Settling.

Our friends Jackie and Jeff were due to fly in Friday afternoon. Jacks called me at noon saying that the weather was too bad and their flight was delayed. Due to all of the delays they would miss thier connection and there were no other flights with any openings for them. So, they drove! I figured they'd get here around 10 or 11 that night. They ran into the I-81 debacle in Pennsylvania, however, and didn't even make it to Philly until 7pm! Poor things! They drove the whole thing anyway and got here about 3:30am. To my surprise they were up and dressed before Ted and I the next morning and in tip top shape. The four of us ventured out to some local shops and got some eats. We then wandered around the Duke campus for a bit and our friends were THRILLED to meet some of the crazy undergrads that camp out for free tix to the games. We even got to go into Cameron Indoor Stadium and take some pictures while it was fairly empty. They had tickets to the Sunday game and had an absolute riot in thier sweet courtside seats. We did a bit more exploring the rest of the weekend along with a lot of catching up and hanging out. It was a really great time and I was sad to see them go. It was so nice having another couple to pal around with! I've tried to describe to Jackie how pretty the Sarah Duke Gardens are in the spring, so hopefully they'll come back soon to check it out! Here's some pics from our adventures:









Haven't done much house-wise lately, but it's been a welcomed break. We've caught up on some movies and have finally been able to enjoy just "hanging around the house."

It was gorgeous weather down here today and I was able to finally retire my winter coat for a bit. I got home from work, put my stuff down, and saw that it has started raining out. It came as a bit of a surprise because the sun was still shining away...which can only mean one thing: A RAINBOW!! Ted and I ran outside and saw this beauty right outside our door. After a couple of minutes it turned into a double decker!

Operation Domestication Part Deux

It's 1:34am on Friday. I should be sleeping. Instead, I just got done hanging curtains. Ted and I took a wee bit of a nap after dinner (read: passed out until after 9pm) so I had a lot of catching up to do. I battled with a Target console table for a good 2-2.5 hours, and still had cleaning and organizing and curtain hanging to do! I think Ted has officially banned me from putting things together, but fortunately, I think that was our last project for awhile. When we first moved in together he used to pick on the majority of my furniture because I would get tired of putting things together halfway through and it became very obvious. Screws and nails would be crooked, pieces of wood would be haphazardly put in place. When putting together the armoire for the bedroom I even omitted some pieces and just threw them out. This boggles Ted. I try to explain that I just wanted the armoire to put my TV on, so I didn't care if the shelves inside of it were put together correctly. Or at all for that matter. He just shakes his head and calls me "Geri Junior."

At any rate, he had a book report to write for school tonight and our new console table arrived today, so I decided to have at it before he knew what I was up to. Before long I was grunting and groaning and breaking things and denting wood. I finally finished and realized I had put the backing on backwards...so the ugly cardboard color was what you saw when you looked at the shelves. I think it was at that point that he seriously banned me from putting things together again. I was able to fix it though, and I think it came out pretty good despite my mishaps. A little wood wax stuff and you can't really even see where I gouged it with the hammer (in 3 spots). I fancy myself a carpenter.



So, our company arrives tomorrow (weather permitting) and the house looks pretty good if I do say so myself. I made curtains for the guest bedroom last night and hung them tonight. I think they are adorable and I love the pattern, though I was just informed by Teddy that our friend John isn't too keen on it. I informed Teddy that he is no longer invited to sleep in the guest bedroom. He's demoted to the futon now. The curtains were made from another bedspread that I bought (got them at Urban Outfitters) and it was super easy to make them because most of the edges were already trimmed. Gotta love that.

In home disaster news, we got our first estimate for repairing the floors today. Well, the lady came by to check it out anyway. She says there is a small chance that the damage could get better with time, but also said that the wrinkling could cause the wood to wear faster in that area as well. She's going to type us an estimate for the repair though. Oh! Get this! I got the letter from Frigidaire yesterday, and along with photos, estimates, and the service invoice, they also want the ACTUAL PART that was broken. Have you ever heard of such a thing? They also politely "invited" me to take the matter up with my homeowners insurance. I'm going to politely decline this invitation. I have a snarky letter to Mary already written in my mind. What a pain this whole thing is. Of interest, however, Glenda from the floor place said she's going to put in a claim to the floor manufacturer too. I'm not quite sure if this means she thinks they'll pay for damage, but whatever floats her boat. She also said it's pointless to get another estimate, as that company would not have access to the dye lot information and if they used wood from another dye lot it would totally be noticeable. That's not going to fly with Frigidaire though ("Glenda said I didn't need a second estimate...") so we're going to get one anyway.

Okay, I seriously have to go to bed. It's no good cutting people on only a few hours sleep...

Here's some pictures of finished rooms!

More Curtains!

I made some curtains for the french doors in our bedroom. Fun!

Operation Domestication!

We went to Lowe's together Friday night (the new date night?) and got a bunch of supplies for our weekend projects. I was feeling sassy and wanted to paint two rooms (my office and the half bath) this weekend and Teddy wanted to finish up some shelving for his office. We found a hundred dollars worth of other things we needed, of course, but left feeling like true home owners and ready to tackle some tasks. Sometime after midnight, I had already painted the majority of BOTH rooms (I told you I was feeling sassy) and Ted had installed and filled his shelves.



Saturday was spent running errands (I love Craig's List. We got a weight bench and weight set for 40 bucks. Perfect condition) and then we finished tackling some projects at night. I made my first ever set of curtains to finish off the bathroom and I love them! Some lines aren't straight (How do you get a perfectly straight line with a sewing machine? I'll be going along just fine and feeling good, but then I start to think "this shouldn't be this easy, this line shouldn't be this straight," and all of a sudden things go awry and cockeyed.) but all in all in think they look good for my first try! I've been eyeing the fabric I used for these curtains for months now. I loved it so much, but had no idea where I could use it. My sister-in-law Mindy told me that it's always best to pick your fabrics for a room first and then match the paint to it, rather than trying to find a fabric to match your paint choice. So I took her advice and wandered around the Lowe's paint section with my fabric. Ted wasn't thrilled about my color choice for the bathroom while I was painting, but likes it now that it is all pulled together. He gave me creative authority in regards to decorating the half bath, so I didn't have to worry too much when he said he didn't like the color, but I'm glad he likes the finished product.





Ted helped me mount my office shelves to the wall so they don't sway under the weight of all the crap I keep on them and I must say it was very easy and works great. I told Ted I'm glad he's around with knowledgeable suggestions, otherwise I would have watched my shelves sway until they broke.

I got the inspiration for the color of my office from a picture of an office in a magazine. That office had all white furniture in it and a gorgeous and super expensive flowered rug, but this is the best interpretation of it I can afford. Green is my favorite color and this shade rocks my world. I still have some more white accents to add and have to make curtains out of the same fabric that the bedspread is made of, but so far am pleased with the way it has turned out.



Well, it's time to get back to work. I've been in slow motion today and there are still a billion things to get accomplished before our guests arrive on Friday!

If I have to call Lowe's one more time...

So, this week has been a fury of phone calls to the builder, Lowe's, the subcontractor that installed the floors, and Frigidaire. It's been very frustrating to say the least, but I'm hoping that we've made some progress. To start off, the builder, sub contractor, flooring company, and Lowe's claim it's not their problem. That leaves Frigidaire. The fridge worked fine for the first few days we had it, so that leaves me to believe that Lowe's hooked it up correctly. Even when the freezer broke, the fridge portion was still working correctly. So it seems it must be a manufacturer problem. The delivery guy that picked up the broken fridge said he's seen problems with the Frigidaire compressors breaking--something about having to work too hard to cool down the fridge. He was the one that suggested we go after Frigidaire to fix the floors. After being transferred to many different numbers, I finally ended up at Frigidaire's liability department. I got a voice mail asking me to leave a message and someone would call back. I left a message and no one called. I continued to obsess and freak out about the floors. I called back and demanded to speak to a human being in the liabilities department. I was told that was impossible (What? Are there no human beings there?). The operators only have a number for the liabilities department voice mail. I told the woman I found it hard to believe that no one in the entire Frigidaire corporation knew how to speak to a human being in the liabilities department. I asked to speak to her manager. I was assured the manager would tell me the same thing. She finally offered to call the voice mail for me and leave a message on my behalf with the hopes that they would pay a bit more attention to it and call me sooner. I agreed and hung up, exhausted.

Mary from liabilities called me later that afternoon. We were cordial at first. That was, until she informed me that I had not followed proper procedure in dealing with this issue. I swear, dear reader, I am not making this up. She told me that I went about it all wrong because I did not have my FIVE DAY OLD VERY EXPENSIVE REFRIGERATOR serviced by their service company. Like a sane person who just spent ridiculous amounts of money on a brand new house and refrigerator, I returned the damn thing to the store when I found it broken days after purchase. As a matter of fact, I DID call the service company, but they couldn't send anyone out to the house for at least 2 days. I was afraid of the floors being ruined (little did I know, they already were), and also needed something to keep my food cold in. So I returned it. This was wrong. When I told dear Mary how ridiculous it was that her company expected me to wait until a service person could come look at the fridge, she told me that nonetheless, that is there protocol. I then berated her and her company for awhile. She informed me that she would look at my paperwork and review the case, but "could make no guarantees" since I'm a big idiot and did it all wrong according to them. I told her that I will give her the paperwork and call her again once I have everything in order, suggesting that she get someone in a higher level involved to review the circumstances of the case. We parted ways.

The snag here is that since I didn't leave a broken fridge leaking water on my new floors, then I don't have a service invoice and I can't prove it was manufacturer defect (Apparently they think Ted and I have a penchant for putting giant puddles on our floors and then getting big companies to pay for the damage).

Cue about a billion more phone calls to Lowe's. At last I was able to reach my boy Lyndell, who assured me that the fridge would be serviced by Lowe's, and if I just call Lisa in shipping and receiving, I can get a copy of that service invoice. A-ha! Take that Mary!

Lisa is going to be a doll and call me when I can come pick up a copy of the invoice, in about a week or so. In the meantime, I need to get two estimates (on company letterhead--Mary told me I can't just get a friend to give me an estimate. Thanks, Mar), color photos (please, I had those the day it happened), and wait for Frigidaire to send me the paperwork telling ME what paperwork I need to send THEM. There's the rub. Mary says that should take 7-10 business days, but because we had it out with one another, I'm expecting it to take longer.

Then we wait until Frigidaire reviews said paperwork and decides whether or not they are responsible. So before you go to bed tonight, say a little prayer for a manufacturer defect!

I love all of the hoops they make you jump through in the hopes of you just giving up and fixing the damage yourself. Well, they've got another thing coming if they think this little lady will be giving up anytime soon. I have a lot of Teddy (my late grandfather) and Geri (my mother) Baron in me, and I will not rest until I've jumped through every hoop they toss at me and come out victorious. A crusade against Frigidaire! I won't rest until I have unwarped floors!

In other news, we love our house! Pulling into the driveway at night with the little porch light on is the coolest thing. We still have a bit more unpacking to do and I have some painting plans for this weekend. We have our first overnight house guests coming next weekend, so we need to get everything in order by then. When I came home for lunch today (oh yeah, lunch at home every day is awesome) Ted was busy putting together the bar stools for the kitchen counter and they are adorable. The cats spend their days gazing out windows and lounging around. Yesterday I caught both of them standing at the back door just staring out into the yard. Too funny. We also set up our new treadmill the other night and it is SO. AWESOME. So convenient and it works great. All in all, the house process has been pretty smooth and definitely great. I'll be happy when I don't have to make phone calls to automated systems on a daily basis anymore, but other than that things are fine. As my sister-in-law Mindy said, someday we'll look back on this floor thing and laugh. We actually already are, since the whole thing is just so absurd.

Hopefully I'll have some more pictures in the next day or two of our progress.

It Was A Day.

So, Ted cleaned up the puddle while I got on the horn with Lowe's. They directed me to the service center. They couldn't send anyone until Tuesday. They directed me back to Lowe's. The appliance guy directed me to the Assistant Manager. He offered to upgrade us to a stainless steel fridge and deliver this afternoon. All seemed well. When Ted and I started cleaning out the old fridge this afternoon, however, we noticed that the hardwood floors are already warping. Now, I knew that these were pretty cheap hardwood floors, but we didn't have a choice in the matter and I was just thrilled to have something that resembled the real thing, being the first house and all. I was not, however, expecting them to completely warp if they get wet. To be fair, it was a standing puddle of water, but Ted and I didn't go to sleep until 5am this morning, and I know there was no puddle there just before that hour. I stepped in the puddle at 10:45 this morning. So it's not like it was sitting there for days. At any rate, the floors in front of the fridge are ruined. 5 days after moving in. So classic. It appears from the literature that it will be covered under warranty, but I have yet to fight that battle. I'm going to call the builder tomorrow and have him come look and tell me what to do. The biggest concern is the future of these floors. How do I clean them if the warp when they get wet? Many questions to be answered. Needless to say, most of our day was spent dealing with the fridge issue, and now whenever I look at the floor in the kitchen I die a little inside. Ted kept me grounded today, thankfully, or I would have had a total kicking and screaming meltdown I think.


Just. Died. A. Little.

I can't look at it anymore. It's killing me.

The bane of my existence.

We had so many busy errands to run the past couple of days that I feel like I didn't get anything done, but in reality there are only a few unpacked boxes left so we've done quite well. We finally got the master bedroom situated after a house hunt for the screws to put the bed together. I did a great job preparing them in a nice plastic baggie so they wouldn't get lost, but then couldn't remember where I had put the damn thing. My biggest fear was that I had left it in the capable hands of the movers, which would mean it got dropped or lost or thrown away somewhere along the move. I finally found it though and we can sleep in a somewhat organized room tonight.

We put the mailbox that Ted's mom made for us today and it looks so cute! Thanks Pam! I love it...


Our boring "before" mailbox

T Bone gets crazy with his cordless drill

Ta Da! So cute!

The cats are settling in well. Mortimer spends 99% of his days staring out the windows. I thought he was only up there when he saw a bird outside, but today I saw him sitting in the same spot for hours watching the leaves blow around. He's such a weirdo. Ethel spends her time walking on window sills and sleeping.




So, as I said, we've made some progress. We still have quite a few pieces of new furniture to put together and have yet to completely set up the living room and loft, but we can move around easily and the place looks somewhat presentable. We had some friends over Friday night and they loved the place despite the mess. It was nice to know that we aren't just biased admirers of this place (despite the floor debacle)!

Trials and Tribulations.

Woke up this morning and stepped in a giant puddle of water on the brand new hardwood floors in the kitchen. Water was pouring from the freezer side of our new very expensive refrigerator. That's all I have to say about that right now.

Progress

We've been working day and night unpacking boxes and arranging things. Just when we get a room "finished" and cleared of boxes, it's time to pull boxes out the garage or another area we've got them piled up. Then there's the shopping runs to Target, Walmart, and Lowe's. It's been a riot though and it's coming together nicely. Here's some shots from the first couple of days. Much progress has been made since these were taken, as illustrated by the stack of empty boxes that I documented today.

We wake up every morning with new sore muscles. This morning was better than the previous days as I was able to actually take a few steps as soon as I stood up. On previous mornings I cried out in pain as my calf muscles felt like they were tearing. I counted 26 separate bruises on one leg the other morning and every time I wake up it seems there are more. Apparently I'm a clumsy mover...

Oh, and the freezer doesn't seem to be working. It feels cold in there, and the ice machine is working, but our food is not very frozen. We discovered the problem today when we went to have some ice cream and found it to be slightly soupy. We adjusted the freezer setting earlier today and there has been no change so far. The instructions say to wait 24 hours, so that's what we are doing. Then we may have to get on the horn with Lowe's again. Ugh.

We're having an awesome time though. We love it here so much!

The Move.

The day began with the alarm clock around 6:30. The first order of business was to bring the cats to the new house and get them set up for the day. The first major oversight of the morning was both of us forgetting to bring our phones with us. Just as we were getting ready to leave the house to pick up the Uhaul, a giant Lowe's delivery truck pulled up to the house. They were supposed to give me a 2 hour window during which they would deliver our fridge, but apparently they called my phone on their way to the house or something. At any rate, I knew that waiting for them to install the fridge would throw our schedule off a bit, but I figured it would be one less thing I'd have to worry about later. I happened to wander outside as they were about to unload the fridge and saw that they were unloading a giant side by side WHITE refrigerator. Ummm, no. It turns out that the kid that entered our order into the computer ordered the wrong fridge. The delivery guys said they'd look into it, but weren't sure if they would even have the fridge we had ordered. So, it wasn't even 8 am and our first debacle had occurred. We left to pick up the Uhaul feeling disgruntled.

Since we were running behind, Ted had to leave me at the Uhaul store and head back to the apartment to meet the movers by 9. That left me to drive this hog:



It gets about 2 miles to the gallon and purrs like a kitten (if by kitten you mean giant bulldozer with a muffler problem). I considered driving down the freeway with my flashers on because I had no idea what I was doing behind the wheel of this thing. Even though it has giant side view mirrors, you can't see ANYTHING around you. When changing lanes I basically put the blinker on for awhile and hoped that everyone was smart enough to get the hell out of the way. It was classic.

The movers were there when I arrived and the got right to work packing some things, standing around, packing a few more things, taking a break, dropping some things, taking a break, watching each other work, and having a bite to eat. Meanwhile, Ted and I were busting a move down in the garage loading our Uhaul with what seemed to be a billion and a half boxes.



At first I was all gung ho and going a mile a minute thinking "What a great work out! It's fun to move!" After an hour or two, however, I could barely feel my arms and my legs were beginning to take on the consistency of jello. Ted and I often take pictures of each other and give each other "inspiration" just before snapping the photo to capture the true facial expression. Ted's inspiration for the following picture was "This is how you feel about moving right now":



We finished packing the Uhaul (just the two of us, with billions of boxes and other miscellaneous items) about the same time the movers finished packing our furniture. To be fair, they did have to wrap things up and pack their van all neat and such, but still. A little hustle doesn't hurt anyone is all I'm saying. So we all trekked over the new house and started the torture of unloading it all. Once again, I started off all gung ho putting boxes in the appropriate room, stacking things neatly as I went. By the time we got halfway done with our truck I was at the point where I didn't think I would physically be able to pick up the next box. We muscled through, however, and the movers helped us with the last bit of boxes. At that point, however, boxes were being put into whatever room we happened to be in when they fell out of our noodle arms.

In the midst of the moving, I received a call from "Lyndell" at Lowe's. He informed me that the fridge they sent us that morning was indeed the one that was ordered for us, so the mistake began with the sales guy that rang us up. To make a long and irritating story short, I decided I better go to Lowe's to see what fridge they were planning on sending us next. Now, I don't know if you've been fridge shopping lately, but they all start to look the same after awhile. They have about 5 models side by side that look almost exactly the same except one will have an "egg area" and will be $100 more than the other or something ridiculous like that. I didn't see the fridge we had ordered. Or at least I couldn't remember which one it was. The one Lyndell had all packaged up and ready to be delivered to us looked good enough, and we needed a fridge, so I gave up and said okay. They delivered it just as we were finishing the unloading and it just didn't look right. But now I was all messed up and couldn't even remember what the original one we wanted even resembled. Once they put it in place it looked pretty good and we started to think that maybe it was the one we had ordered after all. We took another trip to Lowe's to take one last look, but ultimately stuck with the one they delivered. I'm glad that we did because it has turned out to be a really nice fridge, whether we ordered it or not. I think the people at Lowe's know me by name now after all the trips I made there that day.

After the movers left around 3, we still had errands to run with the truck before returning it at 6. Ted had to head back to the apartment, so I saddled up again and took the hog out for a spin. I picked up the treadmill at Sears, which incidentally has the best pick up service ever. You go up to a little kiosk and scan your receipt or punch in your phone number and it retrieves your order. It then starts a clock counting and you are guaranteed to have your order within 5 minutes or you get a $25 gift certificate. I spent my 4 minutes and 24 seconds praying for the 5 minute mark. No such luck, but I got my treadmill and the fellas even loaded it into the truck for me. Sweet.

Then it was off to the furniture store. Ted had arrived before me and was hoping to have everything ready to just load into the truck. He was told "We'll get the stuff out when the truck gets here," so of course we had to wait around for another 10 minutes after I arrived to find some people to get our stuff for us. They loaded the dresser and bed on the truck and we were off again. We unloaded everything just in time to lock up and head back to the Uhaul store.

Being the wily cats that we are, we then went to the apartment that night and finished cleaning so that all we had to do was turn the keys in. On the way home I ordered a pizza for us. Ted didn't care what was on it, as long as there was pepperoni. When the pizza arrived, it had everything I had ordered EXCEPT the pepperoni. He's still upset over it.

Our bodies were utterly exhausted upon arriving home, but we still kept going until after midnight that night. We started unpacking boxes and moving messes from room to room.

When Ted donned his "T-Bone" tool belt, I knew he meant business...



During all of the commotion, the cats weren't quite sure what to do with themselves. They finally found a safe and comfy spot up high and away from all of the action.



To Be Continued...