You’ll notice in this picture that the lighting is yellowish.  It almost makes the wall look a little taupe.  We plan on trying to find a different light bulb for our track lighting that will be more white.

I don’t believe the gray goes at all with the blinds at all.

So we removed the blinds.  In this shot the yellow light isn’t as noticeable and it looks much more gray (which was the colour we were looking for).

Let us know what you think!  So looking forward I have a couple projects in mind.  I told myself no more painting until the fall, since the weather is just way too nice to be spending it inside painting – although my brother in law told me to give him a whole bunch of reno stuff to do when he comes over in a couple weeks so we might end up tackling “The Pink”.

As you can see it is an eye sore.  If I end up letting him off the hook I may start refinishing this table, I’m not crazy about the stain on it, I think I might make the top 1 colour and the bottom another.

Let me know if you have any ideas for the table, my first challenge will be trying to take off the varnish & stain.  If you have any tips let me know!

Eric

The colour turned out a lot more green (we expected it to look much more gray).  This could be due to looking at it under the light at night time.

I’ve only done the first coat as well, so It is possible that it may turn out a little different with the second coat.

Our intention was to closely match the gray in the brick to make the brick stand out more.

Here it what it looks like in daylight.  You can tell it needs another coat as it looks quite streaky with first coat.

Let us know what you think.

Eric

I’ve heard they save money, but I’m not the type to believe labels, I’d rather do the research myself.  I bought 4 60watt 1,000 hour bulbs for $0.88 CAD ($0.22/bulb), and 6 13watt CFL 10,000 hour (which equals 60watt incandescent) for $13.99 CAD ($2.33/bulb).  At this price ratio, you don’t save buying the CFL bulbs – based on just bulb price.  Mind you the regular bulbs were on sale 50% off and the CFL  bulbs were full price. 

The longevity of the CFL bulbs is 10,000 hours is approx 4.57 years of usage (at 6 hours a day), so if you know your going to be in the same house for a while just the fact of saving you from replacing bulbs it’s worth it.  

So what about electricity costs?  Going by the same math before (and a electricity price of $0.06CAD/kWh) we have:

Regular bulb:

1 60watt light bulb – 1 years (6 hours a day) = 131.4 kWh * ($0.06CAD) = $7.88

CFL Bulb:

1 13 watt light bulb (equal to a regular 60 watt)  1 year (6 hours a day) = 28.47kWh * ($0.06CAD) = $1.71

So per year with 1 bulb you’d be saving $6.17 CAD.  Multiply by 10 bulbs and your saving over $60/year.

So now that I’ve done the math, I think I’ll have to buy some more. 

Now, comparing the look (which one do you think is the CFL and which is the incandescent?):

Really when I replaced them I couldn’t tell the difference…  I’m not sure if this is due to the light fixture or not.  The one on the left is the incandescent bulb and the one on the right is the CFL bulb.  Both light bulbs are called “soft white”.

The down side to using these bulbs:

So in conclusion, I’ll definitely be using more of these bulbs in the future.  Whether you save $288 CAD dollars with 6 bulbs I’m not convinced about that, but I believe you can save $200 CAD with 6 bulbs.  Anywhere I can hide the look of the bulb, I’ll be using them.

Have/Will you made the switch, and have you noticed the difference on your bills?

Eric

Finally our family room is feeling a little more finished.  I fixed up the switch plates so they fit perfectly and I installed all the cove trim on the wood beams.  Having the trim up makes the beams so slick, I love the perfect line it makes on the ceiling.

Check out the pictures:

In this picture you’ll notice I cut the trim on a 45 degree angle to match them up.  If I didn’t you would be able to notice the seam very easily.  After each cut you have to stain the end of the wood as well, this will help hide any imperfections of your cuts.

As you can see there are a few nail marks.  I can cover these up with wood filler and just stain over them with a Q-Tip.  I’m not sure I’ll do this though, as without a picture & Flash you don’t even notice them.

I still can’t get over how good it looks, this took me probably 8 hours on Sunday – which isn’t too bad since I had to make all the cuts in the basement and it was my first time doing this.  It was even my first time using my Mitre Saw that Angela bought me for Christmas.

I ran into a couple issues along the way.  First was my cuts with the Mitre Saw, the wood kept fraying at the end.

This was because I was using a 40 tooth blade, instead of a 60.  Once I made the change it rarely happened.  Second of all was I have a single bevel mitre saw.  What this means is it doesn’t tilt both ways.  This isn’t too much of an issue, it just means more mental rotation in your head.  As you can see sometimes I had to cut the wood from the back (and with cove trim it can be a little tricky).

On other thing with the mitre saw I would look into is how to calibrate it (or make sure it is giving you exact angles.  My saw clicks into place, and a few joints didn’t align up the way I thought they should.  Now this could be because the beams are fake beams and they weren’t constructed perfectly square.  I did notice that when you turn one way it doesn’t go to the highest value of angle, but if you turn it the opposite way it goes past the scale.  So hopefully this is just a faulty design and I didn’t cut 43 degree angles everywhere.

Oh did I mention I went on a shopping spree…  Canadian Tire had some good deals this week, and I stopped at Home Depot for some paint supplies.

The 2 vises were 50% off!  Can’t go wrong with that, now all I need to do is get a work bench to use them with…  The holesaw set (16 pcs) was $40 CAD, regular $120.  And the tool belt was $15 CAD from $25.  I don’t know about the quality of this tool belt but it seems alright.  If your doing any project that requires a good day of work, I would recommend that you get one of these.  I didn’t use it yet, but I found myself going up and down the stairs probably at least 15 times just to grab my pencil that I kept forgetting behind – and that is just the pencil – never mind about the tape measure…

Let me know what you think, if you have any tips I’d love to hear them.

Eric

I thought I would share some of my pain with you.  Below is a collection of things in my house that I can’t stand.  Mind you I will probably have to live with them for a while before I can save up enough to replace them all, but nonetheless here are some things I’m looking to improve.

Our door handles and Door stops in the house definitely give the 80’s vibe.  I always love when my friends come over and tell me that their parents have the exact same handles… Unfortunately every door handle in the house matches, and I would like to keep it that way… so replacing 15-20 door handles in the house can get quite pricy.  Personally I like gadgets too much to have door handles high on my priority list.

Also I mentioned in a previous post about Switches and Plugs, the ones below don’t help with my “soup up my house” theme.

Next on the list would be light fixtures.  Angela and my mother went out for her birthday and picked up a few that I intend to put in this weekend (although I seem to recall saying this a few times…)

Once I put in some of the new light fixtures this weekend I’ll be sure to show them off.  Next on the list would be wall paper.  I stripped wallpaper for probably 2 weeks straight so far in 3 rooms of the house and I’ve left these other rooms (since they are un-used bedrooms).  As you can see they need to go.  The 2 below are in the same room, and the wall paper in the picture above is in a bathroom.  There are 2 other rooms that have wall paper as well that I’d like to change, but they are also on the low end of priorities.

Window Coverings… If they weren’t so expensive to buy new ones, these would have been first to go.  I’m tempted to pull them down, but then there would be nothing to give us any privacy. 

In the picture above, they were expensive coverings when they were purchased.  Angela and I are looking into the possibility of dying them a darker colour – possibly a project to look out for.

And here are some other anomalies:

Door bell… No it doesn’t make a chime, and it is hideous.  I’m still looking for the finger print door bell button that once you press will announce the person’s name.

What is that?  Good question…  It is on the ceiling in the middle of the “fancy room”.

This one is something everyone should pay attention to… My brother in law is a fire fighter and said fire alarms need to be replaced every 10 years.  Having an old faded fire alarm isn’t just an eye sore, but a safety hazard.

And last, but not least:  Carpets…  These carpets have seen better days, never mind the pink one in the “fancy room”…  It’s always nice to have a few speed bumps in the carpet as well…

Again all these things are $$$, so 1 thing at a time, but as you can see there will be exciting posts to come.  Out of all the pictures posted, what do you think is the worst?

Eric

Trendnet TV-IP512WN

Some people might think that they don’t need security cameras, and I’d probably agree with most people on that.  Although they can provide you with some other benefits that you may have not been aware of.  For an example, if the doorbell rings, and your home alone on your computer, you can connect to your camera via a web browser and see who is there.  Even if your out, you can have your camera record video based on motion sensitivity and you can see who came by your house when you were out.  One of my co-workers had a bull-dog puppy and he has set his security camera up inside the house so that he can check it from work to see what his little puppy is up to.  Or maybe you just want to catch which neighbor is bringing their dog around to crap on your lawn (yes one of my co-workers bought one for this reason).

Some features on various cameras can include:

• Email you pictures of when motion is detected
• Record video when motion is detected onto a network share or computer
• FTP a picture when motion is detected (this is great as if you are getting robbed, this can send the picture to the internet so that if your computer is stolen you can still find what was on the camera)
• Record sound as well as video and even have speaker attachments.  This way you can hook a speaker up to your camera and talk through a microphone hooked up to your computer – this will drive your pets crazy
• Cameras that Pan/tilt and swivel, that you can control via your web browser (or even automatic target tracking so that it can follow a subject walking by - possibly creeping out your visitors)

 Now when I think of a wireless security camera I think it can provide a little more security on your house as people may be intimidated to rob a house with them.  On the other hand, maybe people will think you have something worth robbing… 

Wireless security camera’s aren’t the most secure.  They do have built-in security, but for some of those hackers out there, they could essentially hack into your camera to either disable them or see what they are seeing.  So I wouldn’t 100% rely on these cameras for full home security.

The camera in the picture at the beginning of this post is by TrendNet.  They have quite a few affordable cameras with some great features.  Also most cameras will come with TrendNet TV-IP512WN I listed above comes with software that can control up to 32 cameras – for the extra paranoid. 

I will personally be purchasing a couple of these, as I think they are a “Soup up my House Essential”.  This is definetly a wow factor to people who visit your house, nevermind the people you can show at work.

If you have any experience with any of these cameras please let me know.  I’m interested in the different software each brand comes with and how good they are. 

What do you think, good investment? or kinda creepy?

I just recently purchased a few dimmers from Lutron.  I bought a 3-Way dimmer set, and another remote IR dimmer (shown below).  I was looking for the 3-Way IR dimmer in Canada and couldn’t find it, although I found many websites in the US that carry them.  For those of you who don’t know was a 3-Way switch is, it is a switch that connect to another switch & your lights.  I went to go take a picture of the switches I put in, but I realised I haven’t finished putting them in – as they were put too close to the frame of the door so the face plates don’t fit properly.  Anyways here is a picture below:

Lutron IR Dimmer

 The dimmer above is great, although the switch plate that comes with the dimmer sticks out too far from the wall and I don’t think they look very nice, so I just replaced it with one of the standard white decor plates and it looks great.  Should the plate be too large (if the switch was put too close to the door trim – like it is in my house), you can use a belt sander to sand down the plate.  I recommend sanding over cutting, as you can round off the edge a little nicer and make it look like it hasn’t been cut.

Generally White or Black Decor light switches, dimmers, & outlets look a lot more modern.  Small things like this can really bring a room together.  The remote IR Dimmer is definetly a “Soup up my House” essential.  Everytime someone comes over I always get a kick out of this thing.  Also since it is IR you can setup your universal remote like I mentioned in this post to control it.

 The remote IR dimmer is just where it starts with light switches, you can get switches that are motion sensitive (perfect for in the hallway, laundry room, garage, or workshop).  I didn’t see one by Lutron but Leviton has a good one here http://www.leviton.com/OA_HTML/ibeCCtpSctDspRte.jsp?section=15983&minisite=10022.  Both Lutron & Leviton have wireless home automation systems, that can allow you to pull into your driveway and turn on the lights to the entire house with a single button.  Check out their websites, you’d be surprised what a really simple product can do in the big picture for your home.  There is even control systems to control your lights from your iPhone.

Other nice touch sensitive dimmers are a crowd pleaser as well.  This one here is pretty slick from Lutron as well: http://www.lutron.com/ltr4/home.asp

Should you have someone coming to do some electrical work on your house, it if very important that they follow your local electrical code.  Some tips & things to watch out for are:

• Maximum number of devices per breaker.
• Cannot Run Low & High Voltage through same holes in walls.  What I mean by this is that if you drill a hole into the wall to run your electrical through, you can’t run cables like cat5 (network), speaker, or phone line through.  The reason for this is that the high voltage cables can interfere with your low voltage cables.  This can cause static through the lines.
• All electrical cable should be in the wall, you shouldn’t have it behind baseboard, or crown moulding.
• Make sure things are properly grounded.  Even for satellite, if it isn’t grounded it can cause signal loss.
• Make sure the right wire gauge is used.  For 15 AMPs you should use 14 Guage or lower.  For 20 Amps you should be using 12 Guage.
• When using wire staples, make sure the wire is still pretty loose within the staple.  You don’t want your wires pinched.
• You have to use your manufacturer’s breakers for your electrical panel.  I have a GE (General Electric) panel, and I noticed there was a couple Siemens breakers in there.  Apparently it is against electrical code to do this, and should there be an electrical fire because of this (whomever put the breakers in could be held liable).

Anyways I’m not an electrician, and these are just a few things I picked up from my brother in law who installed some potlights for me.  I was surprised at how simple it actually was.  I didn’t do it myself as I’m not fully comfortable with the electrical panel, so if you don’t know what your doing sometimes it’s best to spend the extra money to have someone else do it.

I just focused on the brands Lutron & Levitron since that is what is readily available in Canada where I am.  If you’ve seen some pretty innovative switches of some other companies let me know as I’m always looking for new things.

1) Get the right tools: 

Get a step ladder (a 6 foot is a great height for indoors).  I just bought one today at Home Depot for $40 CAD.  Its pretty good too.  If your going out to buy one, make sure it is rated enough for your weight, most step ladders are rated around 200-225 lbs.  Also one that has a paint tray is also KEY.  Whether it’s for a paint can or just to hold your tools, it’s a good idea.  I’ve done so much work without a step ladder and if I would have just bought one sooner I would have saved hours of my time, never mind about the pain in my shoulders and neck I could have saved myself from.

Get good paint brushes.  I usually go for the most expensive one in the store (since I personally don’t know the difference by just looking – generally anyone in a paint store can help you).  A good paint brush doesn’t drip as easy and won’t streak as much.  Once your done painting immediately wash your brushes, if your painting a large area for numerous hours, you might want to want to switch paint brushes half way through and wash the other one… trust me you’ll save yourself time later.  Nothing is worse than trying to scrape paint out of the top of the brush when it gets all crusted on.

Grab a bunch of disposable paint trays.  My mom used to tell me a trick of using the same paint tray by putting a grocery bag overtop of it and pouring the paint on this.  I thought it was a great idea until I used some of those disposable trays.  The trays provide better coverage on the roller, and are just easier to clean up after. 

Grab a bunch of rollers (or whatever you call them).  Again my parents used to reuse them, but they don’t work as nicely the second time, and it takes so long to get all the paint out of those things.  My thought is that painting sucks, and by extending your cleaning time just makes it worse. Ask the store which ones are best.  You will really notice the difference between a cheap roller and a good one.  Also Google the thickness of roller you should use for your application.  Most of my painting I use a 10mm roller.  It gives a paint a bit of a texture so that you won’t notice every little imperfection as much.

Get an extension rod for your paint roller.  I had never used one of these and always used a mini step ladder… boy was I missing out.  With an extension rod you will save so much time, and you won’t find yourself sore after as it saves your from bending down and getting up on a ladder the entire time.

Get a handheld paint tray for when your cutting the corners.  Again just saves you time from bending over to dip your paintbrush in the large paint tray (never mind about saving you from dripping paint all over the floor).

If you don’t have old sheets, get some drop sheets – no need to explain this.  The more the better, as you will drop paint on the ground – it’s Murphy’s Law.

Buy better quality paints.  Some of the brands I would recommend are C2, Benjamin Moore, & Para Paints.  A better quality paint will go on smoother and generally go on with less coats.  They will cost more money but when you are doing more coats you may end up saving.

Get a paint pad edger.  Most big stores will have these.  They do a great job, while they might not exactly get the paint to the ceiling I find you don’t need to.  If you notice in the picture below it doesn’t look bad, and most people won’t even notice it.  It is better to have white paint on the wall, than coloured paint on the ceiling.

2) When putting paint on the roller, after you’re done rolling it a few times through the paint, put the roller on a 45 degree angle and roll on the corners of the roller into the tray.  By doing this you will squeeze out the excess paint on the edges of the roller and will prevent you from putting lines of extra paint on the wall.

3) Don’t rush…  Painting requires a ton of patience.  Your best starting on the hardest parts of the room so you don’t lose your patience by doing it last and doing a crappy job.  If your sick of painting, just stop and leave the next wall for the next day.  The key of my last sentence “leave the next wall for the NEXT day”.  I personally find the hardest part of painting is starting, and I have a bad habit of leaving 1 room half done for a few weeks.  Your spouse will not enjoy this…

4) If painting with a spouse, put on some music.  It’s very boring painting in silence, and if you’re painting for a long time you WILL find something to bicker about.

5) If you accidently paint your ceiling sometimes it doesn’t help to wipe it as you will just make a larger spot.  Once it dries, if you grab a Q-Tip and some rubbing alcohol you can often pull off the paint.  Mind you if you do it too much you will also pull off the white paint on the ceiling.

6) Make sure your walls are clean, wipe them down and make sure ALL glue is off (if you previously had wall paper).  If you don’t get rid of the glue first, you will just have to sand down the glue after you put your primer on.  Also if you find yourself constantly picking things off the roller or off the wall you just painted, it is because you didn’t wipe the walls down enough.

7) If you have cracks in your corners or along the ceiling don’t bother trying to use drywall compound.  It is such a pain to get it smooth, and generally it will just crack again.  Assuming the cracks aren’t too big, use some DAP Alex Plus (Photo Below).  It is a tube of caulking that comes in various colours (white, cream, black, grey, and brown).  You just put a bead of this along the corner and then run your finger down.  It will provide a nice smooth corner, and it won’t crack since it is kind of rubbery.  If you have a popcorn ceiling, I find if your take your finger and rub the corner with your finger and scrape some of the popcorn off.  Then use a DAP Alex Plus in the corner and smooth it out with your finger again.  By doing this you will have a smooth corner from your wall to your popcorn ceiling and it will provide a better line for you to paint across (especially if you are using one of those paint pad edgers).

Here are a few tips on ladders:

1) Wear shoes when your on a ladder. I find my feet kill if I don’t, never mind about the 100’s of times I almost lost my balance – I’m not a great follower of my own tips…

2) Don’t put your ladder on too much of an angle or too steep of an angle – Again I should follow my tips more often.  I can definitely say I had a few scares while painting one of our rooms where it had a high ceiling.

Painting isn’t a cheap thing to do if you do it right.  Expect to spend a couple hundred per room for painting.  Mind you by doing it yourself you save TONS! 

For those of you who want to see what I’ve worked on today I’ve taken a few photos.

You’ll notice along the edge of these beams I didn’t stain to the ceiling.  Instead of driving myself insane from either getting stain on the ceiling or white paint on the beams I’m putting up some cove trim…  A painters dream =)  This will make it look a lot sharper in the end.  Mind you cove trim can date the room a little bit, but the wainscoting in the room uses cove trim so it suits the room.

Here you can see the cove trim.  The closest trim has 2 coats of stain on it.  I almost freaked out when I did the first coat as I thought it should match the wood on the picture above.  Mind you it’s probably a different wood so the stain takes differently. Also this picture below is under florescent light so the colour matches better than it is pictured.

The stain I used was a water based stain called “Saman”.  I used half and half of the colours Walnut (109) and Colonial (205).  I brought in a old piece of trim and the paint store matched it for me.

The next 2 pictures are of a couple walls I did the second coat of primer on.  Like I was mentioning previously, I have a bad habit of leaving something for a few weeks.  One day I primed walls and ceiling for approx 12 hours straight and I couldn’t bring myself to paint again for at least 3 weeks to finish the job.  Like I said in my tips, try to make it enjoyable and don’t try to do it all at once if your getting sick of it. =)

Angela will be happy that her workout room is making progress.   

Another great use of DAP Alex Plus is doing the finishing of your corners after you paint (as long as they carry the right colour for the job).  As you can see below even using one of those paint pad edgers you can still get some nasty edges. 

Just put some blue painters tape on both sides of the corner, make sure you use blue… I don’t know why but everyone says it is much better.  Also make sure you do this approx 1 month after painting.  Paint can take up to 1 month to fully cure, and if it hasn’t cured the tape can peel it off the wall (which would require you to plaster, prime, and re-paint – something I can assure you, you don’t want to do).

Then bead the caulking along the corner.  You should probably have the blue table a little more narrow than this (i just didn’t do a great job painting so I had to make it a little wider).  Then run your finger along the corner.  If you used too much (like I did) you will have a lot of excess caulking all over your finger (but it doesn’t really matter since you put the tape there). 

As soon as your done peel off the tape and the finished result will look amazing!  You’ll notice my brown caulking doesn’t match the wood perfectly but I find it still looks pretty sharp.

In the picture above you can see some spots that don’t look so great.  That is from the caulking before (I made the mistake of caulking before I painted).  If you take your time and do it right it will turn out perfect. 

I’m still learning how to paint, most of my tips come from my 2 Brother in laws, one who is a general contractor, the other who is a know it all DIY’er, and my mom who is an interior designer.

If you have some tips I would love to hear them. I might end up making a page dedicated to painting at some point since obviously there is a lot of tricks to the trade.

Hope you Enjoyed tonight’s post,

Eric

I always stress to people how important it is to back up your computer data.  Nothing is worse than losing all your pictures, documents (resume especially), and favorites list.  There are a few sites out there that allow free backup online of approx 2GB of data.  This isn’t even close to big enough for most peoples pictures these days but it is good for some important documents.  Microsoft has a pretty good site that is free to register which integrates into Microsoft Office nicely.  The website is http://workspace.officelive.com/.  There are quite a few services online that do this, this blog mentions 5 that he liked http://franticindustries.com/2007/07/12/5-simple-ways-to-store-your-files-online/.  Another one which seemed to return a bunch of hits was http://mozy.com/.  While I’ve only tried the Microsoft version I’m sure they probably all work quite similar and and pretty good.  My main concern would be choosing a company that you know isn’t going to disappear within a couple years.

Anyways, just thought I’d let you know of some of my fun.  This has kinda put a huge damper on things since I was planning on finishing a few renos that I’ve been putting off for weeks.  I’ll try to do some with the rest of the day and post my progress tonight.

Something I forgot to mention, just a trick that I’ve picked up from somewhere.  If your hard drive has died, and it makes a clicking noise when you try to start your computer.  If you take out the hard drive, put it in a ziplock bag, then put it in the freezer for a couple hours.  Take the harddrive out and put it in your computer, and it “might” work for a short amount of time (enough to pull some of your data off).  I know a few people that this has worked for.

For those of you buying a new computer, you can look at a computer that has a RAID 1 (Mirror).  What this is, is there are 2 hard drives in your computer that are exact mirror images of each other.  Should 1 die, you can run off the other one automatically.  Mind you that this does cost a bit extra for the RAID feature set in your computer and the extra hard drive, but for important data it is sometime worth it.

If you use any online backup software that you really like please let me know, I’m sure there are a bunch out there that are really good that I’ve never heard of.

Eric

There are tons of universal remotes out there, but nothing compares to Logitech’s Harmony line.  This remote can control every single IR device.  So the more things you have IR sensors on the better. 

For example, my Logitech Harmony 880 remote controls:

• TV
• Stereo Receiver
• Xbox 360
• Xbox
• Satellite Receiver
• Space Heater
• Light Dimmers

And the best part, is that all these devices are in Logitech’s database online.  When you setup your remote (by hooking it up via USB to your computer), you can setup your activity list.  Some examples of an activity would be: Watch TV, Watch a DVD, etc.  When you click on Watch a DVD, you can have the TV turn on, go to the right input, turn on the stereo receiver, change the stereo receiver to the right input, adjust the volume, and set the lights to a preset dim.  All at the click of one button!!! 

I admit, at first I think it may be a little overwhelming for the average person.  But once it is setup properly it is VERY simple.  If you can’t get something to work, there is a help button that guides you through how to fix the problem. 

I’m not too sure the difference between the models, but the low end model should do exactly what the average household needs. 

Most people think this is a guy gift, and your probably right – it definitely makes a great gift for Fathers day coming up.  A little pricy at $100 USD for the lower end model (I find www.ncix.com has great prices for both Canadian & US).  But I guarantee, once you show your wife how to use this she will love it to.  I apologize to you women who are tech savvy – I admit I know a bunch of guys who wouldn’t have a clue what to do with something like this…  But I promise, with patience if you follow the instructions it is a pretty painless setup.

Anyways, since it is fathers day this weekend I figured I’d give a couple gift ideas (including the media players I posted about this morning) – probably gifts that require more than 1 person to go in on though. 

If any of you have any gift ideas for Father’s day please let me know (I still need to go shopping…)