The kitchen went great, I did the floor, the backsplash, the hardware, and redid all the outlets, just like I've been trying to do for the rest of the house. The only thing I had someone else do was the granite, and I hired them because its a job that I could really mess up and I don't have the experience, tools, expertise or time to complete. We used Sun Tile on Arrow... The owners are amazing, they are so sweet and nice and gave us an amazing deal, and, truth be told, the encouragement to do the rest of the tile job myself. Katie and I are totally going to use them again when we get the materials for the bathrooms and whatever. I will say though that they sent some guy who loved to smoke in my garage and took way too long to get his job done. I complained to the owners and they gave me some money off, apologized and did what they could to make it right. AGAIN, I LOVE SUN TILE. So, I found out that the neighbors are incredibly nice, and didn't call the police when I was cutting tile in my garage at 4am. I also found out how to install a new garage door opener when the granite guys broke ours. Thanks to some friends who know a ton about DIY, and some cold beer, I actually got a quieter, more powerful and smoother garage door opener. The kitchen was done, the wedding was a couple weeks away and I moved from starting new projects to cleaning up for my future wife. I cleaned out the garage for her car, cleaned the bathrooms for her and got myself ready to end the late nights of tile saws and thin set. I will say though, that for a person doing tile for the first time, I was pretty impressed with myself and found that the internet is an incredible tool when trying to learn how to do anything. At one moment, I finished sealing the granite and the tile and stood back and thought, "I created this, I've never done it before, I've never practiced, but somehow, I've created this." It is a truly awesome feeling.
Just recently, we got back for a longer extended period of time from our summer travels. We had been home for a few days at a time, but not really long enough to want to get started on stuff. We began a few days ago with us finally buying a BBQ grill. We wanted something small that would fit on the side yard next to all the jasmine we planted and ended up getting an awesome little thing thats stainless steel from Sams Club. Also, we decided to go through our wedding gifts. WHICH WAS AWESOME! We spent three days and countless trips to the dumpster getting rid of boxes and packing paper. We lined the cabinets in the kitchen and bought these slide outs for the cabinets to make sure all our stuff was accessible. The gift cards to Bed Bath and Beyond made it all possible. Then the gift cards from Target made our little string of lights along the back patio possible. It made things nice and we feel, for the most part, organized. The only big project left is the office, where we did finally give up on the desk refurb and bought a nice corner unit desk set up from IKEA. I used to think all the stuff there was useless crap, but I have been persuaded otherwise. I love our desk and we can't wait to get into the office and paint and set it all up. At the moment, its just boxes, papers, and the computer. We have a plan, but following through on a room that not many people see when they come over is hard. Really, we could take another 2 years and not many people would know, as long as I didn't keep blogging about it. But whatever.
The last couple things I will bore the audience with is the technology I've incorporated in the house and the tale of the final dangerous paint job that we took care of yesterday. As far as technology goes, its no secret that I'm a geek. I love learning about it, using it and unnecessarily incorporating into my life.
Fun Fact: The last Valentines Day Katie and I shared not married, she got me an Apple TV. Of course I
was gonna marry that girl when thats the gift I get on Valentines.
One of the coolest toys/gadgets we got was The Mint. Its an awesome Roomba like robot that goes around and swiffers the floor and then uses the swifter wet's to mop the floor. I had to have it and I love sending it around the house like my butler. I feel like the dad from Honey I Shrunk the Kids and his name is Woodhouse (any Archer fans will appreciate that one). Secondly, I fell in love with the Apple TV and the entire Apple home system. I am now running Apple TV, that talks to my Airport Extreme and connects my iMac upstairs in the office to the wall mounted LCD downstairs. I can look at all my pictures, listen to all my music and watch just about anything from Apple or Netflix on the TV. Its incredible! Finally, the latest tech gizmo that I'm using is the Schlage Link System. This system allows me to lock and unlock my doors via key, keypad or iPhone app. It also allows me to turn on and off lights, and control the thermostat all from my iPhone. Its incredible. I just installed the deadbolt tonight and hopefully, this means that with my car and the keypad on the Schlage, I will never have to touch my keys again. SO AWESOME! I don't know why that excites me so much... It just does.
Ok, so to round this all up the story of the large wall was that we have a wall that is in the stairwell that basically is around 20ft up. Katie and I had this brilliant idea to paint it an accent color to draw the eye up the entire wall. Sounds great, the only problem was trying to paint it. I used my little giant ladder and my dad's little giant ladder and while katie held the bottom for me, with cell phone in hand to call the ambulance, I climbed up painted the wall. It was sketchy, I had paint in my hands and I wasn't afraid of falling as much as falling and spilling paint everywhere. But we did it, it looks amazing and I'm so happy with the outcome. Katie started decorating for fall and while the house isn't completely done, the majority of the things that individuals who come over would notice are done and the rest, we can point out at our discretion. I will continue to post and I have pictures, but for whatever reason the website isn't letting me upload them right now. Blame it on the heat. Thanks for reading.
