Modernization – Page 2 – Modern Anachronist

Free D Printer.

I was gifted a 3D printer by a buddy who upgraded his. This weekend I finally got around to trying it out.

Robo E3 printer. Free to ~~not so~~ good home. *Please ignore the luffa drying behind the printer.

The Power of Iterative Engineering

Or, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

I’m an over planner. There’s no arguing it.

My very first boss drilled into my head “We never have time to do it right, but we always have time to do it again.”

Back in the analog days, your light was controlled either at the lamp or at the switch. If you were going on vacation, you might plug it into a clock work timer so no one noticed the house was unoccupied. As we move to home automation, you have a lot of flexibility in how to control things. Do you want to control at the wall, the lamp or the bulb?

More smarts for an old house

Or adding physical controls to a virtual system

One of the pain points on our smart home journey has been allowing visitors and children without i-devices to control the lights. So far I’ve installed two different solutions, and one of them actually works. The one that doesn’t work is due to the construction of my home, the device itself seems fine.

Better still, the one that works is easier to install and cheaper to purchase.

It is Finished

Finally, six months behind schedule, my living room wall is finished.

A Modern Tent

As much as we love the ger, it’s too cumbersome for shorter trips or space constrained sites. I decided we needed a modern family tent, because the wee ones are too wee for separate tents.

Living room update (part 2)

Project creep (and my parts still aren’t in the country)

I’m sitting with the wife one evening talking about the wall. She mentions that a friend had a deep red accent wall and it looked great.

The entertainment center is going on the only wall in the room that works as an accent wall, now I have to paint it. Of course, the other walls in the room are a pale yellow and they will look terrible with red, so I have to paint the entire room.

Happy New Year. Happy New Network.

Lots of curse words and money thrown about unexpectedly.

It seems that my wireless router had reached its effective end of life, or at least the end of my fault tolerance.

Whenever my wife and I watched television, the router would go for about five – ten minutes and then require a reboot. This didn’t happen to the kids. It may be because our shows are high def, and theirs are cartoons. It is about six years old and doesn’t support all the latest protocols, so I decided to upgrade.

What makes a smart home?

I’m not even sure.

I’ve got some lights that turn in when my alarm sounds in the morning. I’ve got some lights that turn on when the sun sets, and others that turn on when it rises. My thermostat knows to adjust the set point when no one is home, and my front door unlocks when I pull into the driveway.

Does that meant my home is smart? I’m not so sure

Living Room Update (part 1)

A place for the grownups

The new house has both a family room and a living room, where the old house only had one, so I’ve been one entertainment system short since we moved. Also, my wife and I like to watch some things that a bit too adult for the wee ones, so it will be nice to be able to watch an episode of Vikings while they are playing on the Switch in another room

When I bought the seating last Christmas (we got volunteered to host and had ZERO furniture in the room) I decided that I was going to decorate this room.

I don’t believe there is a single room in the house that doesn’t have hand me down (or road side found) furniture. I want a room that looks designed & planned.

This is going to be a room for the grownups.

Tag: Modernization