplies and hobby shop.

Then to post this weeks Paypal balance, which is now 60 euros. Not much more then last week, well, because I bought the 3 mats from Urbanmatz. Had chat with them after asking them on the FB page when the pre order would go up for their new concrete mat. If I was interested in one of their test mats? If I could give my honest opinion about it? After reviewing the pictures he sent me, taking into account that cameras can do odd things with colours, the overall picture was good. No more dragon skull and bone, and the rows of bones from the centre have been replaced with more concrete and a mossy/grassy patch. The tinge is very blueish though, unlike the khaki grey of the previous mat. See for yourself.

See the bleuish tinge to the mat?

Turns out, while his team says they are fine, he's not quite happy with it, and it may or may not get released. He valued my opinion and my order and offered me the best looking of the test mats (the one in the pictures) so I could have the mat now and not have to wait till June for a mat that might not get released. I agreed to that because the bleuish tinge is not putting me off and I like how they reworked the mat. So I put in a 195 euro order of hard earned hobby money. I was asked to give my opinion of the mat when it arrived, directly back to him. As I have no problems with that (I will Blog about the mats when they arrive) I agreed to that. Out comes the final surprise, do I also game in 4x4? Yes, I do (well, plan to anyway). If I was interested in a free 4x4 concrete testmat, free of charge? Ehm, is the Pope Catholic? Yes, I do. So that is added to my order for nada. Look out for a full review on all 4 mats in some weeks time.

unreleased 4x4 Concrete test mat - no Dragon bits in the right corner, but still the bones in the middle square - not for sale/general release. Also, notice the colour of the mat, this is like the original release

To really end the Blog for today i found myself with one minor issue......where am I going to put them? Crap, hadn't thought of that. My first thought was above the doorway:

Plenty of space, but would block either the boxes on top of the cabinets on thr right or the boxes in the cupboard on the left. Putting it just in the middle will look odd.....

 But then it hit me, the original whiteboard is 120 cm/s wide. The mats are rolls of 4 feet. Just add a plank with plenty of support and something to stop them rolling off by themselves and you are set.

Yes....that should do the trick.

Trading places - first cabinet completed!

Finally!

Been going over the paperwork for the past 2 days, planning and replanning where stuff will need to go. Since I know what I have tools and paint wise, I know this cabinet will suffice for now.

So, from top to bottom:

1. Tutorial mags and print outs, how-to books.
2. Spare paper towels, glue, punches and pippetes for transferring paint for the airbrush.
3. My entire paint collection.
4. Tools, wire, scultpint tools, hot glue gun, sandpaper, Oyumaru clay and moulds.
5. Tea shelf - cooker, tea and mugs.
6. Basing sand, gels and texture pastes plus disposable gloves for spraying.
7. Spraycans, wood glue and a Pringles can 1/5th filled with granite chips.

This will not stay this way. I will actually take stuff out, and I've stored other stuff that I hardly use in the attic. The plan is to take what materials that we have and place 2 rails in the space between the cabinet and the window, and lay planks to fill that space. Very shallow ones at the bottem so I can fit 2 Ikea Moppe side by side, to give me space to store my tools in a more sorted fashion and free up space in the cabinet. Going up the planks can be deeper, maybe 1 or 2 shelves for my helmet/cap collection. Anything in between is free space. Cost would be in the F-rails if Kim decides that the ones we have are needed elsewhere, but they are not very expensive, 2 of them should set me back less then 15 euros. About the same in hooks. Planks I can get multiplex and varnish that, say for another 30. I've budgetted this at 75 euros for just the rails and planks just in case, and is something I plan on doing in June. This gives me 2 months to look for second hand items (or to sell even more so I can afford this).

Yup, I can see this working.

Final note of the day, I took a small trip to Eindhoven today to pick up 2 Ikea Franklin barstools. Lady had them up for sale, the pair for 12,50 euros, but mentioned that they no longer folded hence the low price, and that they are 3 years old. I found that a bit odd so brought a can of WD-40 just in case, but I needn't have worried. The Franklin has a built in safety feature that locks the seat in place, but a quick tap underneath unlocks it. So much to her amazement I showed how it was done, gave them a quick checking up and paid her the money. After a quick clean up at home I noticed the foot rest on both of them is missing a screw, but that is a standard M4 metal screw so I will pick up those tomorrow. So 2 virtually brand new barstools (really, hardly a scratch on them), 70 euros if I would have had to buy them new, for 12,50 cash, 3 euros worth of fuel, 1 euro for the parking meter and the box of steel screws will set me back another 2 euros, just to have something to rest our feet and backs in the corner during a game......we tried sitting in the regular chairs, but with the board 95cm up you end up looking a bit like this:

Best thing is, when not in use, I can store them in the hallway cabinet my wife uses for clothes and cleaning supplies, so they take up no room in the hobby room.

Next time we will give them a try out. If 2 turns out to be too much, I can always sell 1 or keep it around for whenever we have birthdays and not enough chairs (like every single time.....).

Miniature sun x 2

Well, something brightend up my day (not that it has changed my foul mood much)

Wasn't expecting 2 boxes the size of my lower arm though! The picture they used for the lamp was a stock photo of a normal 20W lightbulb, and this lamp is considerably bigger!

Much bigger then a can of fizzy drink!. It is a good thing I kept my fittings for it up high....

Old light on the right (60 watts), new light on the left (275 watts)

It is currently slightly overcast but with enough sunlight to make me squint when I look outside. When I rolled down the shutters and closed the door (which completely darkens the room) and hit the switch it really is just like a very sunny day. So much light even, that when I rolled the shutters back up and turned off the lights, it actually darkend :D

After a quick check there are still some shadows on the table but nowhere near as pronounced as before, so taking shots of games in progress will not come out looking dodgy due to the lights, and I have the option to lower them for a bit to get closer to the table if I need to.

And in other news, my request for a shrink has been turned down, but upgraded to a request for more specialist care and help with my application for a company that specializes in finding fitting jobs for autistic persons like myself, to prevent me falling inot the same trap over and over (work for a year, unemployed for 5-9 months, work for a year etc).

And the catch of the week is that I actually spent money to buy stuff this week. I bought 2 big lots, 1 of 6 boxes of mostly OOP GW plastic scenery, new in the box (1/3rd of that has already been sold off, briging my total expense for 2 boxes of GW trees, 1 box of Arcane Ruins and 1 box of Battlescape (the ruined Rhino with some craters) down to 50 euros, which, frankly, is a bargain. The other lot is 4 BFG fleets in one go (Imperial, Chaos, custom built Ork fleet and custom built Dark Eldar fleet with lots of ordonance and escorts plus a box full of planets and asteroids to fill out my own collection. I'll sort out what I need for myself and put the rest back up for trade with friends or forum members as we are trying to get a BFG thing going again locally.

And that is it. After today there will be no buying or swapping for a month (all of May), just selling. Goal is to collect 100 euros in Paypal sales to fund the 4x4 Cobblestone and the 4x4 Concrete mat. Bonus would be selling another 100 to fund either a additional third 6x4 Spacemat or upgrade the 2 4x4 mats to 6x4 mats. If I would be able to sell another 100 it would be 6x4 mats all round. Miniatureswise my wants list is now very, very small, I just want to get cracking with painting miniatures and building more scenery in the evenings.

So, some good news, some bright news, and some bad news that turned into good news. If all goes well I could be painting again next week....so, wish me luck!

Brick wall

With the completion of my room I've settled in a day to day routine of grabbing a box from the attic, sorting it, listing stuff, storing stuff and putting the empty box back into the attic. However, I have run into 2 problems.

1. I've only just started and already 3 cabinets are brimming with stuff. I will have to be much more stringent and get rid of a lot more stuff, if I want to have enough room for the future. More stuff sold is better as those funds are going straight into my new mat fund. Sofar, I'm focussing on selling books and magazines. 5 euros here, 10 euros there, but it all adds up.

2. My mood has turned sour, with more dark thoughts then the average Chaos Marine has. As much as I keep telling myself things will work out and I just need to keep going at it, dark thoughts keep drifting through my mind and I can't seem to purge them. Even worse, now that I have clarity about my knee it has gotten really bad and I've lost my temper a couple of times this week and gotten rather abusive (verbally) with Kim. I won't stand for this so I will be making a appointment with my doctor tomorrow to explain the problem and get a referral to see a shrink. And have some good talks, provided my insurance covers it. Or the insurance of the guy that ran me over.

Is it all bad? No, of course not, I've been going at it every day and I have cleared another 3 boxes today. I just need to put up some markers telling me what cabinet will be for what items, and mark the drawers accordingly so I can see what goes where. But I'm sticking to the "take 1 box down, and don't get a new box until you have finished this one completely" mantra

I'm also picking up a large box of Games Workshop scenery, new in the box. I spent some money on it but nowhere near it's real current value, so I will keep a few bits that I don't have yet and sell off the rest to break even or even a small profit. I should also stop visiting Oldhammer. That place will be the death of me (and my wallet).

Dammit, all I want to do is grab my tools and get building again and relax, but every box I grabbed sofar conatined everything but my tools.....it is almost a consipracy!

Hope to have better news later this week :)

In the beginning....

Right, just a quick update, it is actually rather busy atm.

Hobbydesk cleared and ready to get back to work. Details like storage boxes for tools and what not will have to come later when I get a bit more into it.

A 2nd whiteboard, now on the door, to keep track of my trades, purchases, hobby plans and notes during games.

Spliced the powercable for the lights and spaced them a metre apart so they will cast no shadows on the table when the new 200w daylightbulbs arrive (Only 40w standard bulbs in them now) and be colour real for the photographs

I'm now in the progress of getting everything out of the cupboards again, one at a time, and checking all the boxes, removing the ones that should not be here or have a different content or are empty, and relabelling the ones that remain (if not correctly labelled already). Also all of the boxes with paint and tools will be relocated to the paint cabinet, to keep that under one roof so to speak.

I'm on easy mode right now, so doing it slow for the rest of the week. Friday evening, Erik is coming over to move one wall of cabinets by 10-15 cm's so we have space to put the table in when not used (I had kinda forgotten about that part). Next week, I can start attacking my Nemesis.

This is my Nemesis.

Storage boxes go back 4 rows deep

Loose stuff just tossed in there during the move

That is half the attic stuffed to the gills with hobby stuff, stuff from my old house and everything I could not let go of yet. Starting next week I will tackle that one box at a time, sorting, dumping, keeping and selling the contents. There are at least 50 storage boxes and then a lot of loose smaller boxes and stuff.

Also, in other news, I just got back from the Orthopedic doctor. The RMI showed that I have sustained damage to the cartilage of my left knee, which is permament. He reccomends physiotherapy to manage the pain. Not the kind of news I had been hoping for :( Back in 3 months for another check up and a meeting with my insurance company as I can't afford to pay for that much physiotherapy, so the bill will have to be footed by the insurance company of the guy that ran over me. Much discussion to ensue about that one I think.

I'm taking a few days off for R&R, do stuff outside the house. Or something.

Happy as a clam

(which is a very weird expression when you think about it. How do you know a clam is happy?)

Anyway, over a year ago, my wife commented that a) the mutual Hobbyroom looked a bit like Beirut and b) the girls are growing fast and they might need a bigger room soon. We laughed, we discussed, we yelled, but eventually agreed that the new (smaller) hobbyroom would be all mine and she would be happy as a clam with a Netflix subscription. I made plans, drawings, measured everything....and then nothing happend. 2 kids, the house and work is a tad much combined to swap around 2 rooms in any hurry unless you want top drag it outfor a long time.

So, after my accident, when my boss told me my contract would not be renewed (bastard), we decided to make the best of it and get as much done as possible in the first few months before I find a job again (more IF I find a job again, tbh).  1 Month ago to this day, I hit the ground limping and have not stopped since. I completely cleared out my storage locker (4 x 7 metres of it), gave away loads of stuff to charity, also dumped tons of gaming stuff in the garbage containers and boxed up everything else that I thought had any value or I wanted to keep in the first 2 weeks alone. In the next week, I completely cleared out our hobby room and put all of it, with the stuff from the storage locker, in the attic. The attic now has more lead shielding then a Soviet sub. One week ago, our kids went on a week long vacation to my parents and we went full steam ahead to completely redo the old hobby room (painting, wallpapering, sprucing up the 2nd hand furniture we got for them) and at the same time, start the hobbyroom in the newer small room.

In the plans I had drawn up a year ago, the new hobbyroom was 12m2 which meant I would lose one Ikea Billy cabinet from the 4.5 I owned and would only have room for a 4x4 non permanent gaming table. I had planned to build a mobile storage unit/gaming table. I had budgetted the entire move at 500 euros including all the new stuff I had to purchase.

Well, things went a bit different :)

My budget shrank to 300 after a unexpected medical bill. The cabinets I had chosen are no longer produced by Ikea. in retrospect, this was a good thing. My focus had been on miniature storage in drawers. Lot's fof drawers. While clearning them all out for the move I found out only 1/3rd actually contained painted or WIP miniatures, the rest was filled with kits, plasticcard and scenery. When cleared, I found I had enough drawer space left to keep me going for another 10 years at my current rate. With that in mind, I switched over to space for scenery. I like a well stocked table. No 40K pool tables for me. In the first 2 days I placed all of the Billy's, drawers and work stations.

Then we filled up the rest of the room with stuff from the kids....we could not get into bed otherwise. 2 Days later the kids room was fully painted and wallpapered and ready for furnishing, so we cleared the hobby room of kiddie stuff and went to Ikea to pick up what we had not been able to buy second hand. I picked up the 2 cheapest kitchen cabinets that they had, and after a trip to the DIY picked up all the wood needed for the mobile storage/gaming table and a 4x4 table. The wheels might be freebies from my previous employer, but they were brandnew and rated at 100 kilos for the 4. I bolted them to the base with extra metal plates to prevent any sliding around the MDF boards and nailed the Ikea kitchen cabinets to the base. A 80x80 MDF top on that, also nailed down, and Bob was my uncle (odd expression might I add)

 And with that, it was sunday, the kids came back home and they ran right into their old room, puzzled looks on their faces at what had happend (somehow, neither of us had told them we would be changing the rooms, we had both assumed the other had told them....oops). After some nudging they went to their new room and they loved every inch of it (Thank God!). That evening, I rolled the storage unit to the middle of the room (takes hardly any effort even if it does weigh over 70 kilos) and put the two 2x4 boards on top.

Just need to add trim to the edges and 2 clasps where the halves meet to clamp them together. A job well done....or so I thought! Then my buddy Chris says, why don't you fit in a 6x4 while you are at it? Well, because it does not fit, the room is too small....or is it? What I had failed to realise is that I had planned to make the mobile storage unit around 90-100 cm's so as not to aggrivate my back problems. Normal 75cm tables make my back hurt, unless I sit down in a chair in front of it. Like the old man that I am, or something. I had missed that it would be able to pass over my desk with ease, freeing up another 50 cm's of room. Some quick math and a ruler showed it would be possible to place a 6x4 table after all. Cue a late sunday evening, doing the math on the amount of free space, if the unit can handle the additional weight, how to support the 3 boards, where to store the supports and most importantly, to stay within budget. And redo the math 2 times over to see if I have not missed anything. Endconclusion; it is possible.

So, after dropping the kids off at daycare, I went back to the DIY for more wood (we are on first name basis now) and built two laddersupports, 150x40 cm's (which granted, will make a carpenter cringe the way I finished them, but they work and are built earthquake proof), put them on the moveable storage unit and put the boards on top of that.

 Best thing is that even with my average Western European man figure (obese) I can fit between the boards, the cabinets and the door and have space left over. And to squeeze every inch out of my storage space, this is why I kept the supports in 2 pieces.

 Now they store on top of the cabinets, in the 5cm niche between the top of the cabinet and the ceiling.

So, after 6 days of hard work I have, besides a fresh start:
2 workstations
4 3/4 of cabinet space
A 4x4 or a 4x6 gaming table

All in 12m2

Enough miniature space for the rest of my life.

Billy Cabinet space for paints, tools and scenery

2 workspaces - 1 with PC and 1 without, so I can spend more time on the hobby instead of aimlessly surfing fora for like every evening till 1 in the morning.....

My main whiteboard - free, cause someone had dropped it on a corner a long time ago....I don't mind. I want to get a 60x80 one to go on the door, to make notes while we are gaming.

More Billy's, for rules, unpainted miniatures and kits

The mobile cabinet/gaming table holder. More space for scenery, it holds 10 Pappis boxes (slightly larger then A4 sized paperboxes) that I have started using for scenery builds (my scenery may not exceed in size the dimensions of such a box, for easy storage)

There is a free wall left of my hobby desk, and above the gaming table. Eventually, either some art or my helmet collection can go there, but for now, I've spent 280 euros of my budget for this build, and I have to buy a new lock for the door tomorrow (the wife insists I keep the door locked lest the little ones start rummaging in here) so that will be maxed out. After that I can start sorting out all of the boxes we put in the attic and start bringing them down for sorting into keep, sell, or trash/give away for free. Something that will keep me busy for some time to come.

I am Gunbird, and I'm as happy as a clam for the forseeable future. Hobby wise, anyway.

Man Cave - Extended

Plans were made over a year ago (if anyone remembers that) but after 5 days of hard work getting the girls new room ready (my new room wasn't actually the main goal of this excercise, more room for the girls was), I can finally say, it is done. Ish.

All the storage space is there, 2 fully functional desks, and the gaming/storage unit is up and running.

With the 4x4 gaming table in place it looks like this (just bare boards for now):

Plan is to add thin and slghlty raised wood trim on the sides and use latches to keep them together. Nothing out of the ordinary there.

Then Chris says to me, why don't you fit in a 6x4 table. I say that that won't fit, then look at the above picture again and start to wonder (snowball effect starts here). I had done the match 1 year ago and even with the most space possible it just could not fit. What I had failed to take into account however, is the fact that my working desks are at 75 cm's height, and the gaming table is at 97 cm's. I had somehow missed to see that the 2 can overlap. This instantly adds a potential half a metre to the space for a possible 4x6 table, leaving a full 60-80 cm's on the doorside, plenty of room top open it and get in. The space on the sides is sufficient, my 2 chairs slide underneath the table so they don't waste space either. But just slapping a third board down won't do, it needs support. But I have to keep the costs down. And it has to fit in the available space that I have.

I like a challenge!

Currently, the base cube is at 65 kilos. A 2x4 18mm MDF panel weighs about 7 kilos, so add 20 kilos to that, makes 85. The weight limit for the 4 wheels combined is rated at 100 kilos (but I know they can take more then that), so ideally I have to design a subframe that weight less then 15 kilos, is no thicker then 4 cm's, and storable. Also, I have to keep the costs down to a minumum to stay under the 300 euro budget for the entire project. I'm currently at 225 for the table and the first 2 boards, including trim, fixings and paint. I can store the rack 2 ways, on top of the cabinets, or sideways. But both options mean they can't be very deep, 50cm max. For ease of storage and extra back up support I decided it should be in 2 lenth pieces. Ladder shaped. And as thick a wood as I can afford, still fit under 4cm and have enough strength. 38mm x 89mm pine, 330 cm's is currently on sale, 3 pcs for 19 euros. 2 beams will provide me 4x 150 cm pieces, the 4rd beam and the remaining left overs will net me 16 "steps" for the ladder, each 22cm wide, for 2 strong 40x150 ladders. The length overhang for the 4x6 board will be 15cm on each end, the width overhang 20 cm, which will be more then adequate.

So, 20 for the frame, 6 euro for the extra trim, 9 euros for another 18mm 122x61 MDF sheet plus 15 for screws and latches. Cutting to size is done for free. So say 50 euros for a full frame plus another board, on top of the 225 I already spent still keeps things in budget.

I've redone the match twice now, and I will do it again tomorrowmorning to see if I have not missed anything.

Trading places, Part 2

Everything is in position!

Everything is proofed for my fathers approval on sunday (so clean, no hobby stuff showing etc) and next week I can clear out the cabinets again as everything is just thrown inthere to get it out of the way - no system what so ever. And I have to remove the flying turtle and put it up in the kids room of course. And I see I left the Woezen and Pip sunscreen there too :D Ok, small things to do on saturday then, but the basics are finished!

Hurah!

Kim said she is proud of me having accomplished so much in such a short period even with my handicap and my bad knee and back, she is overwhelmed. <happy dance>

Trading places, part 1

Captains log, something or other. Day 2.

Behind me I can hear my in laws painting the new girls room, and I can take a break after 2 days of hard work getting things in place, with more then a little bit of help from Modhail. After I dropped the kids off at daycare on tuesday, I raced home to get started and move most of the kids stuff into our bedroom as well as get the first bits of kit into the new hobbyroom.

From this:

To this:

Went quick enough. i managed to avoid having to dissasemble the cabinets so saved a lot of time. I then ran into the tiny problem of not having enough boxes to get all the remaining scatter sorted.

We decided to call it a day, I installed my PC and found out that......the WiFi was so bad that I managed to get a 1kb/s connection. Nothing loaded, connection time out errors all the time. After moving the PC a bit and fiddling with the antennas I got as much as 40kb/s but that is useless for me (and anyone these days), so a quick spending of some coupons paid for the order of a range extender, and that was it for Monday.

Tuesday came and Modhail helped me shift the really big, bulky and heavy stuff into the new hobbyroom. Everything in the new hobbyroom is now in place. Sadly for me, so if all of our kids stuff so my hobbyroom is now filled to the gills with stuff andf it will be impossible for me to sort anything out for the next 2 days while Kim paints.

So we put plastic wrap on the floor, wrapped Kim in plastic:

And off she went. Poor thing, she painted the first metre or so, then remembered she should lightly sand the wood first so stopped to do that, then rememberd she would have to clean it all with a damp rag, so I helped her out a bit. Around dinner time she had managed to do all of the woodwork and edges in the first coat of white.

After dinner her folks passed by to help out (they are still here actually, not finished yet) and 2 walls are now becoming white in a rapid fashion.

At the moment I'm boxed in sitting here (I know how a sardine feels now):

Booster arrived, though delivered 10 doors down the street cause the delivery man had problems with reading, he thought he had to drop it off at 64 and as they did not open the door dropped it off at 63 instead, who happens to be a good friend of ours. I only saw this because the online update said it had been delivered at 63. If I had used another company I would have never known. :/ Anyway, the damn thing works, after some trial and error, I can get 10-15Mb/s now which is more then enough for Youtube and blogging. Damn thing works so well I now have reception in the parking lot behind our house!

Other mailmen arrived today that did find my house. 10 Macragge Marines arrived, to be used as paint testers, 2 old Citadel Chaos Hounds, my Brigade Miniatures order (later more) and a surprise present from Tobias from Germany. Besides being a post apoc gamer, he is also a very gifted sculptor and a fellow Asperger. He sent me a care package to help cope with all of the stress lately, something I highly appreciate :)

The next 2 days will be more painting, wallpapering and getting the furniture back into the room, as well as some fixings, lights and assembly of a additional cabinet for clothes (you know, girls....) but at a more relaxed pace then these last 2 days. Can't force paint to dry, can I?

Moving, mats and Ikea - one hell of a combo

If you think I have been a bit quiet, you are right. Been spending most of this week babysitting the kids and getting stuff done like clearning out the hobby room. Almost everything is packed up, ready for the move. Erik (Modhail) is coming over tomorrow to get more stuff into the attic and to clear out the cabinets and I want to be basically done by friday evening. No gamesnight Friday as I ran afoul of Kim by not sharing enough information about the roomswap and repaint, and she got quite cross with me. I'm lucky to be able to go to Impact on Sunday, but I have quite a few trades to do there so it is a bit essential.

In my view the kids leave on tuesday evening, I have wednesday to either repaint the walls from purple and turqouise back to white, or wallpaper them, extending into thursday. While things are drying I'll dissasemble the kids stuff and move it into our bedroom, then move my hobby stuff into the old girlsroom as it needs no wallpapering or painting of any kind (the ripped wallpaper is hidden behind cabinets). So, done by friday at the latest so we have 2 days to ourselves.

Kims view is a bit different. I need to dissasemble all of my cabinets and the kids stuff and haul them into the attic so the room is clean, then paint on wednesday and thursday, wallpaper on friday. She is even thinking of putting in new carpet. My room can wait, the girls room has top priority and if it isn't finished by saturday I just have to put all of my needs on hold for at least 2 weeks untill they have another sleepover at my parents place.

2 wildly differing views.

Compromise sofar is that I disassemble some bits from my hobby room, move it all into the middle of the room and cover it with plastic or I disassemble the kids stuff during wednesday and move in my stuff into the kids room asap. Kim's mother and her friend have volunteered to help with painting on wednesday evening only so the hobby room has to be sorted (just the furniture) by then. I must get most of the clearing of the room done by fridaynight, so she can spend one of three evenings (sat-sun-mon) clearning her desk, her pc and her small cabinet. We will buy enough paint for 1 coat on 2 walls and enough wallpaper for 1 wall tomorrow when she gets back from therapy. Both are on sale this week so at least we are saving a buck there. While the stuff is drying I can start getting boxes down again and put them in their place in the new hobbyroom.

On the bright side, my knee isn't nearly as bad as it was before. Sure, bending still causes agony, sitting down for longer periods cramps it up, but I'm feeling progress here.

Another bright note is that I just got got a FB message from Urbanmatz. A while back I commented on their concrete mat. This one:

I'd like to buy one for my post apocalyptic and Necromunda table as I didn't see myself using a badlands mat anytime soon but I have 2 problems with it. Slighlty off centre is a big square that is lined with bones. Lot's of massively large bones. In the bottom right corner is a whopping Dragons skull. Yes, you can cover it with scenery, I know, but I don't need that kind of stuff on my Postapoc mat (which also doubles for a modern day decrepit factory yard and Rogue Trader citytable). So I gave them my honest feeedback and they replied within a day. They had more comments like mine and were reworking it, possible release date in April. April is around the corner, and they have since released the bloodless Cobblestone mat I am after but no news about the Concrete one. So i popped another message yesterday. And today the reply, with picture:

Well that looks pretty brilliant to me :) No bones. Mind, the mat I'm after is a 4x4, so trim off a bit from the sides (this is a 6x4). Release date May/June, pre orders a bit before that.

So I'm now looking at ordering 2 mats from them:

Concrete 4x4 and Cobblestone 4x4. Cobblestone looks like this:

 Meant for Frostgeave and Mordheim

That is 45 euros per mat for the 4x4s and 16 euros in shipping, for a grandtotal of  106 euros. This IS a lot of money for me, but I feel the added visual interest is worth it to me. Now, I'm currently selling off stuff to fund 2 projects, namely the mats and the mobile gaming table for the new room.
I've sold off my 2 Bommerz over da Sulphur River games for 65 euros this week, I have reservations for 70 euros worth of stuff at Impact. +Edit: add another reservation for 60 euros worth of GHQ stuff for Impact +. This brings my current sale total up to 195 euros. 106 euros of that go to the Mat fund, leaving 89 euros for the mobile gaming table.

I budgetted the mobile gaming table at around 500 euros, but let's do the math again. And run into a immediate problem. The cabinets I selected for the gaming table? They are out of production!

The variants with the many drawers has become 30 euros more expensive and no longer has a split lower drawer. A 80x37 piece with nothing but 8 drawers (like the cabinets that I have) now retail at 300 euros for the cheapest. Yikes!

After some searching the replacements (157 pages of it.....) I've looked at them with a different eye then I did last year. Last year I chose these:

324 euros worth of kitchen cabinets, just because I wanted additional space to put more models in the base of the gaming table. After having almost fully cleared the 3 chests of drawers I use now for that, I now know I have more then enough space do last me a decade of painting. What I do need is space for scenery. So, with that in mind I now chose these 2:

2 Much simpler kitchen cabinets, 1 with 2 sets of drawers for the rulers and tape measures, dice and markers plus 2 doors and planks, and 1 with just 2 doors and planks, all for larger scenery. So from 324 euros to 155 euros, that is a instant 169 euro saving!!

Wheels I got for free, might need 4 longer bolts though. Then a multiplex baseplate to bolt the wheels onto and put the cabinets on, a multiplex plate to bolt on top of the cabinets, 5x 15cm risers and another 80x80 multiplex board on top of that (4 on the corners and 1 in the middle, raised area so people can put their drinks underneath the table and not on top...personal pet peeve of mine), some white paint and some knobs for the doors, 2 multpilex 2x4 plates, 2 hinges and black paint for the foldable 4x4 to go on top of the 80x80 so I have a full skirmish table that the mats can lie on.

So, 155 for the cabinets, another 100 or less for the wood panels, screws and fittings etc maybe 25, paint either from the rejects bin at the DIY or when they have another 50% sale on certain paints so roughly 30 euros for white and black paint and a can of varnish and that oughta do it. Makes for 310 euros and I can get some off that if I shop around. Compared to the previous 500 euro budget, that is quite a saving!

It's way late again. Time for bed, better discuss all of this with Erik tomorrow.