Cable!!!

So, for Christmas this year Renee and I decided that we would finally break down and get cable.  We had tried to get through just using an antenna but the reception in our neck of the woods is just plain awful.  So… we got it.

We also used some Christmas money and purchased a new 27-inch SDTV (not a High-Definition, but a digital standard definition) and rearranged our living room.  The other TV is downstairs in our basement, and is also wired into our computer so we can record live TV to our computer’s hard drive.

So… tonight I am enjoying watching the Orange Bowl without worrying about adjusting the antenna, and it’s nice.

Painting is Finished!

Well, the brown wall is no more and our living room as returned to normal, except it looks a much cooler shade of turqoise than it did before.  Check it out:

You also can now see pictures of my workspace, care of Best Buy and Ikea

In celebration of our accomplishment we had a full sit down dinner, complete with candles.  Renee made stuffed peppers which were, as expected, wonderful.  I have to say that not since I lived at home with my parents have I eaten as well as I have since I got married.

Tomorrow we have one last trip to Ikea planned to get our dining room table, window treatments, and shelves for the dining room area.  Then I think we’ll finally have the initial outfitting of our house complete.

More Painting Adventures…

So last night Renee and I plugged away at our painting project until about 1 am when we finally called it quits… highlights included pulling out the fridge and stove to paint behind them.

Today we put the finishing touches on the kitchen and moved onto the dining room with the same color.  This didn’t stop us from having some fun though while painting.  Here you can see Renee showing off her fabulous artwork

Late in the afternoon Renee decided she wanted to go for a taupe color for one of the four walls in our living room.  But… as you can see, it didn’t turn out quite as well as we had hoped.

So tomorrow we hope to wrap up the painting adventure by turning that wall to turqoise.  Once it’s all done it’ll look great.

Let the Painting Begin!

Renee and I have embarked upon our first home improvement project since we were married – painting the entire downstairs. We got started today with the kitchen. Here’s Renee showing off our very first wall!

Homeowners!

The less than frequent updates of late have been due to the fact that Renee and I are in the midst of getting settled into our new house.  We officially closed last Thursday and spent Friday through Monday shopping, assembling, and unpacking everything in our new house.  Somehow Renee and I managed to survive three years of being our of college and between us we owned no major furniture.  I owned a desk chair, a bookcase, and a beat up computer desk.  Renee owned a dresser and a twin bed.  That's it.  Thank goodness for our parents who have contributed a double bed, a futon, lights, and a cedar chest to our cause.  Another thank you goes out to the good people at Best Buy and Ikea, which are officially our two favorite stores now.  All the new furniure in our house we've purchased at Ikea (seriously) which includes a couch, loveseat, computer table, two filing cabinets, a kitchen island, a chest of eight drawers, and a wardrobe.  We also purchased a bed but don't have a mattress or springs for it yet, as well as a set of shelves that we're going to wait to put up until we've painted.

Our parents were a huge help for the move.  They came down Thursday with the van and spent Friday and Saturday with us helping get things from Ikea loaded and unloaded, cleaning our oven (thanks Mom!), and moving our washer and dryer.  Renee's dad and brother drove down to Maryland last Wednesday and helped us move all of Renee's stuff (along with Harley, an elder from Hampton).  And Renee's mom and brother came over Saturday with all the wedding and shower presents and put together our chest of drawers.  Needless to say, we are really appreciative of all that they've done to help us with the moving and unpacking process.  

Besides Ikea, Best Buy, where I have a Reward Zone card (thank goodness) has been our second favorite merchant.  They provided our fridge as well as our new "TV".  Renee and I decided to put my desktop computer in our living room, and connect it to a TV there.  Then Renee came up with the idea to replace my two bulky 19 inch monitors with two new LCD screens – and instead of getting a TV just get a nicer LCD monitor.  Well, she didn't need to convince me twice of that.  So we now have two nice Westinghouse LCD screens (a 19'' and a 20.1'' which doubles as our TV).  Needless to say it looks a lot better than the two CRT monitors did.

So far the only hiccups we hit was being unable to lock the sliding door out to the deck (which I managed to fix with a hammer), having the gas company shut off our gas (even though I called them two weeks ago and told them to switch the account over), having to rewire a dryer for a three-prong plug (which I almost managed to do completely right – thanks to a little help from Rick (another person from church)), and having a two-hour wrestling match with our freezer and refrigerator doors as I tried (and eventually suceeded) in reversing the way it opened, and having the wireless card on my desktop decide it wasn't going to work for more than three hours.  Other than that, it's been clear sailing.  On a side note – my handyman skills are improving daily.  

Today is the first day we've had in a while to just relax – and we're looking forward to that.  Tomorrow we're off to Roanoke Virginia for our honeymoon.  When when we get back we have about a week (I have a feeling Renee is going to have me painting) then I start work.  Lots of changes – but all very exciting.  

We’re home

Well, as of 4:30 yesterday Renee and I are officially homeowners.  Everything went smoothly at the closing yesterday and we got most of our stuff at least into our garage last night.  Today we're going to start unpacking, Armstrong is coming to set up our internet access (I'm borrowing from a nice unsecured neighbor right now), hopefully we're going to order a refrigerator, and then we're going to go to Ikea to start putting stuff into our house to sit on, etc.

It also seems surreal to me to finally have the move done.  For seven years I've been a squatter here in Western PA – living here, but "home" was always in Rochester.  Now, this is really home.  All things considered, it's really exciting.   

I also expect to have wedding pictures available for posting soon – maybe even today.   

Moving…

Well, the next big day is upon us – Renee's moving.  We close on our new house tomorrow at 4:30 PM, so the task of this evening and tomorrow morning is packing and loading all of Renee's stuff into two cars and two trucks and moving it to our new house.  We're getting help from Hampton (thank goodness) and Renee's Dad and brother are coming also, so we'll have lots of help.  After the closing tomorrow we'll be setting up just what we need to have set up to live, and then Friday the great adventure of equipping our house begins.