Cordless Staplers

Posted on February 16, 2011 by

Since I recently admitted to being 3 {very large} degrees away from wearing festive vests, I feel I need to balance that kindergarden-teacher-eque confession with something much cooler.

Because apparently I’m also that girl who spends her lunch hour researching cordless staplers.

“Aren’t most staplers cordless? I have one sitting right here on my desk,” you say.

No! No not at all, my friend.

I was researching staplers like these -

paslode stapler

senco stapler makita stapler

All the fun of the pneumatic staplers but none of the hose & compressor hassle.

I think I need one. What for? Well to build stuff; obviously!

Yes, the hose & compressor are classic and reliable but 1) I don’t have anywhere to store a compressor OR hose 2) cordless is better.

I’ve already turned the pantry into a tool closet so, unless I decide to stop eating all together and start storing tools in the fridge, it needs to fit into the current storage situation.

Some argue you get more power from corded tools but I would argue that for the average DIYer, the ease and nimbleness that come with cordless options are a far worthier benefit. Especially when you have 3 flights of stairs to navigate.

Here’s what I’ve found -

The Makita‘s the lightest (5.1lbs) but only goes up to 7/8″ staples, which I don’t think is quite long enough for anything I’d be doing. 7/8″ isn’t much longer than what my regular craft/upholstery staple gun shoots. It comes in at about $180.

makita stapler

The Senco shoots up to 1.5″ staples but I can’t find how much it weighs. It shoots the more narrow 18 gauge staples (3/8″), like the Makita. 1.5″ is good. Not great but ok. Certainly better than 7/8″ and it’s only $180.

senco stapler

The Paslode is by far the most expensive ($399) but drives the longest staples (up to 2″) which might be helpful {I’m thinking of shooting through 3/4″ ply into something}. It’s not the lightest at 6.3lbs with the battery but that doesn’t seem unwieldy either. It does 16 gauge staples, so that’s about 1/2″ wide crown.

paslode stapler

{Here’s where you can picture me pretending to hold said staple gun and making “CHOKU-CHOKU-CHOKUUU” noises like a 5-year-old boy with a pretend machine gun. Perhaps I should have worked with kindergarteners afterall.}

I also looked for cordless staplers on DeWalt, Milwaukee, Bosch, Bostitch, Ridgid, Grip-Rite, Porter Cable, Hitachi, & Ryobi’s websites but none had anything similar. Did I miss any models? Cordless finish nailers seem to be much more popular but I tend to think staples would hold better because it catches more of the material with it’s U-shape.

Anyone use something like this? Is it as awesome & fun as I imagine it to be??

I welcome any & all reviews – of the stapler or my mad staple-gun-noise sounds.

Posted in Product/Service Review | 2 Comments

THAT Girl

Posted on February 14, 2011 by

Red Heart Necklace

Happy Valentines Day.

And yes, I’m THAT girl. You know, the one who wears green on St. Patty’s day {or orange if I just feel like being ornery} {even though I’m not really Irish}.

Red white & blue on 4th of July. Black & orange on Halloween. Red & green for the holiday party. And – of course – red for Valentines Day. With a heart.

And apparently I’m also the girl who posts pictures of her chest on the internet. So there’s that.

Posted in Non-house | 6 Comments

Living Room Light Inspiration

Posted on February 10, 2011 by

The ceiling may not be painted but I’m moving ahead with decorating the living room.

Foolish? Probably.

But let’s be honest - the thought of standing on a ladder with a 1″ foam brush, craning my neck upwards, dripping paint on my face, trying to get into all those nooks & crannies doesn’t sound like all that much fun. Soooooo…. maybe people just won’t look up.

Except… I may have found a reason for people to look up.

Let me back up.

The living room walls, baseboards & window/door moldings all got painted in a flurry of activity right before Christmas because everyone was coming over for Christmas dinner. I purchased a fugly-but-going-to-be-fabulous couch off craiglist for $50 {which has since broke and needs to be repaired}, slapped up a Christmas tree and called it a day.

Since then, I’ve slowly amassed pieces here & there that I want in the room. Besides the craigslist couch, there’s a gray rug from Gilt, brass pulls for the cabinet, a gold glass lamp from craigslist, new IKEA lampshade for my leg lamp, etc. Looking at everything together, I feel like things might be edging toward just a smidge too traditional and the current chandlier is really sealing that deal.  

old living room chandelier

Don’t get me wrong, in any other home or with any other decor I would think this just chandelier fine. Not really my taste but not offensively ugly or tacky. In fact, when we bought the place, it was probably one the nicest finishes in the entire house. It’s just not my thing and isn’t working for how I want the living room to be. {It is for sale, if anyone’s interested. Make me an offer.}

So what did I have in mind for the living room? Glad you asked!

Something more like this -

lindsey adelman chandelier

A little more modern, industrial, totally DIYable, weird {it’s ok, you can say it’s weird}.

Lindsey Adelman, a very well known lighting designer who designed this awesome Bubble Chandelier, has DIY instructions on her website in a section called “You Make It” for the above creation.

Total confession? I didn’t know who Lindsey Adelman was. I first saw a light like this over at The Brick House. Morgan tried her hand at Ms. Adelman’s instructions and came up with a little something like this -

morgan's dining room 2
{The Brick House}

Which is awesome. So then I clicked through and found Lindsey’s glorious website. Here are a few more pics of similar chandelier -

le beouf chandelier
{from le bouf}

lindsey adelman chandelier 2
{from}

And all the parts are available online, mostly from Grand Brass, for totally reasonable prices. Oh the possibilities! The configurations! The customizing!

I may or may not have asked my parents to dig the old K’NEX set out of storage so I can make some prototypes.

knex

And by “may or may not have“, I mean “I totally did.“

Posted in living room | 7 Comments

Nothing a little caulk can’t fix.

Posted on February 8, 2011 by

I have started on The Office closet.

The room isn’t cleared out and there’s still a giant hole in the ceiling to patch. But it’s all part of the great Office Redo of 2011, so why not just jump in with a nice easy project?

Theoretically, it’s going to just get a quick & dirty once over – remove the old hardware, throw a little caulk in the cracks, slap another coat of white paint on and call it a day. The room is literally 3’w x 2.5’d x 8’h and will mostly house a 5-drawer filing cabinet. A simple wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am, done-is-better-than-perfect kinda job should do just fine.

Removing the old hardware ended up being more of an aerobic workout than anticipated. Which shouldn’t have been surprising with layers upon layers of paint covering the screws.

But “throwing a little caulk in the cracks”?????

Ha. HA!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!

Bwah! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

DAP ALEX paintable caulk

Yup. 6 tubes of caulk, honey. SIX. In a room that might be 7.5 sqft if it stood on its tippy-toes and stretched its neck up real high.

6! TUBES.

This is why I buy caulk by the contractor pack.

Posted in office | 2 Comments

Grace

Posted on February 7, 2011 by

Growing up, we were a strict “No Candles” household.

No candles in the kitchen. No candles in the living room. And certainly no candles in our bedrooms.

For some reason, my parents didn’t think the idea of us burning the place down was much fun.

As a teenager, I hated it – I was soooooo responsible. I, like, totally wouldn’t burn candles unattended, like, ever.

Mom didn’t buy it. {Smart woman.} Eventually I stopped asking and moved on to way cooler things like playing with circular saws and trash picking. {Yes, I was the epitome of cool.”}

This year, I turned 28 and was shocked at what I unwrapped from my parents.

philosophy grace candle

A candle. For me to burn. In my house.

I may have turned 18 a decade ago but apparently I just became an adult.

My dad – who isn’t familiar with philosophy at all {I don’t have ANY of their stuff} – picked it out because my middle name is Grace and he liked what it said.

grace

philosophy: how you climb up the mountain is just as important as how you get down the mountain. and, so it is with life, which for many of us becomes one big gigantic test followed by one big gigantic lesson. in the end, it all comes down to one word. grace. it’s how you accept winning and losing, good luck and bad luck, the darkness and the light.

Here’s to accepting the darkness & the light, however it may come, in 2011.

Posted in Non-house | 4 Comments

Hard Candy Shell

Posted on February 2, 2011 by

The entire city pretty much looks like this -

candy coating

Everything has a thick, slippery, beautiful hard candy shell of ice.

It’s very pretty on the railings and trees. Not so much on my sidewalk.

This winter has been crazy with the snow & ice. I typically hate the cold. It gets in me and hurts. {Probably because I don’t wear a hat or gloves.} I like being warm & cozy. Perhaps that’s why I find the heated mattress pad and double layer of down comforters so difficult to pry myself away from. But at the same time {and when layered properly}, I find the still and quiet of a snow-covered city cozy too.

There’s a warmth to snow storms; enveloping the city in fluffy piles of precipitation. Waking up to tree branches glistening; like everything has been dipped in glass. The light reflecting off icicles. Things literally frozen in time. Ignoring the obvious tracheary inherent in such conditions, it’s quite nice. Beautiful even.

Posted in general, out front | 4 Comments

114 Items to Giveaway

Posted on February 1, 2011 by

It’s February 1st and that means January 2011 is officially over.

Back at the beginning of the month, Kim inspired me to give away 111 items. I think the challenge was to just get rid of 111 things in 1/11 but I didn’t count things that went in the trash {LOTS!} Getting rid of trash is easy for me. If something isn’t useful anymore or broken or simply gross, out it goes no tears shed.

Getting rid of perfectly good items. . . not so easy. “What if I’ll wish I had this one day in the future?” “But this could come in really handy if…” “I used to use this all the time.” ”I remember…”

My challenge was to giveaway 111 useful items that I am no longer using. And it is a challenge for me.

I worry that I’ll regret not saving X, Y, or Z. Or I get caught up in the sentimentality attached to different items. The memories come flooding back - who gave it to us or how I found it, where it was stored or used in previous homes, the good times associated with whatever it is. As you look down the list, you’ll probably notice none of these things are inherently special. Honestly, they’re mostly just crap but there’s still a story or memory I could tell you about each & every one.

But I did it. 114 items I no longer need OR want to store -

  • 8 wooden shelves to the entertainment unit I sold on craigslist
  • 2 boxes of 4×6 photo paper
  • 6 baseball caps
  • 2 pairs of bowling shoes
  • 2 baseball cap organizers
  • Bunch of travel stuff from hotels
  • Travel alarm clock
  • 4 rubber duckies
  • Set of duckie non-slip tub stick things
  • Rutgers license plate holder
  • 2 sets of 6 window candles
  • Sun mirror
  • Asian-style soy sauce bowl
  • 2 champagne flutes
  • Room air purifier
  • Storage ottoman thing
  • Heavy iron bar sign
  • Indo board (which I’m shipping to my brother)
  • 4 matted photos
  • Wicker basket
  • 8 brand new, never used square glass plates
  • 2 dog beds
  • Large glass jar/vase
  • 8×10 canvas
  • CD organizer
  • Yo Gabba-Gabba hat
  • A hard hat
  • Clear glass vase
  • Small animal cage water bottle
  • Large Michigan beer mug
  • 4 square framed mirrors
  • Random greeting/birthday cards
  • 2 packages of water guns
  • 2 women’s shirts
  • Pair of sweatpants
  • Photo collage frame
  • 8 glass mugs
  • A three section server
  • Blue-green glass bowl/planter
  • Spiderman bowl
  • 2 blue flower lamps
  • 2 plastic rolling cabinets/file things
  • Outlet adapters
  • Earring travel organizer
  • 16 pairs of earrings
  • 3 bracelets
  • 3 necklaces
  • Belt
  • 2 pairs of black pumps

TOTAL: 114 items

None of it is being used anymore. It’s just junk sitting in boxes taking up space. Perhaps one day I’ll “wish I had. . . ” but – IF that day comes {and that’s a big IF} – I’ll find a new one, when I need it.

For now, I hope all these former possessions can find new homes to be loved and used to create new memories. If you see anything here that you want, just email me {brickcitylove at gmail dot com} and I’ll send you a pic. It’s all free.

I feel lighter.

Posted in general | 3 Comments