Nojs Alarm Clock

I've been looking for a new alarm clock for over a year, after my Oregon Scientific unit inexplicably stopped working. But it's surprising how few modern alarm clocks are out there. One that I really like is the Anything Clock by Michael Sodeau, but while at Ikea Houston earlier this month I found the Nojs. This clock must be new, because I've browsed through their clocks before and nothing really caught my eye. I mean, I like the Slabang and the Kvarta, but they're just not quite perfect for me.

But the Nojs looked great in the store, and for $12.99 it was a steal. A white clock is what I wanted, and luckily enough the Nojs is only available in white. Perfect.

Dining Room Completion

This phase of the dining room project is where it all starts to take shape. A renovation always looks ugly before it looks better, but along the way you get the glimmer of things to come. That's what keeps me motivated to push on.

With the walls stripped bare, I hoped to prime and paint in a day or two. What I didn't count on was how my mudding and taping needed extra days to sand, reapply, and repeat. But if you don't take your time do a good job at this, the walls will look bad. Along the way I invested in a great tool: the drywall sander vacuum attachment. Purchased at Amazon.com for about $25, this tool hooks up to your shop-vac and significantly reduces the dust in the air as you sand the joint compound. I'd say as much as 90% of the dust is removed.

Of course, when I first turned on the shop-vac and began sanding the dust just blew out of the vacuum exhaust into the room. Grrr. So I wedge the shop-vac in the window to blow the dust outside.

Once complete with the sanding, I primed the walls white:

A day or two later, I applied the paint:

With the walls painted, I replaced the old black baseboard with fresh white:

Here is the room nearly complete, it just needs paint on the window:

And shown here is the finished room:

With the room looking so nice, I could not imagine bringing my old furniture back. So I started hunting for the right table and chairs. What I really wanted was the Ikea Docksta tulip-style table. But sadly there is no Ikea in KS and this table is not available online. So I looked at many alternatives from West Elm, CB2, Chiasso, etc. Nothing really caught my eye though.

Then, a few weeks later, I came across an amazing find on the craigslist! Someone listed a Docksta! Are you kidding me? The price was right, so I contacted the seller and soon picked it up. A nice couple in Kansas City (originally from Los Angeles) was selling most of their possessions and moving to Mexico. Here's how it looks:

I bought four Arne Jacobsen Series 7 reproductions for cheap from a company in San Rafael:

I've seen lots of chairs paired with the Docksta table, but I think these look the best. And here is the finished product: