Bedrooms

Well, I think this might take care of showing you the rest of the house since we moved in. I finished putting up the curtains today, so now I guess we're officially done moving in. Maybe now I can actually spend some time getting out in the neighborhood and exploring what all it has to offer. It was a pretty day today, so maybe I'll take a bike ride tomorrow.

Secondary Bedroom

View from the hallway. 

 

For now, I just have my old quilt on the bed. Jason wouldn't let me put my pink college bedding in there and I didn't want his plaid maroon college bedding. I did find a bedding set at Target that I think I am going to order.

I had told Jason awhile back that I really like distressed furniture. Especially the country chic look. After he saw the rug in the secondary bedroom, he told me that he thought this type of furniture would look good in there. 

Master Bedroom

 

View from the hallway.

 

Another view.

I want new bedside tables for this room as well. We don't really like matchy furniture, so I was thinking about a round pedestal table for my side of the bed and maybe a square table with a drawer or drawers for Jason's side.

Flea Update

So Radar's been biting himself a lot today, so I just did a flea check. I found two of them. It's just so aggravating. We've treated inside, we've treated outside, he's taken flea baths, had his monthly medicine, and is wearing a flea collar and there are still fleas! I feel like we are never going to completely win the battle. 
 
Today a stray cat came and sat on our front door step and meowed for about 10 minutes. Something tells me that the old owners must have been feeding it. I'm usually an animal lover, but not when they are bringing fleas into my yard and house. 
 
Jason and I realize that if we had found two fleas on Radar a year ago, it wouldn't have been a big deal at all. Wash his bedding, make sure he was current on his meds, and that would be it. Now though, we are just sooo paranoid that it is going to become as big of issue as it was when we moved in. We just can't go through that again. Ugh. Can fleas survive winter? Please tell me they can't. 
 
Ok, I'm done with my flea rant. 
 
Next week I need to buy clippers and learn to groom the dog. Since we moved, our groomer can't come visit us every 6 weeks anymore. And I hate taking Radar to the groomer's since he isn't a big fan of other dogs, so I'm determined to learn to do it myself. I'll be saving a bunch of money too. Wish me well in that endeavour. It should be an adventure in itself.

Jason's New Present & The Gate Fiasco

So I've been debating on whether or not to post this because of how ridiculous I think it is, but here we go. Jason decided he needed something new for the house. You see, Jason and I still have the TV's that we've had since we were mere kiddos. I personally like the TV's. They work. They've been by our sides through thick and thin. But, conveniently, Jason's TV developed a nice little sound as soon as we moved in. I didn't mind the puttering. Turn the volume up a little, and it was barely noticeable. Jason only used the sound to help his cause. I never quite agreed to this purchase, but somehow, we now have a replacement for Jason's TV.

Our old TV. I love it. It is great.

The replacement. Apparently, they don't even sell sets like ours anymore. Who knew? Jason wanted a 3D flat screen, but settled for a "regular" 46 inch LED. Ridiculous, I know. This is now the reason we are never able to open our blinds again. To me, it's only a big invitation to people to rob our house. (Disclaimer: If any robbers read this blog, please do not come take our TV.)

If you look at it from this angle, it is like it isn't even there.

So, in conclusion, happy birthday, Christmas, and anniversary for the next 3 years, Babe. I hope you enjoy your new present.

On another note, our automatic gate opener decided to stop working this morning. We didn't know how to manually override it, so we had to borrower Ferryn and Steve's extra car to get to work. I decided to take the bus home instead accepting rides from friends and co-workers. I'm paying for parking downtown right now, and I thought riding the bus would help me make a decision on whether or not I could cancel my parking contract to continue to take the bus or ride my bike. Here's the pro and con list I put together after my fun ride.

Pro's

1. Cheaper than paying for a parking contract.

2. Environmentally friendly.

3. I would be walking nearly a mile a day. (0.5 miles from my house to the bus stop twice a day.)

4. During the walk, it would be nice getting a little sun.

Con's

1. I still haven't come up with a solution for bad weather days.

2. The bus goes through the ghetto so it is a bit stinky and crowded.

And the possible deal breaker...

3. I got honked at 3 times and a "hey you want a ride" offer on my walk home today. I wasn't even wearing my "Honk if you dig this" T-shirt.

So, we shall see. Luckily, Jason found a way to temporarily work the gate, so this isn't a decision I have to make today.

Dining Room & Reading Room

Whew! I'm exhausted today. I think the move has finally caught up with me. Last night we spent the evening cleaning our apartment. We are officially moved out - handed in our keys and all. We are 90% done moving in and unpacking the house as well. We have some more curtains to put up, but that is about it. Of course, we will never be done with all of the projects we have on our list, but I guess you could say that we are officially moved in. Here are some more pictures of the progress we have made unpacking and decorating.

Dining Room

It's finally feeling like home. :)

We still want a size appropriate rug and eventually a new dining set (not that we don't love and appreciate our garage sale find, Mom), but this is works for now. I like that I can finally use my cabinet as a buffet. It will come in handy for serving guests if we ever have family or friends over for real meals.

We have used this bookshelf as a visual division between the living room and dining room. I thought our floors were going to be nearly as dark as this wood, but boy was I wrong. We LOVE our refinished floors by the way. Totally worth it.

Reading Room

This room was one of the reasons we bought this house. It is so nice to just sit down and enjoy cup of coffee and a good book while looking out the windows. The pictures were another garage sale find by Jason while I was in San Fran. I think they really brighten the room up.

Another view. The book shelf only holds about 1/2 of our books. Eventually, Jason wants to build a new shelving unit that holds more. I am still debating if I want to bring the piano from my parents' house over. If I did, I think I would put it where the book shelf is now and move the books to the opposite wall.

Don't I look comfortable?

Okay, I'm headed to bed soon. I have a 6 am flight to Atlanta tomorrow to meet with a customer. Another long day - and days - ahead of me. I'm looking forward to a quiet Memorial day weekend.

Chicken Spaghetti & Wine

Jason made us dinner last night and we opened a bottle of wine we brought back from Sonoma. We had been looking forward to drinking the bottle of wine to celebrate moving in, and when we had to push out our move in date we never thought we were going to be able to enjoy it.

These salads are straight from our backyard. We would have had more tomatoes but Ferryn stole some of them.

The rosemary and parsley is also from our backyard. We used it to flavor the chicken spaghetti.

This is the aforementioned wine from Sonoma.

Enjoying the meal. Notice the hammer and nail box to my right.

Radar was just plum worn out. He had been up since 4 am when we got up.

Moving In

Consider this a sneak peak post. We were finally able to move in yesterday. Our movers weren't set to come until 4 pm so we didn't really have all of our stuff in till about 7 pm. Jason was pretty burnt out so we didn't get much done last night, but he woke up at 4 am and was ready to start unpacking. So, all of our stuff is here and we have started putting up decorations, but we are no where near being settled in. Here are just a few pics to keep you entertained until I can show off more of the house and neighborhood.

Master Bath

This is our orange master bath. I first thought I was just going to buy new bath decorations to match it like I did the green bathroom, but I really like our existing stuff. And, I just really dislike the color. It really doesn't match the blue in the bedroom either.

So, I've decided I'm going to paint. This is the new color scheme.

Can you picture it? I think it will look really nice.

Patio Furniture
I've been sorta looking for patio furniture for awhile now. My criteria has been: 1) affordable and 2) not too flimsy. I found a set yesterday that fits both criteria. You wouldn't guess where I found it either. Kroger. Ha. I haven't bought it yet, but I'm pretty excited about it either way. 

Flea Update

Oh, how are the fleas you ask? Well, we found 3 yesterday, but I'm pretty sure Radar had brought in 2 of them. The other one was from the garage. The ones we are finding are very slow and lethargic. Like the are on their last leg of life. Radar has a fresh dose of his flea medicine and outside is still pretty well dusted, so I'm hoping they don't become near the problem they were. I'm pretty sure Jason and I are scarred for life though. Last night, our first night in our home-sweet-home, we both had nightmares about flea infestations.

I'll post more updates later this week. I don't want to show too much until we are fully unpacked and decorated.

Guest Bath & New Rugs

Today we ran over to the house to show it to my parents. Flea counts were 0 inside and 1 outside. With those counts, we felt pretty good about starting to decorate. I cleaned the bathrooms and put together our guest bath with the new shower curtain and towels we had picked out. We also rolled out the rugs to see how they would look in the spaces. I ended up going back over there this evening to roll the rugs back up after I read that the floors really need to cure a full 7 days before you put anything down, but it was nice to see how they would look in the space either way.

Guest Bath

I think the new shower curtain and the brown towels and bath mat look good given the color we were given to work with. Jason is still unsure, but it will work for now.

Another view of the bath.

Jason installed this new Kohler shower head. It is fancy.

Rugs

The living room rug. It is bigger than we meant to get, but I think it will work once we get all of our furniture in there. It works well with the floor and wall colors as well.

We originally had bought this rug to use under the dining room table, but like I said, I accidentally got way too big of sizes. So, it will be used in the guest bedroom.

Other Fun

I brought Radar with me this evening when I ran over. I didn't want to chance him getting fleas from outside and I didn't want him on the wood floors, so I carried him in and barricaded him in the kitchen. He wasn't too happy with me, but I threw him his toy frog so he was a little happier.

As I was leaving, this guy rode by. He was selling raspas (snowcones for those of you not from S. Texas.) I'm kinda looking forward to taking advantage of this this summer. We also had a icecream truck come by earlier this afternoon. Icecream and raspas and a hot summer day - what more could you ask for?

Finished Floors

Our floors are finished! Between my camera and the lighting, the pictures don't really do them justice, but they really do look nice.

Before

After

A close up of the grain.

The finished second bedroom.

From the pictures, they don't really look much darker than what the original owners had in there, but we can definitely tell the difference in person. Now Jason and I walk around and notice all the imperfections in our walls, windows, doors, etc. The floors outshine everything (literally and figuratively.)

We won't have much to report for the next few days. The flea issue seems pretty much resolved in the house. (hooray!) I'm afraid to celebrate too much until we give them a few days to see if they are going to gather their armies to lead a second round of attacks against us. We can't really do much about the fleas outside this weekend because rain is in the forecast. (Did anyone experience the crazy storms that went through last night? Even Radar was a bit upset, and he never gets scared of storms. He even slept through Hurricane Ike for goodness sakes!) Once the rain pasts, we'll do another good dusting of the yard.

I think (cross our fingers) that we will be moving in next weekend. We want to give the floors a week to dry and harden before we start dragging our stuff across them. Jason might run over there to do a few projects next week, but for the most part, we are playing the waiting game.

It's really only been two weeks since we closed on the house, but it feels like this has taken a year off of our lives. Ferryn said that a bad move in makes for a happy homeowner experience for the rest of the time (kinda like the rain on a wedding day makes for a good marriage idea), but I'm 99% sure she just made that up to make us feel better. I guess we'll just have to see, but I'm hoping for at least a few weeks of less excitement.