Friday, March 21, 2014

Simple but elegant

Life throws up these problems. I have a studio where I have many paintings and so far I have used wooden crates taken off the street, to stand the paintings on. This keeps them off the floor and prevents damage especially due to flooding. But, recently termites were found in my studio and some of the crates supporting the paintings were infected (although the paintings themselves are fine). I had to throw the crates out. But I need to replace them with something, not wood, that I can stand paintings on. At first I thought of some kind of low plastic table, that I could cut or leave the legs off. Then I found plastic folding tables or laundry dryers, but they were quite expensive and a waste of money for what I needed. Looking around the stores I came across the ideal solution, CPU holders.

What are CPU holders? They are low plastic supports for the CPUs of computers that keep them off the floor so that when the cleaners clean the floor they don't get water into the computer CPU. They have tiny wheels that clip in, but I saw that they could be used upside down without the wheels. They are about 2 inches high with little stubby legs with rubber non-slide contacts with the floor (into which the CPU would usually fit) and they open up into a rectangular cross. Two of them are perfect for supporting paintings. They also leave plenty of space for air flow and for cleaning under them, far better than the crates, and they cost less than $10 each. A simple but elegant solution to a trivial but unavoidable problem.

My studio has had the termite treatment of the boring of holes through the floor tiles around the walls every foot or so followed by poison being pumped in. Then I went around and injected silicone to seal the holes (back-breaking). Now I have had the floors washed and then I put all the furniture and paintings back. I have a bookcase that was infected by termites at the bottom and it was damaged by several floods. I took everything out of it, took off the infected bottom piece and then sawed off the bottom sides, which took only a few minutes (its all chipboard) and then turned it upside down. Then I attached four stubby legs and put everything back. Noone could tell there had been a problem with it. Apart from taking care of the door frames that were infected by the termites everything is back in order. It was an unfortunate and expensive experience.

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