Battlestations

Back when I first bought my house. My wife and I were upgrading from a college-adjacenet slim apartment. We were broke AF, our lease was up, and a combination of local and national economic factors meant we were better off scrapping together a down payment for an old house in a rough neighborhood than continuing to rent.

A 100 year old house, it doesn't even have a great place for a TV let alone computers. The basement was unfinished concrete, with some sort of plastered veneer over the block foundation. The floor made no attempt to be level or smooth, with probably a 10 inch difference in elevation between the high spots along the walls and the low spots on the floor.

We tossed some furniture down there that didn't fit the rest of the house. An old, small entertainment stand from my wife's childhood home. Inside, a 19" 720 LCD TV from the early 2000's. A green couch where to two ends seats could recline, from her grandmother.

Back in our apartment, I had been using a cheap computer desk my aunt had been getting rid of that was already partially broken. We tossed it rather than trying to move it. My wife had been using a nice desk from IKEA we had bought, but it was damaged in the U-haul and unsalvageable.

So we hooked up both computers to that one tiny screen. When we both wanted on at the same time, we would hook up another 19" LCD and place it on top of one of the computer cases.

The basement would flood in heavy rains. The computers and entertainment center were on the high ground, the couch had feet that usually kept it out of the water. We had a dehumidifier always running, so it was fine as long as we mopped it quickly.

One night we came home from a concert to find that a storm had hit and left ~8" of water in the basement. That was the end of the furniture. Eventually we hired a company to install an interior French drain, sump pump, vapor barrier, etc. We moved things around in the house and put the computers upstairs, and I built a custom L-shaped desk and bought 4 matching monitors, and bought proper computer chairs.