apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I have enormous quantities of tile, stained glass, silverware, lots of grout, and yes, a propane torch!!
Yes, I must either be crazy or an artisan!! Maybe both.

We used blow torches from Home Depot in the restaurant where I worked to crystalize the creme brulees. That was the most awesome part of my job. Firing up that puppy and pointing it at the brulees. I still don't know why people spend so much money on those teeny, expensive, easily broken brulee torches in cooking stores when a cheap one made for working on metal works just as well.

Those tiny torches suck. The real manly kind are the only way to go. Is grunting like Tim Taylor while you make a lovely French dessert a problem?

My best day was going through the checkout with a bunch of cheap nylons and electrical tape.

I was making butterfly wings.

Have definitely used a blowtorch/plumber's torch for the finishing touches on creme brulee... Works great!

Charmedseed, haha! That’s so much fun.

My tools and supplies are many. Since they're useful, they don't strike me as weird, so this is a hard question to answer.

Lists, however, turn into peculiar little compositions of things my kids say and things I want to do.

Draft Vulcan bathrobe. Mt Dew = Ms. Kelli. Dog composter. Scrape bathroom popcorn.

If enough time passes that I forget the context of the original list items, then I do a double take.

Etching press. Everyone asks "what is that?"

We use our blow torch (similar to the one in the posted pic) to crisp the outside of our prime rib before it goes into the oven - really helps :)

My husband uses a blow torch, intended for kitchen, use to kill weeds in gravel.

- assorted types of rulers and french curves for patternmaking and clothing design. I've been asked if some of the stranger shapes were samurai weapons before.

- coils of metal corset boning and busks, heavy-duty metal snipers and sheet metal cutters, rotating punch wheels for leather-work. All look like medieval torture instruments.

- Assorted vintage electric turkey knives. Used for cutting foam sculpture materials (don't ask.)

- Pasta making machine. :-p

Piles of pointe shoes and ballet slippers, NUskin, hairpins, band aids, blister blocker - daughter is a ballet dancer

tiny torch
soldering gun (with lead strips for it)
thousands of transistors

Giant butterfly nets! Fiance is an ecologist who studies butterflies... similarly, lots of weird electronics used for measuring climate data. They look like bombs, he gets a lot of hassle from airport security on his research trips... also, tons and tons of glassine envelopes for collecting.

I just have weird kitchen gadgets and every cleaning product known to humanity, and various art supplies and hardware for projects that aren't immediately recognizable. His stuff is way more exciting.

Everyone thinks im nuts. I guess hanging handcuffs on the wall is bad? I hear its also bad to have a abundance of quick cuffs. This is above and beyond the other weird stuff. I also teach so I have tons of flannel chucks, catalogs, toy s, fish tanks... and no children. Then of course theres new gadgets for sewing and crafting commming out everyday!

What, the "dragon skull" and sword on the wall aren't "normal"? I have a hard time figuring out what somebody else would think of the stuff we have, since we are used to it and so it's normal to us!

Since my name sounds like a motel (Ridge Rooms) I pack orders and send out promo kits for my little design side biz in custom-printed motel wares (such as plastic ice buckets, etc.) Friends have gotten pretty used to seeing boxes of motel supplies in my office, but my landlord once questioned me kinda pointedly as to why I was getting so many hotel supply catalogs as if I were running one out of my apartment.

Isn't the propane torch mandatory? I also have a heat gun, purchased to repair a Yakima rooftop box. Must also mention the box of leftover bits and whatnot that I've kept over the years from almost every home improvement and repair. Comes in extra handy when the kids need to make a robot for a class project.

lol at all the creme bruleers out there. My husband at Home Depot:

DH: Could you tell me where I could find a blow torch?

HD employee: Going to do some soldering?

DH: Yeah...and some cooking...

In my college apartment our freezer went on the fritz, and I was the lucky one to stay home and wait for the repair guy. I had taken everything out of the freezer for him and then went to my bedroom to study while he was working. When he was done he knocked on my door and was like "I put all of your food back, but I wasn't sure what to do with the, uh, insect things." I about died laughing. My roommate had a gecko and hated the crickets chirping while they waited to be devoured so she would freeze them first. The poor guy looked so freaked haha.

Medical Cleaning Supplies in my stock.

Probably the weirdest "tools of my trade" are found in my collection of books on voodoo, witchcraft, magic, harems, mardi gras masks, eddas (both prose and poem), divination, etiquette books, prayer books, sacred literature, and dictionaries, and in my collection of divination tools, such as crystal balls, miniature one-armed bandits, Tarot card decks, Catholic relics, temple bells, scrying mirrors, bones, conjuring roots, mugwort, and besoms. Did I mention I'm a folklorist/mythologist?

My grandpa was an anatomy prof, so had skulls (gorilla, porpoise, etc) in his garage, along with strange things in jars of formaldehyde. I have those now, along with unfortunately-titled, conversation-stopping psychology books of my own from grad school!

It seems everyone has a blow torch....

I don't think it's that weird, but my dress dummy has gotten a few double-takes from visitors. Although it's adjustable with crank dials to change the bust/waist/hip measurements, it doesn't help when someone I'm sewing for is, um, well-endowed. So in the past I've resorted to putting an old, clean molded-cup bra on it and then stuffing the cups with socks until the measurement is right and it sits in a fairly good approximation. Walking into my sewing room to be faced with a dress dummy wearing nothing but a sock-stuffed bra is kind of strange, I must admit.

hrhprincessfiona--

That is so cool! I just came inside from pulling up grass from between the pavers of the garden path---and here I had a blowtorch the whole time! Thanks for the idea.

Mostly a lot of video and still camera's and professional lighting equipment. Mostly its my love of taxidermy that causes double takes.