January 22, 2007:  Another week, another few things we can mark off the list.  The beginning of the week was quiet, I took a small break and did a lot of nothing when I got home from work.  Lisa worked just her normal hours this week so she was around a lot more, which was totally cool for both of us.  She got to catch up on some stuff around the house that she hasn't been able to do since we moved in, and I just got to not be alone so much.  I'm alone all day at work so after a few weeks of her working so much I was starting to go a little mad.  Thursday night we went to a different Lowe's than we normally do to pick up all the door knobs we need for the whole house (our Lowe's didn't have enough), a sawzall for the my weekend project, and to check out the new fridge we planned to buy this weekend.  It seems that this Lowe's has a slightly different selection of appliances than the one we've been going to because right beside the Samsung we had already decided on was a Maytag on sale for $400 below regular price!  Its finish was a perfect match for the rest of our appliances and it was really a much better looking fridge than the Samsung.  They only had one left in the warehouse so we decided to get it right away instead of waiting and probably losing it.  It isn't as fancy as the side by side we have now but it will match everything else and should be a better fit for us.  We also had a coupon so that made the grand total discount $500 off regular price and we're hoping to get a couple hundred for the old one on Craig's List so in the end the new one will be super cheap.  I finished painting the trim in the hallway, which I had been putting off for days, it's miserable work.  I also got the door for the office painted, reinstalled and all the paint scraped off the glass.  I was able to get the new knob installed without too much hassle and it looks great, it's nice to get rid of some of the gold.  Did I mention that the place is loaded with gold and brass? Any metal in the whole place that wasn't painted white is gold.  So far we've de-golded the kitchen, the office, the living room, the laundry room, the master bedroom and most of the half bath downstairs.  The worst room is probably the master bathroom and that will require a full renovation to get rid of it all.  Anyway, back to the painting, I started in the laundry room and will hopefully wrap that up this week, including putting down the new floor tiles, it's a small room so I'm hoping it won't take all that long.  I put the plastic tugboat sandbox up on Craig's list in the free section Friday morning and it was spoken for in under an hour, they came and picked it up Saturday morning.  I was able to get a better feel for how much space we have to deal with for our water garden/bamboo grove, it's going to be awesome, much larger than I had pictured and we still need to rip down that metal shed!  We got word Friday that Lisa's dresser had arrived and they were going to be able to deliver it this weekend.  Seeing as it weighs almost 400 pounds I wanted to get everything finished in the area it was going to end up so we didn't have to deal with moving it later.  That is the wall that the TV is mounted on and where I planned on building a cabinet to house the DVD player and stuff like that.  I was able to get it done before the delivery guys showed up and even painted the walls and trim.  I have about half of the bedroom to go but we are going to wait until Lisa is off next weekend to finish it up, I promise to get some pictures up soon, keep watch on the 'Projects' section for updates.  So after they delivered the dresser I got the TV back up on the wall, all hooked up and the DVD player set up in its new home.&4nbsp; I can't wait to finish the rest of the room, that corner looks awesome.  We have to get some blinds for the bedroom and the living room this week, they are very large so they have to be a special order, probably another couple weeks before they get here, bummer because it's hard to sleep with nothing covering the window.  So I guess that's about it for the week, sorry I've been doing these huge updates but haven't had time to do a bunch of small ones.  Have a great week! 

January 22, 2007:  Sorry it's been so long since we updated you all but we have both been so busy we haven't had time to do anything.  Lisa just finished an 8 day in a row run at Target and I have been working on the house almost every waking hour.  I have a lot to cover so we better get started.  The window guys came by yet again and got everything sorted out for the skywall, it has been ordered and should be in by the end of the month.  There will be some drywall work needed in the kitchen but I think they have it under control.  We got another snowstorm that stopped the whole city in its tracks, right after the snow stopped the temperature dropped to the teens and everything, inluding the pipes in our garage, froze up.  It was luck that we caught it when we did, I got some heat tape on the pipe and it thawed out after a few days, when I tested it there didn't seem to be any leaks but I have the valve shut off for now, I'll deal with it in the spring, it's just a garden hose pipe.  I finished the living room paint but haven't been free during daylight hours to take pictures of it.  I will say however that it looks like a completely different room.  Last week I started priming the door and base trim in the hallway, there are four doors in all.  While working on that I patched a bunch of holes and replaced the light switches with the decora style.  I also installed the wall mount for the new bedroom flat screen, two grommets in the wall, an outlet and a cable jack, and fished all the wires through the wall so they could be hooked up out of sight in the closet.  Next weekend I'm building a cabinet for the DVD player and cable box that will be mounted flush in the wall beside the screen, keep watch on the Projects page for more on that.  Friday night we had dinner and picked up some stuff we'd need for the upcoming house projects and went into Seattle on Saturday to hang out.  We had lunch at this cool place we ate at when we vistited two years ago called the Honey Hole and went to Pike Place to pick up some stuff to decorate the kitchen.  Saturday night we watched Employee of the Month and just chilled out.  The movie was pretty funny, not for everyone but we really liked it.  Sunday morning the people who bought the swingset from the back yard came by to pick it up, I gotta give them props for getting that thing out of there in about an hour with only a tiny bit of help from me, one more thing to mark off the list.  They didn't take the big plastic tugboat shaped sandbox though so that will have to go on the next dump run.  After they left we ran out to get the things we didn't get on Friday to finish the projects we planned for the weekend.  Even though we had to go to three different places we still were able to get two more coats of primer on the trim and door casings, patch the cat door hole in the laundry room door, mortise and hang four interior doors, and replace a super ugly gold wall sconce before crashing for the night.  Tonight I have to change the deadbolts on both exterior doors, finish the hallway walls and try to get a coat of trim color on the doors, casings, and base trim, should be an easy night!  Lisa won't be working quite so much in the next week so we will be able to get more of the stuff we need to done around the house.  We would like to get the laundry room done by the end of next weekend, we're doing a lot but it's a very small space so it shouldn't take all that long.  Once that is done that will be it for the first floor, the bedroom will be next!  Oh, before I forget, our home number has changed so if you don't have it and would like it, drop either of us an email and we'll hook you up.  To our east coast friends that might read this, my brother got engaged over the holiday and it seems that the wedding will be in October of this year so we'll be making a trip back east.  If we can get enough time off we may do some visiting, we probably won't hang out long though, that is one of the nicest times of year out here, we'd hate to miss too much of it.  Speaking of friends, Tom, Erin, Mike, and Jane are planning to make a trip out here to hang out and do some camping or hiking or something cool later in the summer, hopefully not the same week as the wedding!.  Anyway, we still have a ton of stuff to get done at the house but we're making progress, it's starting to feel a lot more like a home by the day.  Have a great week and keep watch for those pictures. 

January 10, 2007:  Well I have a few minutes to throw together another update so here goes.  If it wasn't already obvious I'm not in Denver this week, be tough to paint the kitchen if I was.  They had already got my tickets, hotel and car but decided that they didn't want me to go until late in February, whatever I guess, not my money they're throwing away.  Lisa picked up both Saturday and Sunday shifts at a different store this past weekend and was home doing some projects around the house.  Friday night we picked up the primer and paint to do the kitchen and were hoping we could get it done before we going back to work Monday.  First thing Saturday I got the trailer out and loaded up the broken washer and dryer that the old owners were nice enough to give us.  After pulling some super human strength from a can of Red Bull I got the old cast iron sink on there too and made a run for the scrap yard.  The rusty old steel shed in the yard will be meeting the same fate so this was also a run to scope it out for the future.  On the way home I picked up a new door and hardware for the pantry so I could paint it while I was doing the trim.  I got the door all mounted up and all the trim primed while watching the Seahawks game out of the corner of my eye, you gotta watch the playoffs when your city's team is playing, duh!  I also raked up 5 big bags of pine needles that were shed during the big windstorm, it hasn't been nice enough to since they came down.  I was also able to sweep up the driveway so we aren't dragging all the small storm debris into the house everytime we come home.  Sunday morning I started painting the walls and was able to get most of it done, just had to finish up a few areas Monday night after work and put a couple more coats on the two doors.  After putting everything back together it looks like a completely different room, check out the 'Projects' section for some before and after pictures.  In the middle of my painting someone stopped by to check out the swing set that we have been trying to sell on Craig's List and it appears that they are going to take it, hopefully they can get it out of the yard and to their house.  So far it looks like that will be happening this weekend as long as the weather agrees.  Earlier in the week after some unneccessary drama from the bank the check from our insurance company cleared and I was able to get the glass company to order the replacement skywall.  I got a call from them yesterday so they could tell me they ran into trouble.  What they had to say wasn't good, not even a little.  First he said that the order was put on hold because of a sizing issue.  The "sky" portion of the old window is 37.5 inches long and the only manufacturer that makes these units doesn't make one larger than 36 inches.  He offered a few alternatives to solve the problem and it looks like the solution will be to rip out all the trim inside the kitchen including the window sill and set the whole unit 1.5 inches further into the house.  Seems like it will work but the bummer is that I just painted that entire area.  That includes filling the old screw holes, sanding them smooth, 2 coats of primer and 3 coats of paint on the very trim that they need to tear out, cut an inch and a half off, and nail back in.  If I would have known it wasn't going to be a simple pop out the old one and pop in the new one like they said I would have waited to paint that corner.  The worst part is that they are coming over to look at it again on Saturday morning to decide how to move forward, that means we just lost over a week of manufacture time on the window, it takes three weeks to get it built and delivered so now we are well into February.  Anyway, that's about it for news here, this weekend Lisa is working again and I plan on painting the living room and changing out a couple more doors, it will feel nice to get this one done, we spend most of our time in there.  Have a great weekend and check out the kitchen pictures! 

January 8, 2007:  Hey again, not much to report here, just another wind storm on the way, this time it will have lots of rain, snow and maybe even some thunder with it, we can't wait!  This pretty much sums up our weekend, actually, it sums up the last three weekends and probably the next three as well.  I'll write more later and get some pictures of the latest project we're working on. 

January 1, 2007:  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!  We are back, a few things have happened since we spoke last, nothing real exciting but worth mentioning none the less.  We had a cool Christmas here at the new house, Kim came over and made her famous crab dip and I made my famous kabobs on the grill, I know it wasn't a proper Christmas dinner but we had fun.  After that we opened a bunch of small presents from our stockings and just relaxed.  Work was real crazy all week for both of us, I spent about 8 hours over a few days on a conference call trying to troubleshoot a problem for a customer and it turned out to be an issue on their end that should have been caught by their network crew right away.  I guess that's what they pay me for but it sucks to do someone else's job when they don't give you all the facts up front.  Lisa picked up a couple shifts at other stores last week and has a few more to pick up this week and next, I don't know how she works so many days straight like that, I could never do it.  This weekend Lisa had to work so I tackled some projects around the house.  Saturday morning the guy came to do the final measurements on the window so they can order it as soon as we get the check from the insuranced company.  Later in the day I got rid of a truck load of branches from the storm, it was the last day that the town was accepting them at this big parking lot not far from here.  That night Lisa and I went sink and faucet shopping, sounds like a blast huh?  The sink and faucet in the kitchen are both 15 years old, white, and in pretty bad shape.  We decided that we needed to replace the faucet and while we were at it we would update the sink as well.  You can see more pictures under Projects to the left as always.  The old sink was tough to get out and I spent a while messing with the old metal drains before I made one more trip back to Home Depot to get a new plastic drain set and replaced the whole thing.  We're really happy with the way it turned out, it really changed the look of the kitchen.  Sunday night we went out with Kim, Mike, Jamie, Petro and a few others to a New Year's Eve party at the Experience Music Project in downtown Seattle.  There were a couple bands playing, 3000 people partying, a bunch of bars and we had a great time.  We didn't get to bed until pretty late, or early I guess because it was almost dawn.  Today we ran a few errands, cleaned up around the house and have been sitting around doing nothing, it feels great too.  Lisa is working a lot this week and I'm going to Denver for work next week so things are going to continue to be real busy around here, I'll try to get a few updates in though.  Hope you all had a safe and happy holiday season, now it's time to rest.