The Bear in the Mirror, and Big-Ass TV: The Mountening

Kooky happenings at The Serpico house lately.

The township came and took away the leaves we piled at the curb. The street is frighteningly clean. I like it. Tax dollars at work!

In other news, Avy's aunt Renee assisted in the acquisition of a big-ass TV--a 46" LG flat-screen LCD.

I know... every male person reading this just said, "oooooOOOOooo!"

We got it for a discount. Yes, Avy is a smart shopper. And the TV? It's bad-ass. Xavier already digs it for Blue's Clues and other political discussion shows. He's into current events.

We had plans to mount the TV over the fireplace. Avy scored us a nice flat-screen mount, which included all the hardware for the job. We just needed a few special tools to make the whole thing happen. And courage. Because dropping an expensive TV scares me, as does the idea of making a lot of potentially large holes in the wall.

But, before we get to that whole thing... remember that mirror in our living room?

This one...
It's over there on the left, next to my mom. Big tacky mirror. Actually, the faded Greek key thing around the edge is tacky. The rest is just a really big mirror. Anyway, we decided we didn't want it immediately. We finally got around to taking it down this weekend. The plan? Get rid of the Greek key parts (they're actually smaller mirrors bordering the big one in the center) and put the big middle part in the basement, where it will act as a visual assistant for Avy's bellydance crew's routines. Well, we managed to get the mirror down there. That was no problem.

That mirror was definitely professionally installed. The hardware holding it up was not playing around at all. We made it bend to our will, though. But guess what was under the mirror?

There was wallpaper under there. Actually, two kinds of wallpaper.




What the hell? There's no wallpaper anywhere else in the house. Figures that the one place we find it would be hidden by a giant mirror. Awesome.

So there's that funky speckled stuff on the outside... and some really old textured, velvety stuff on the inside. It's all dusty. And it's UP there. I mean, it has no desire to come down. But Ms. Serpico's mighty wallpaper will bow to us. I swear it. It has to go before we paint.

The textured blue wallpaper is kind of neat, actually. Check it out close up...

There are flowers and things in the pattern.

Anyway, cool or not, it has to go. And, like I said, it really doesn't want to come down, but wet sponges and scrapers are persuasive implements.


The key is to get the wallpaper really good and wet, and let that water soak into the paper for a while before starting the scraping process. It's almost as much fun as scraping adhesive off of the floor, except your arm starts to hurt sooner. Have you noticed the amount of scraping we've been doing in this house? It seems to be a recurring theme. I really hope we don't have to scrape anything else. We were only able to do a smallish amount of work before we had to skip out for the evening, but we did return the next day.

We did not, however, continue scraping, as we had another task we wished to complete--the mounting of the big-ass TV. We didn't have a lot of time, so we wanted to just quickly knock the job out. We thought it would be simple.

Well, it really is a simple process. There are only four major bits to the kit: the TV, two clampy things and the bracket. The bracket goes on the wall, the clampy things go on the TV and then the clampy things are used to attach to the TV to the bracket, which is on the wall... and then your TV is on the wall. Basic. I mean, yeah there are screws and other things, too, but that's the basic jist.

Maybe. But you need to have some stuff, first. Like a stud finder (**make obligatory stud joke here**) so that the big lag bolts for the bracket can go into a solid part of the wall. And a drill bit of the proper dimensions to start those bolts on their journey into the stud. And a socket wrench of the proper size in order to make the bolts turn.

Yeah, we didn't have those things, so we had to go buy them.

The other thing you have to figure out when you're mounting a big-ass TV is how you plan to center the thing on the wall. See, we wanted to mount the TV above the fireplace, which is kind of a sweet idea, really. The problem is that there is one stud in the middle of the fireplace, which would be the ideal spot to mount the bracket. Except the bracket has to be mounted onto TWO studs, which means the damn TV would then be off to one side or the other... not centered over the fireplace. No. That's not what we want. We want what we want.

So what this means is that we have to choose the side we want to mount the bracket and then slide the TV back in the other direction in order to center it. BAH. It took some doing, but we made it happen... and it does look pretty damn sweet.


Sorry--the picture isn't the best. The TV isn't quite centered in this shot, and the wires are showing, but whatever. You can see that we have a big-ass TV over our fireplace. That was the goal. We did it. Yay!

Just to give you an idea of the scale of this thing--the fireplace is 72" wide. The TV is 46". That's a big-ass TV. We may have to start watching sports or something. Isn't the World Bowl Cup coming up soon?

A thought: there are people who charge upwards of $200 to come to your house with a stud finder, a little drill and a socket wrench, and they install your TV on a wall mount in about 20 minutes. Now, granted, we had to buy a stud finder (which we'll need in other projects) a drill bit (um, duh) and a cheap set of socket wrenches (again, we'll need those, too) , and it did take us more than 20 minutes. I think the tools cost us about $60. So we saved approximately $140 by figuring this out on our own. And, now that we've done it once, I know we can do it again, which is good, because we want to mount a TV in our bedroom, too. No sense having the thing sit on a dresser or something if it can be mounted, right?

The Goods.

So, you've got the back story, but let's face it... what you really want to see is the actual place, right?

Well, OK. Let's have a look. This is "The Serpico House" as you arrive at the driveway.




Pretty respectable and grown-up, right? Avy's pretty grown-up. Xavier's kind of respectable. I am neither of these things. Oh well, every neighborhood has one house that lowers the property values for everyone. I can't wait to litter that yard with car parts and an old refrigerator!

Kidding. I'm kidding. I will mow the lawn and trim the hedges like a good neighbor. Nobody will have any idea about the many depraved, low-class things happening behind closed doors at The Serpico House. Muahhahhahah... or something.

Let's walk in...




Yes, I see it. The corners of the steps need fixing. I'll get on it. I've already looked into the proper methods for repairing broken concrete steps, and I promise to get started as soon as possible. We haven't even signed the papers yet, OK? Sheesh.

Let's skip the front door (it's a door, ok?) and check out the living room.



As you can see, we used a wide-angle lens to capture as much of the room as possible, but I think you get the general idea here. The furniture may or may not be left behind when we take possession of the place. If it hangs around, we'll pick and choose, and then... hello, Craigslist. We are not too proud to make a few bucks online. Nope.

The carpets are as dismal and generally foul as they look, but we have reason to believe a nice hardwood lies beneath these gross, smelly things. And, yes, that's a real fireplace.... a gas fireplace with a remote control. Yep. I think that's gonna be pretty sweet once winter comes around, which, by the looks of things, is probably tomorrow. What happened to fall?


This is a view of the living room from a different angle. The fireplace would be behind you and to your left if you took this picture.. but you didn't take this picture, so stop taking credit for it. Oh yeah, those people in the picture? That'd be my dad (Bob) on the right and my mom (Shelly) on the left. That's the realtor in the middle, holding the toy truck. Just kidding. It's Xavier, the Smallest of Bears, leading the tour. He walked in there like he owned the joint from the very beginning. I think he knew something we didn't.

Right off the bat, I can tell you we are gonna try to sell that fugly mirror on the wall there. I'm pretty sure the owners aren't taking it. I will hope against hope that they will, but I doubt we will be so lucky.

Next, the dining room.



Pretty standard fare. More stinky carpet. I am, once again, hoping the furniture will be leaving, but, if it stays, I think Avy wants to keep the hutch thingy. Personally, I don't like those things, but she likes it, so... happy wife, happy life, right? I really hate the chandelier. I want that gone immediately... I'm thinking recessed lighting, or, if we can't do that, at least something that will sit closer to the ceiling. Call me odd if you want, but I don't like the idea of some big dangly wood and metal thing hanging from a chain over my head while I am eating. Oh yeah, you can't see it, but there's a bay window to the right. Pretty sweet.

Here comes a horror show. The kitchen.

Why, yes, that is, indeed, carpet. In the kitchen. What the hell? And... um.. yeah. A drop ceiling. And shiny wood paneling. And coral-colored counter tops. Don't ask me why the Serpicos wanted their kitchen to look like an office building crossed with a log cabin crossed with.. um.. something coral-colored, but it probably has something to do with sticking it to the man. Anyway... this is what we've got, so we're gonna see if we can make it work somehow. Avy says she will learn to tile. I say... YAY. Because I don't think I would be any good at tiling at all. And, yeah... you are seeing the washer and dryer at the end, there. On the plus side, everything in this room is absolutely immaculate, and we've been told that everything works perfectly. The Serpicos apparently took very good care of their things. I believe it. Aside from the rug being nasty, the place is immaculate.

There's a little half bath next to the kitchen...




Nothing earth-shattering... but there's frickin' carpet in there, too. Ugh. And I think we want to see about getting some different lighting, a different, non-medicine chest mirror and possibly a smaller sink. And ditching the carpet. So yeah, you know... not a lot of stuff to change here, right? Ugh.

But this is nice...



One thing Mrs. Serpico did correctly was build a nice patio and take care of her yard. She obviously loved the outdoors, and you really get the idea that she spent a lot of time out on this lovely little patio. The back yard is pretty large, and Xavier already loves it. He's only visited it twice, but he's checked out every corner already.

OK, we'll go upstairs tomorrow.