Monday, August 21, 2006

Labor of Love in Progress (cont.)



Bedroom (top pic) will be "Handsome Hue" (Behr) it's a nice somewhat dark blue, the living portion of (as well as the entire living/dining area) will be "Artifact Sand"...it's kind of a sandy, salmon color--more toward beige than pink. The den (past the sliding glass doors) will be "Boston Brick" (darkish red). I'm hoping to be able to find blinds similar to the color of the paint so that when they're closed, it'll give the illusion of a solid wall. The bottom pic is of my view from the den through a CLEAN window. Cleaning those damn windows took nearly an entire day, an entire bottle of Fantastik and 3/4 of a bottle of 409 Glass & Surface cleaner! NOW, I know why people don't do windows!

Saturday my realtor called to follow up on my progress with the condo (what realtor do you know does calls after the closing?), specifically how Danny and I were able to get rid of that pain-in-the-ARSE plaster-raised mural. Anyway, he is very knowledgable about general contract and electric work and after reviewing the wall, he moved on to inspect the rest of the place. Now, my maintenance fee includes basic cable and you may notice in the pics of the living room and den that there are coils of white cable sitting in the corners. There must have been 20-25 feet of it hanging around. Again, no skin off my nose. I planned to coil the excess up tight and hide it behind my TV. Well, my Super-Realtor felt it was an eyesore and started saying how neat it would be if the cable could actually come out of the wall through an outlet rather than having that ugly white cable everywhere. Yeah, "neat" I responded, thinking that some time later, MUCH LATER (when I've somewhat re-stocked my bank account), I can think about fixing that. Well, when I told him the tile guy was coming on Monday his brain went into overdrive and he went to work and put Danny and me to the same. He left to get a tool, came back and cut a trough in the concrete floor of my bedroom wide enough to lay the cable down in, drilled a hole in the wall underneath an old antennae outlet so that it could be rewired for cable. Also, when he did that, he got a splitter so that he wouldn't have to do the same in the living room. TA DA! Now, rather than a ton of old cable, I have a simple outlet in my living room and bedroom to plug in my TVs. AWESOME, huh?!? Well, there's more.

Notice my bedroom and living room are sans ceiling fan/light fixtures. Now, before I bought the place I figured I could always get lamps and fans. I mean, no big deal, right? Well, I mentioned to Super-Realtor that I eventually (way, way way down the line) to call an electrician and have him come and install ceiling fans in my bedroom and living room areas. "SR" would have none of that. He proceeded to give me a list of items I needed from Home Depot, WENT WITH ME TO THE HOME DEPOT, came back the next day and he and Danny set up the fixture in my living room, fixed and updated the one in the den, and he just called me about half an hour ago to announce that he's on his way over there to meet Danny and finish up the one in the bedroom. This was no small feat. They had to drill a hole in the wall just above the outlet from which the fan would draw power, another at the top of the wall, fish the cable through the two holes so that it could be mounted on the ceiling, and VOILA! Ceiling fans...except I haven't bought the fans yet. LOL.

He also changed the switch for the chandelier fixture, that for some reason was installed sideways; he advised me about getting new outlets (including the special ones that go in the bathroom and kitchen--anywhere near water). Thank GOD for my mom's Home Depot charge card! My realtor worked with Danny for about 4 hours on Saturday and another 4 on Sunday. I can't imagine the amount of money I saved with the projects he did and how much it increased the value of my property. When I think about how I met him (through whole RJ SNAFU with the first condo I wanted to buy)... I just can't believe how things work out. I mean, the guy has absolutely no reason to do all this. He's already got his commission. He'd done a PHENOMENAL job so I was certain to recommend him to any of my friends. He's NOT trying to get into my pants (he's married to a cute little Latina). I guess there really are just good people in the world and I was fortunate enough to one cross my path. I cannot wait to see how this place comes out. The only drawback is that I'm a little behind on the painting schedule due to the all the unanticipated projects this weekend. So, once again, any of you who are local and available to help paint (you don't have to be Van Gogh--I'll stick you with closets and shelving and other low-visibility places), I WOULD LOVE YOUR HELP.

Finally, I've weighed in at 271.5 for the last couple of days. I'm very pleased. I read a great article about plateaus and I'm trying to find the right balance of calories in-calories burned to get me losing again. I hope I've found it. Hope you all are well. And if all goes well with me, I hope to move in by Labor Day weekend (appropriate for my Labor of Love, don't you think) and to have my condo-warming party start with NFL Kick-off Thursday!

1 comment:

Leigh said...

Holy crap. I was reading this with a smirk on my face, thinking to myself..."Yep he wants her. He wants into them hot pants she has" and then you typed that he was married! I laughed out loud and Megan (my oldest) looked at me like I was nuts. HAAA!!

I LOVE the view. You have an awesome realtor....most realtors I've heard of don't give a crap about you after you close the sale, so you lucked out girl. I can't wait to see the finished product.

If you're willing to spend a little extra, there are custom blind makers and I'm almost 100% sure they'll take your colour and dye the blinds to match. Check into it...it might cost more, but it'll save the headache of shopping around only to be disappointed.

I only wish I lived closer! I'd so be there, but I'd expect a strawberry daquiri as payment :P