RonnieO's Profile

Thanks for the comments! The painting over the Chinese bench is by Jim Lutes, a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

These are good. I like the cupcake pans, too, for slightly larger items (and, here, U'm talking about the soft silicone pans). In fact, at a TJ Maxx HomeGoods I found this really cool bright green, low, segmented silicone cake pan shaped like an alligator; it's real useful for watches, cufflinks, change, etc., yet still looks like a crocodile. And they were all REAL cheap.

I have reasonably extensive experience with Gila window films. I’ve used them on approximately 15-20 windows in my 100 year old house, largely to protect art and books from the damaging effect of the sun.

There are a variety of Gila films. Some are sold at Lowe’s, but at the Lowe’s in my vicinity they rarely, if ever, have had the clear film that I wanted. Therefore, I have ordered rolls of that film directly from Gila.

In my opinion, it is exceedingly difficult to put the film on a window, even if there are comments to the contrary. I’m inclined to say that it’s simply impossible, yet I’ve obviously done it.

Here are my gripes: The instructions are god-awful! They lack detail, and aren’t sufficiently “instructive.” In a real world environment, they just don’t explain how a homeowner could successfully put this film onto a window.

Also, this film creases like aluminum foil. That is, once creased, forever creased. That makes it very difficult to handle, especially if you’re cutting a larger sheet for a larger window.

Furthermore, every possible speck of hair and dirt—and everything else in the universe—is drawn to these sheets by major static electricity, so I have found it impossible to get the film onto the window without sandwiching a zillion little specks (almost all invisible on casual inspection, I know) between the film and the window.

The difficulty increases as the size of the window increases (especially if you’ll be abutting films in order to cover a larger expanse of glass).

Plus, if this wasn’t sufficiently clear from prior comments, I think it’s fair to consider the film “permanent.” They say that you can remove it, but it looks like doing so would be extremely difficult.

I would love to see how a professional does this: I’m pretty skillful when it comes to these sort of things, and while I’ve gotten better at it over time I’ve never been pleased with the results. Maybe the question should be, what sort of professional does this, and how would I find that professional?

Recently, I saw an ad in the back of Dwell for a different brand of window firm that, so far as I could tell, provided essentially the same protection. Has anyone tried that brand? I think the ad may have said that this brand's firm was repositionable and/or removable. I don't see why it would be difficult to make a film like this that’s both repositionable and removable.

When Sotheby's sold items through eBay, on two separate occasions I got incredible deals on African pieces that didn't sell at their big NYC African/tribal art auctions. These were real, provenanced pieces and I paid less than a third of the Sotheby's auction's lowest low-estimate. (I know because I then bought the used auction catalog on eBay.) That was really cool. While I've bought a lot of other cool stuff on eBay, I think my other favorite deal has been Oriental rugs, especially antique ones from fairfaxrug.com. You've got to get a sense of how the guy the describes them before you buy one; don't buy the first one that looks appealing. For example, go to his eBay "store," and search "super super fine" (one of his descriptions for particularly nice, high-quality rugs). I also like the "signed" ones. (You can search for "signed" rugs, using that as a search word.) The rugs usually sell for $9.99 (seriously), and really all you pay is that plus the exorbitant (usually, ~$190) shipping. I love the rugs I've gotten, I've had pretty good luck getting the ones I wanted, and I've never paid over $200 (that's with the shipping). At that price, you could almost throw one in the backyard or on the back porch if you had a party! Lately I've been a little obsessed about who made the rugs and under what conditions, but if you can put that out of your mind (hope I didn't ruin this for anyone by saying that) these rugs really are a steal.