hmmmm thinking abt. miles and niles each buying a pair of shoes in the same style but different colors. then swapping a shoe each so they can be matchingly mismatched.

Okay so you reblog these amazing houses all the time but i have to ask, what would your own dream house look like if money was limitless? Also where would it be located?

Oh man. You sure have asked a question to which I have way too well thought out an answer.

I like our city. We moved here because we wanted to be here and I honestly would not give it up. That said, we live in the more crowded part of it and I wouldn’t necessarily object to moving to another section so that we had more land. I grew up out west and so I’ve always really wanted an acre or two to kinda sprawl lazily out on. I’d want to have it planted with lots of local trees and shrubs and other such things that I can just kind of minimally manage and otherwise leave to flourish on their own.

I kinda miss stucco and clay, but Hubby really loves their New England brick, and I’ll be honest I’ve grown fond of it too since we moved into our current place. So odds are we’d either do something brick and clay, or something stone and stucco. It’d probably depend a lot on how flamboyantly we built the actual footprint of the house.

If you’ve followed me for a while, you may have seen the floor plans I draw up and post from time to time when I’ve been fantasizing. But even those I try to keep to a somewhat existent (if indulgent) budget. If money was no object at all?? Oh boy.

Well, to start, I’d want a fully stocked restaurant grade kitchen times two. I cook for armies and I actually would like to be able to keep Kosher at some point when I want to. So my dream kitchen would be huge. At least 20’x20’. It’d have three large pantries (5’x5’ min) and a cellar (8’x8’ min) attached to it. One pantry for each set of cookware (meat and dairy), and one pantry for seasonings and dry goods. The cellar would be for keeping vegetables cool and dry, as well as for the drinks cooler and the deep freezer because buying in bulk is both responsible and spoons efficient. Aesthetically, picture the worst, most offending McMansion style kitchen full of black stainless steel appliances (2 of each), a massive kitchen island with a huge double sink and garbage disposal and bar stools to boot, and a giant hanging rack in the middle of the room with all my most used pots and pans. The major difference between my dream kitchen and McMansion hell is that my cabinets would be this gorgeous dark red-black cherry color wood, and my counters would be gorgeous black (either slate or granite) speckled with red, gold, and white bits. I’d prefer a nice cream-to-tan range for the floor tiles, but I’ve become so fond of my little Spanish missionary tiles, that I’d probably try to do another lovely little mosaic all around my stove insets and my backsplash. Kitchens should be warm colors, huge, and HIGHLY functional.

I didn’t used to care about having a dining room, but I admit that it’s existence is growing on me. I’d still rather have a less ostentatious one tho. Just enough for a big dining table (has to seat at least 8, I like to entertain) and a hutch for dishware. It’d be awfully nice to have a little bar cupboard set up in there too, locked of course because there’ll be kids in the house. I’m still in love with our first dining room table and sad as heck that it had to be gotten rid of. Assume that whenever I’m talking about wooden furniture I’m thinking the same lovely dark red stain as those kitchen cabinets by the way. It’s a thing.

The dining room frankly shouldn’t be much more than an extension of the living room space which absolutely should also be huge. A giant, soft, squishy couch, one of those U-shaped fiascos with the chaise lounges at either end and lots of pillows. Woodsey colors. Deep browns and rich reds and greens. A giant hutch with the TV/computer/video game console/DVD/Cable set up all wired in, with room to put away all our movies and games. A giant TV. I’ve become so spoiled. We bought a 46” (I think? Something around that number) a while back and I just can’t fathom the idea of going back to anything smaller. Did you know they’ve got stuff even past 60” these days???? I can’t even imagine. I think maybe we’d stick with a nice, indulgent 55” most likely. Only TV in the house. I’m old-fashioned that way I guess. I really really hate hardwood floors, but carpet is allergen heavy and hard to clean, so I’ll probably lay that gorgeous fake-wood-looking stone tiles throughout the house. Everywhere but the kitchen and bathrooms I think. That way it looks all fancy and “traditional” but I don’t have to deal with caring for wood floors. Stone is so much simpler, lord.

There needs to be a big laundry room. Two washers and two dryers, a specially made doggie shower that won’t make my baby boy cry, and a small people shower for when folks come home muddy and filthy as they often do. Another big island in the middle of the room for folding clothes on and a big stone dirt sink that I can use for hand washing. Lots of lighting, and preferably on the first floor by the entryway. I hate this whole “laundry room in the basement” thing.

I want a guest bedroom downstairs with it’s own bathroom en suite. Something simple and functional, but pretty. I actually really like the layout for the bathrooms in our house now, a sink and toilet on one side of the room, and a bathtub/shower combo next to a roomy linen closet on the other. I think the main difference is I’d just like to scale them up slightly, make the shower/tub area roomier so it can be a proper tiled in set up rather than one of those plastic pre-fabs. And lots of counter space in all the bathrooms there’s just no such thing as too much counter space.

I’d want one more bathroom downstairs too. Just a half bath, something that can be easily accessed by anyone who’s over regardless of living arrangements.

Upstairs, I’d want four more bedrooms with bathroom en suites, all built around a lovely, open room that can be a playroom when kids are little, a study space when they’re in school, a sleepover kingdom when they have company. Just…..a space where the kids can really be out of their rooms and have creative license, you know?

And then. There’s my suite. This place is my master piece. It is……insane and impossible, but if I had all the money in the world I would do it because it would be like a dream. The Master suite has got to be huge. It’s a whole floor to itself. It’s got so many rooms. The entry to it at the stair’s landing is a little sitting room with some comfy lounge chairs, bookshelves, and okay fine the only other TV in the house. It’s a place where others may freely enter my domain without invading or violating my space. Beyond this point, no one is allowed without it either being their room too or without express permission from someone whose room it is. The parts to this suite are: the bedroom, the bathroom, the spa, the closet, and the entertaining space. The bedroom will be simple and pretty normal sized. 11’x11’. Maybe 15’x15’ at the absolutely maximum. A bed, the night stands, a comfy chair in the corner, some lamps. The bathroom will be like all the others in the house. Practical and functional but pretty. I like sea colors in bathrooms, so maybe some turquoise’s and crystal blues. Lots of counter space. A double sink. The closet will be gigantic for a closet. The size of it’s own bedroom. Maybe 10’x10’? It’ll have fully built in and beautiful wooden shelving systems throughout it. All our clothes will be sorted and everyone will have their own section to the room. But the spa. My god the spa is my sanctuary. It is the size of the kitchen. Huge. It’s got a personal steam room, ready to be filled with heat and scented oils and the feeling of my muscles not crunching. It’s also got a gigantic open shower, maybe 6’x6’, tiled in, rain shower heads and soft lights, and a bench I can sit on while I’m washing my hair. There’s a hot tub. Party sized obviously. Built into the floor of the spa with stone tiles and jets and those colored lights and this gorgeous stone and fire feature hanging down from the ceiling above it - low enough to be stunning but high enough not to risk anyone hurting themselves in it. The whole room would have built in surround sound speakers and colored dimmer lights and there would be potted plants and glass tile mosaics all around. I want it to look like one of those beautiful, ancient Spanish-Persian bath houses. Lots of soft greens and rich golds and brilliant purples. And then the entertaining space. Well. That’s something better left described on my other blog. But suffice to say that it should be very roomy and with lots of custom built-ins to facilitate the sort of entertaining that a passel of adults getting together in the late night while the kids are at the sitter’s house would get up to.

There’s gotta be a nice big garage to park everyone’s car in, especially during the winter. The driveway would be one of those neat half circle drives that people can park along, and it’d be made of that fancy solar panel stuff that they can make roads out of so that even in the dead of winter it never ices. Plus that in combination with solar roofing tiles will make sure the whole house (and the electric cars) are powered cleanly. There’ll be a generator and emergency power storage unit to round it all out, make sure we’re not dependent on the city power grid for any of our power needs. Central heating and air conditioning (fucking hell do you need both in this place), a whole house multi-step water filtration system (not a fan of the city water, it tastes like hard metals), giant cat playgrounds built into the walls of the house so the fur children can romp. A big, insulated and winterized doggie house and play run out in the yard for BabyBug and his friends to race in. A nice stone patio with a built in grill and fire feature and seating. Swings and a clubhouse out back for the kids. A nice big patch of clover and wild flower lawn that has those fancy sprinklers embedded all through it so we can turn them on in the summer and have a little water park afternoon in our own backyard. I think that’s pretty much everything I’d ever possibly want. The only other thing is kind of a toss-up whether we’d want it or not, and that’s a guest house. A little vacation-y type place, two small bedrooms, two small bathrooms, a little kitchen and living room. That way when anyone’s parents come down to visit they can be safely stashed away in their own little world and don’t have to be to be interacted with when folks aren’t ready to. It might just be better never to have the in-laws stay over tho.

Anyway. I evidently have extremely expensive taste, but not the kind of expensive taste that rich people find fashionable. It makes it challenging to find pictures that exactly represent what I would want. Which is why I reblog so very many fantastically lavish house pictures I suppose.

Maybe I’ll give another go at trying to put together my own photo sets tho. Or at least another round of floor plans. It’s been a while.

This was a great question Anon! I really enjoyed getting prattle on about this!

OptimusPhillip Reviews 14: Transformers: Generations Cog (WFC: Siege)

Part of the Siege line’s gimmick is interchangeable weapons, and they really had a lot of fun with it. Not only does each weapon get its own name and stats, but they’ve taken to creating Weaponizers: toys that not only turn from vehicle to robot, but also into a bunch of weapons for the other figures. And today, we’ll be looking at the first of these Weaponizers: Cog, the partner figure to Fortress Maximus.

Vehicle Mode(s)

Just like in G1, Cog transforms into two separate vehicles, Gasket and Grommet. Gasket is predominantly silver, with a good deal of blue added in. He has six cannons visible in this mode: his main roof-cannons, some secondary cannons on top of them, and a pair on the very front of his vehicle, done in unpainted gray to distinguish them from the painted silver surrounding them, in a really nice effect. The main cannons are cast in blue plastic, with red paint for the barrels, and black on the secondary cannons. Four wheels means that he rolls very well, even if they are just pegged on. The biggest downside to this is that the main cannons are obviously his arms. He even has visible fists on the back. At least the secondary cannons can pivot upwards. Oh, and unlike the G1 toy, he can’t seat a Titan Master. Oh well.

Onto Grommet, he’s almost entirely done in blue, which does a great job setting him apart from Gasket. However, he suffers from the same weakness as his G1 version, that being that his body is obviously a pair of legs. It would’ve been nice if the feet could fold up more, or if the legs actually pegged together to close the gap between them. That said, he still pulls off the vehicle mode better than his G1 toy, with a front end that isn’t obviously a connector, and actual treads and wheels, so he can actually roll. Plus he has some decent paint applications, with the red pipes on the top, and the rear, which actually has painted taillights... or are they afterburners? Either way, great touch. In terms of armament, he only really gets Cog’s handheld weapons, which peg in above the treads.

Before we move onto robot mode, I feel it’s worth mentioning that the vehicles can peg together front to back to form a larger vehicle. It’s about what you’d expect, and honestly feels kind of forced. Doesn’t help that the only thing holding them together is a flat tab that can barely withstand the force of rolling him around on a table.

Conversion

G1 Cog was a pure partsformer: aside from transforming into two separate vehicles, his arms had to be removed and reattached to change modes, and that was it. Siege Cog retains those same features, but adds some extra steps to help make the vehicles more cohesive. That said, it’s still a very basic transformation, basically amounting to flipping a couple parts around. Some may call this boring, but I think it works well enough given the result.

Robot Mode

In robot mode, Cog resembles a far more fleshed out take on his G1 self, with far more blue on his torso, as well as the additional color red, which was not present at all on the original toy. There’s some battle damage on his arms, but it’s very sparse in comparison to the rest of the line. I guess they thought too much of it would make it look odd next to Fortress Maximus. Whatever the case, it’s no big loss. Aside from that, most of the paint detail has already been shown to us in vehicle mode. The only real new detail is in the face, which is a pretty standard affair: square head with visor and mouthplate, with some horizontal lines molded in for extra definition. He also has two extra guns on his wrists in this mode, but these don’t accommodate the blast effect parts like his vehicle mode guns.

Speaking of weapons, Cog has two handheld rifles, which oddly enough, are sculpted after the gun from the original Cerebros toy. Still, they look good in his hands, though there is one problem. The handles are supposed to be the standard 5mm, but the sculpted detail on the sides makes it thinner than it should be. As a result, it doesn’t fit securely into any of the standard holes present on Cog or the other figures. They’ll sit in his hands just fine, but sag when in any horizontal peg, plus a good jostle will knock them out. I don’t see why they needed to mold details into the handle, it’s not like anyone’s going to see it, but it’s not a deal breaker.

At least he’s well articulated. Neck swivel, universal shoulders and hips, swivels at the biceps and thighs, 90 degree elbows, 180 degree knees, and ankle tilts. I’m loving how consistently posable these figures are, it really makes them fun to play with.

Weaponizing

As I said before, Cog is a Weaponizer, meaning that his body can come apart into add-on parts for other figures. In total, Cog is comprised of eight components, counting the handheld weapons. From here, there are almost limitless possibilities of combining with other figures, but I’m just going to examine the sample modes they gave you, both of which involve Sideswipe.

First is the defensive loadout, if one could call it that, given the massive amounts of guns Sideswipe’s packing. Twin shoulder cannons with extra barrels, forearm blasters, there’s even a pair of guns on his new boots! Really, the only thing that screams “defense” to me is the shield on his shoulder. Well, they say the best defense is a strong offense. Really, the only problem I have with this is, again, the rifles. Once again, they’re too loose to hold themselves up in this mode. Again, why sculpt on the pegs? Still, it’s a lot of fun, especially with how Cog’s head ends up right beside Sideswipe’s, as if to be coordinating strategies.

Next is the offensive loadout. Holy slag, I thought the defensive loadout was extreme. This mode puts almost every cannon available directly over Sideswipe’s shoulders. What amuses me is how he’s holding Gasket’s body as an extra handgun. Dude, you have two fragging bazookas over your shoulders, and that’s still not enough?! In all seriousness, it’s quite the impressive combo, though I can’t help but wonder if there were actually more barrels exposed in the defensive loadout. Then again, maybe it’s not about sheer barrel count as much as it is about concentration. All those barrels pointed at a single target can’t be a fun experience for said target. 

I feel like these modes were designed to show the two extremes the toy could pull off: either form a bunch of smaller weapons, or combine into a single superweapon. And let me say, it’s fun coming up with new ways to split Cog up amongst your other figures, and I’m sure it’ll only get more entertaining as I procure more Autobots.

Final Thoughts

On his own, Siege Cog isn’t much. If anything, he falls short with his more simplistic conversion. The main appeal of this figure is the Weaponizer gimmick, and it’s a fun gimmick. I can’t even begin to imagine all the possible ways one could configure this toy, and I’ve even seen people buy multiple of him to form even more insane configurations. All in all, I’d definitely recommend him to anyone who already has some of the other Siege figures, or even the Titan Fort Max. But if you don’t have either of those, Cog isn’t especially impressive. He’s not bad, just not something I’d go out of my way for without the Weaponizer gimmick.