Ikea-Shaumburg, IL. 9 years ago. Yep, that’s where we bought the huge double-decker coffee table. One of our first purchases my husband and I made together. My husband loves that coffee table because it IS SO BIG! It is a butcher block-looking coffee table and I’ll admit I like it, too, because you didn’t have to be careful with it and it works out great in our media room (a bedroom with only a TV, DVD player, coffee table and a couch.)

It has been a bit abused during several moves, attempts to refinish it and being pushed around from vacuuming up the popcorn around it. It had become very wobbly, with loose dowels. We’d pound them back in and I’d often say, “I’m going to fix it.” Which I did once. I squirted clue in the crevices and clamped it together. I even put small caster wheels on it to help it get moved but all they did was put more pressure on the legs when I tried to push it.

Lately, it has held the laptop computer (plugged into a wall outlet because the battery no longer holds a charge) and the bottom shelf held lots and lots of huge books, maps, brochures of where we want to travel and where we have been. It’s heavy.

The night before last we had nothing to watch on TV, just junk, nothing worth nothing on all 250+ channels of crap on Direct TV. We hadn’t received our Netflix in the mail yet so we decided to take advantage of the free downloaded movies you get with Netflix (an hour for each dollar you spend per month.) We picked a classic Gary Cooper movie, set up the laptop. I fixed a huge bowl of popcorn, brought up our colas and positioned the laptop just right on the coffee table so we both could see the screen. I shut off the lights, the movie started.

We couldn’t hear it even with the volume turned all the way up. We needed a fan going because it was too hot and that was drowning out the sound. I got out the dual headphones that we use on airplanes to listen to DVDs. My headphones reached to the laptop but my husband’s didn’t. I moved the laptop closer to him and we both were leaning forward awkwardly. I grabbed the edge of the coffee table and pulled it closer.

It was like slow-motion. I’m talking a huge, 2-gallon bowl of popcorn sliding forward. Cans of coke sliding forward, laptop, books, magazines and all kinds of other stuff all sliding forward into our laps, our legs……..OOOOOHHHHH FUUUDDDDGGGGEEEE!!!! The whole coffee table collapsed.

We sat there, neither of us moving in the dark. I felt coke running down my leg. My lap was soaking wet. I didn’t say anything, I didn’t move. Neither did my husband. After about 30 seconds, I finally broke the silence with a groan as I tried to lift the table top off my foot. I turned on the light from the remote that had fallen on the floor in front of me but didn’t make eye contact with my husband. He picked up the laptop that was dangling off his foot. He pounded the legs back in with his fist as I turned the coke cans upright. He got up and his only words said, “I’m not interested in the movie anymore.” and left the room and grabbed a book to read in bed.

Yesterday was the day I decided to fix the coffee table for good. I took a hammer and pounded all the dowels out. I broke several of them. I cut myself while cutting new dowels. I used Gorilla Glue to make sure it would really stayed glued. I got it put together except the last bottom shelf and realized it has to be put on first before the last two legs could go on. The glue was already foaming up out of the holes and setting up. I couldn’t get it to fit back in because of the foaming glue. I had to drill out the gooey mess to add new glue. To make a long story just a bit shorter, I took 3-inch deck screws and screwed and screwed until the thing was solid as a rock. There are a few gaps where the dowels didn’t go all the way back in. There is dried dripped glue all over it from the holes and where my gluey hands had touched it, big dents where the clamps were, screw heads showing. I added 2-inch round-hooded casters meant to carry loads up to 100 pounds each. It looks like heck but it is solid and you can move it with one finger.

Unfortunately, it is such a mess it will probably have to be painted.

We went through the Firefighter’s Historical Museum Saturday and was really surprised how interesting it was. It is full of antique fire equipment, trucks and horse-drawn pump wagons, alarms, fireboxes, uniforms, photos, you name it! I took some video and pictures (they welcome cameras so bring it along.) You can pull and hear the different alarms go off and get demonstrations on how they worked. See pictures and some video of part #1 in my firehouse series by clicking the links at the bottom of this post. Kids and adults will really enjoy this museum!

Below are video clips demonstrating alarms and a slideshow of the inside of the museum.

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Where: The corner of West Fifth and Chestnut Streets, Erie, PA

This building replaced the original. Current building was built in 1903.

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Hours: Open May through August

• Saturdays 10:00 AM until 4:00 PM
• Sundays 1:00 PM until 4:00 PM
• Groups by appointment - call 814-864-2156

Fall Hours (September-October)

• Saturdays 1:00 PM until 4 PM
• Sundays 1:00 until 4 PM

Phone number 814-456-5969

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Click on one of the options below for a slideshow of Part #1 of the museum. (Part 2 will be posted sometime this week.)

1. Slideshow - 320 x 240 (dial-up) small-sized pictures
2. Slideshow - 800 x 600 (DSL-high speed connections) medium-sized pictures
3. Slideshow - 1024 x 768 (DSL-high speed connections) large-sized pictures
4. Slideshow - 3072 x 2304 (DSL-high speed connections) very large pictures. Choose this option only if you want to see extreme detail of a particular picture. The images are much larger than your monitor.

*Click below for video demonstrations.*
Here is a brief explanation of a following video. Note the brass wheel in the this picture (highlighted.)

It is made with protruding notches that corresponds with the alarm-box number. If the alarm was pulled, the wheel would turn. The notches would make contact with a gear and that gear would turn and make contact with an small metal arm that touched electrical contacts. That would send an electrical impulse through a wire to a fire station and that impulse would punch a series of holes in a “ticker-tape”-type machine. The brass wheel on this alarm box has 3 notches in a row with a space between, then a one notch, then a space, then 6 notches. This box was 316. If the alarm punched 3 holes in a series, a space, then 1 hole, then a space, then 6 holes in a series they knew the alarm came from box 316 and would respond with firefighters to the area where that box was located.

*Here is a video clip demonstrating this box working.*

Click To Play

The following clip demonstrates the battery back-up system on a vintage operator board if the power should go out.

Click To Play

Check back sometime this week for part #2.

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Going over my website I noticed a familiar name in the comments. I have her books! Jane Powell, the author of all those Bungalow books you see at the bookstore and she is also the author of the book about linoleum. It was a Christmas gift I got (after putting it on my list) for Christmas. I’m pretty excited she visited my blog. Her comment can be found on at this page.
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I just finished my new installation of Wordpress. It took me a long time as the uploaded photos didn’t import which broke all the links. Also I discovered the permalinks wasn’t set the same on the new installation which caused none of the pages to show up. Well, it’s fixed now, I’m hoping. I can now upload pictures but for some dumb reason only in Internet Explorer. My other blog which has the identical installation and version works in Firefox. Can’t figure it out, I’ll just have to use the browser that works.

We spent Friday through Sunday near Woodstock, IL. (We came for a friend’s birthday party in Crystal Lake, IL.) I love the town square where the movie Groundhog Day was filmed. Woodstock stood in as Punxsutawny, PA. The opera tower where Bill Murry’s character, Phil Conners, jumps off of is right on the square. There is a plaque where Phil Conners steps off of the curb into the water (over and over again in the movie.) The bed and breakfast Phil Conners stayed is for sale and is in the slideshow. Also, the piano teacher’s house where he takes his piano lessons. It is also for sale.

The slide show is large and shows many different styles and color schemes of mostly Victorian houses. I had a ball walking the few blocks we did. I ran out of digital space on my camera! Woodstock, IL is beautiful!

 

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