A little over a year ago, we built a new computer to use as a home theater PC (HTPC) in our family room.  The PC runs Gentoo linux, with the MythTV front end  - we use it as a DVR.  We’ve made a couple of improvements since we initially built the computer to set it up with a wireless-N ethernet bridge for streaming content from a server and to set up an RF remote control so we don’t have to use the keyboard for navigation.

One way in which our MythTV setup wasn’t quite ideal yet, though, was that we still needed to open the TV cabinet to turn the HTPC on and off separately from the TV.  We’ve done some reading on how to set the system up to power up/shut down based on key presses from the RF remote control, but it’s a rather complex setup.  Tonight while we were walking through Sears, though, we saw this Craftsman Automatic Power Switch that is intended for use with power tools and we got the idea to give it a try with our MythTV system in the family room.

Automatic Power Switch

We have the TV plugged in to the outlet labeled “Power Tool” and the ethernet bridge & HTPC plugged into the two “Accessory” outlets. After updating the BIOS settings on the PC to have it boot on power, the computer now starts booting as soon as the TV turns on.  When we turn the TV off, we also cut power to the PC and the ethernet bridge to avoid any parasite draw from those devices.  I suppose it works similarly to a stereo receiver with plugs on the back for other components to turn on and off at the same time, but since we don’t have a receiver in the family room, the power switch does the trick.

We were a little concerned that using a device intended for power tools wouldn’t work correctly for a television because the TV might either not pull enough power when the it was on or the it might pull too much power when it was off.  Luckily, though, that turned out to not be the case.  The whole television set-up is a lot more user-friendly now that we don’t have to separately turn on and shut down the PC and we like the fact that it’s a lot greener solution than what we had before because it eliminates any power draw from the ethernet bridge and HTPC when they’re not in use.  For about $20, we think it was a good buy.

With the plaster work done, we started installing picture frame molding below the chair rail in the dining room yesterday.  We’re only about half way done, but I really like how it looks so far:

Picture Frame Molding in the Dining Room

We were initially a little uncertain of the scale and dimensions to use since our chair rail is uncommonly low.  Given the dimensions of the room, though, we finally decided it would be best to do a smaller number of long, skinny boxes rather than a bunch of square ones and we decided to use 1″ trim pieces.  The measurements we decided on were a 2″ gap between the bottom of the chair rail and the top of the picture frame molding, a 2″ gap from the top of the baseboard and the bottom of the picture frame molding, and 4″ gaps on the sides and/or between boxes.

We were also a little concerned about how to attach the molding to the wall.  We were concerned that the nail gun would cause the plaster to crack and thought we might have to screw the molding to the walls instead, which would be a lot more time consuming.  We tested a spot in the kitchen closet and there were no signs of cracking, so we decided to go ahead and use it in the dining room and we haven’t had any problems so far.  For good measure, we also decided to use construction adhesive to make up for the places where the walls were a little wavy or there wasn’t an appropriately located stud to nail into.  So far, the installation is going pretty well.

We still need to do some sanding to knock the edges off of the the trim pieces before we paint and we probably need to put some caulk along the edges of the molding to fill in some small gaps between the trim and the wall and then I think we’ll be ready to paint.  I’m excited to see what the room will look like once all of the molding is the same color.

After we took the wallpaper down in our dining room, the walls looked pretty good, but there were a few holes and cracks and a couple of places where the plaster was separating from the lathe.  We hired a plasterer who had done some work in our house before for the previous owners to clean them up a little.

The plasterer originally planned to screw the plaster back into the lathe in the places where it had started to separate, then patch the holes and cracks and touch up any other imperfections in the wall without doing a full skim-coat.  Once he started working on it, though, he decided the walls were in worse shape than he’d originally estimated and he wound up removing the plaster down to the lathe in a couple of the worse spots and then skim coating the whole room.

One place where the plaster was removed from the dining room walls.

By the time the plasterer finished, the entire house was covered in a thick layer of plaster dust, but the dining room walls looked perfect.  When the plasterer left, there were still a couple sections that were pretty wet and we’ll need to do a little sanding to blend them in with the rest of the wall now that they’re dry.  Besides that, though, the new plaster is perfectly smooth and ready to be painted!

A new patch of plaster that's not quite dry yet

The skim-coated walls