Pretty Flowers to Brighten your Day

These are the flowers Ted gave me for Valentine's Day. I got to enjoy them for a full week, and now you can enjoy them, too.

Construction in Progress

This slideshow has pictures from Ted's job site. Construction is going well on the apartments, thanks to lots of dry weather and a good construction superintendent. Ted's staff is now working on getting people in to sign leases and fill the place up. There's also pictures of his temporary office, which is a double wide trailer that has a pretty snazzy decorating job.



In other construction news, not a whole lot has happened on our own remodel since we had our cabinets designed, but it looks like we can get started on our floors soon. That means we get to work on tearing out our current flooring. We will, of course, post pictures and updates about our progress.

Go Bears!

Ted and I will be in the stands when the men's basketball team takes on the #11 ranked Texas Longhorns. You can check out the game on ESPN Saturday night. Game begins at 5 p.m. CST. Look for us in the crowd!

If you want to track the progress of the Bears, check out the following links:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/clubhouse?teamId=239

http://homepages.baylor.edu/baylorproud/2008/02/12/ferrell-center-gold-out-sold-out-for-saturday/

Appliance Delivery

Remember what I said about us possibly having a problem getting the appliances installed? Well, I was right. The delivery men called on Wednesday around 11:30 am, right as I was trying to run out the door to pick up some lunch for Ted. So, Ted got to sit at work with an empty stomach while I waited impatiently at home. They finally showed up at noon. They reminded me that they don't install micro-hoods (guess that's too much work for them). I had already been notified about this and expected as much. Then came the bad news. They could not remove the old stove or install the new one because ours is hardwired (i.e. we don't plug our stove into an outlet). So, they left the appliances in the kitchen and went on their merry way.

That mess you see to the left is what we were left with. Yes, that's right - two micro-hoods and two stoves. Far too much stuff for our little condo.

As you can imagine, Ted was less than thrilled when he got home at 1:30. I scurried off to pick up his lunch while he gathered his tools. After lunch, we got started. Let me tell you, removing original appliances from a condo that was built in 1984 is a dirty job. I won't relay all the gross details; I'm sure your imagination will fill in the gaps.

Ted pulled out the oven first. It didn't take him all that long, and he didn't have any electrical mishaps like we had at Apt. D on 4th St. Next, he got to work on the microwave. Taking it out was interesting. I got on the ladder and removed the bolts while he balanced it on his shoulders. When it was loose, he walked it out and placed it on the floor. Let me tell you how nice it is to have a husband who is both strong and good with tools. We never would have gotten through this job if it had not been for Ted's expertise - and muscle power. Here's a picture of Ted hard at work:

We were able to get 8 whole dollars for the oven when we dropped it off at the recycling plant. That was another interesting experience. We drove up on a truck scale and were weighed. Then, Ted drove around and unloaded the oven. We returned to the truck scale and were weighed again. This allowed them to know how much to pay us. Tin gets you $8 for every 100 lbs, and that old monster weighed 100 lbs exactly.

I recommend that everyone recycle an old oven at least once in his or her life. It is an experience that no person should miss. You will see all kinds of interesting people in the rustiest trucks around. We also got the added thrill of watching a small fire burn near gasoline pumps.

After that trek, we headed back to the condo to finish installing the new appliances. Ted handled all the prep work, which included drilling several new holes in the wall, and the vast majority of the installation. I helped out when I could. Mostly, I was responsible for fetching tools and drilling things in that were too heavy for me to hold up. Once the microwave was in, Ted had to hardwire the new oven. This was a task. We have a rather short wire that connects from the wall to the oven, which left Ted with a very small space to work in. He managed to get it wired and had to wiggle his way out by climbing over the floor cabinet between the oven and the refrigerator, extending his hands to the floor, and "walking" himself out of there. Not to worry - he made it out in one piece.

Here is a picture of Ted's handiwork - and our lovely new appliances. The microwave is MASSIVE, and, unlike the old microwave, we're fairly certain that it won't explode. The oven works great, too. It is a little strange cooking on a ceramic cook top. I'm never really sure if my pans are centered over the burners or not. But there's no gunky build up under the coils to worry about anymore. And we don't have to wonder if our oven will want to heat up. This new one works perfectly. Now we just need to use it enough to get rid of that "new oven" smell.

Survey

I feel the need to explain that odd little survey that has been sitting on the side bar of the blog. You see, Ted and I have already decided what color to paint our half bath. We are going for the mint green color, to match the sink we are planning to put in it. To the left is a picture that is close to the one we have picked out. The main difference between the vanity you see here and the one we want is the vanity top. The one we want has a glass top (see below).

The color of the glass is very close to a mint green color. So, we agreed to paint the whole downstairs bath that color and put a darker glaze over it. Then, we'll use the base of a straw broom and run it over the wet glaze, creating texture and stripes. I'm excited to try out this technique and see how it looks. Of course, we'll post pictures once it's done. It will likely be several months down the road, but I thought I'd give you a preview.

Update on the kitchen: we met with our designer last week and got to see the design and the figures. The design is great; the figures are high. Warren is redesigning the kitchen to give us a lower figure. We're looking at our options now to see how we can cut costs and still get the kitchen we want. Don't worry - we're good at making this kind of stuff happen.

New applicances

After a long and rather frustrating phone call this morning, I finally ordered our new oven and microwave. We put in a warranty call on both. All of the appliances in the condo are original, and, while they all work (or they did when we moved in), they don't really work that well. When my parents were here for Thanksgiving, the microwave died. And the oven has a mind of its own. If it feels like heating up, it will. But it really doesn't like to be set at 350.

Luckily, the old microwave and oven will be gone before Valentine's Day, to be replaced by the following new appliances:




















It will be nice to have sleek, new black appliances. The whole wood trim thing just doesn't do it for me, especially when it comes to appliances. It's even nicer that we don't have to completely foot the bill for these appliances. Our warranty company provided us with an allowance for a specific set of appliances but gave us the option to upgrade. We happily took the upgrade (who wouldn't want the wholesale price?).

We'll let you know how installation goes. The cabinet guy who came over today made it sound like we're going to have to do some rewiring to get our oven to function properly. *Sigh* I guess we'll just cross that bridge when we come to it.