the steads vs the cable company

so, we've never really been fans of the cable company here. they're over-priced, and they're the only cable option, so they seem to get away with murder.

occasionally i'll catch one of their commercials that brags about their customer approval rate, and i always wonder who it is that likes their cox cable service. their customer service representatives are second only to walmart.com in the worst service ever. if they ever sent me a survey, i'd have to make my own bubble and say "excruciatingly painful" for every interaction.

so after ordering the cable service online, waiting the three day period, and not hearing anything about when they were coming to install service, we did the thing that we hated doing more than anything... we called. turns out someone is using scott's social security number (but with their own name and address... does that mean cox cable's data entry person made a typo?) and has not paid their bill. we have to come in.

we started shopping for other options, but i'm a creature of habit and i'm comfortable knowing that mtv is channel 40, hgtv is 54, cnn is 34. we didn't want to change. so we thought we could just open the account in my name... right? because no one is using my name/social to have a cable account.
not the case. they have an open account in my name. seriously? we just purchased a house and none of this was on our credit report for us to straighten out. account is delinquent from 2005. ridiculous!

it was only $60, and we finally decided that living without cable/internet wasn't something we wanted to do... so we thought we could just call, pay the amount, and set-up the new account.

cox told scott they wouldn't open the account because our address was attached to the several attempts... so we would need to go in to their office during business hours to set up service.

we finally gave up, but we were frustrated. then magic happened! because scott is an at&t management employee, we get the highest speed DSL for $10 a month. we ordered directv (not the dish, because we got bad reports) for less than what basic cable costs, and the total price is HALF of the "competition" (the cable company). amazing! maybe i should have paid attention to those directv commercials a long time ago.

now we just have to reclaim our identities!!


we obviously need a bigger tv!

The Big Move

So, we made the big move. So far we're waiting on our living room furniture, our appliances (fridge, washer, and dryer) and cable!
That means... no internet. I'm typing this now from work, but I have a super busy week so I won't be able to post photos or update.
That just means it'll be that much better when it happens!

contact paper

There is no nice way to explain how hard this was for me. Using a utility knife and not having measuring tape made this a big job. I managed to cover the bottoms of all of the cabinets with thick, white contact paper and I put our crystal away.
The picture doesn't do it justice :)

House Project to-do List

Paint office -- done
Paint laundry room -- done
Paint pantry -- done
Paint master closets -- done
Paint master bath
Paint guest bath
Replace fixtures in guest bath
Replace mirror in guest bath
Replace toilet seat in guest bath
Replace shower head in guest bath
Figure out what's wrong with guest toilet (done) and fix it (not done)
Fix drains in guest bath
Paint outdoor arch
Replace frilly curtains on front door--done!!
Replace light in kitchen
Add mechanical arm to iron gate -- DONE!
Repair grout in kitchen
Caulk cracks near roof
Remove huge ugly Sago palm -- finally done!!
Clean dryer vent --done!
Replace ridge vents
Remove attic vent and patch hole (we just fixed it)
Remove tree close to house (we are trimming it and not removing it)
Plant trees to replace all of the stuff we're removing :) (done!! we planted two!)
Paint hallway

more to come...!

painting

We have been painting.
And painting.
And painting some more.

My shoulder is sore.

I continue to bring my low-battery camera to the house but am unable to take photos (because of the low battery) so the ones I'm sharing are burry at best and don't show the colors well.

a-mazing!

thrilled to be a part of history.

scott's office

Our new home has three bedrooms, so we're splitting up our guest room and home office. Scott's thrilled, since most of his work is done from home, and I'm thrilled that he won't be working from the dining room table :)

The room we chose for the office was a nursery. The color was a pretty mellow green -- which we liked -- but the paint was mixed with this sandy textured stuff. I pity the child who lived in that room... brushing up too hard against the wall could break skin! Needless to say, we're painting, and so far it's been an adventure!


This is a photo of the work I did while Scott went out for more supplies.
As you can see, I didn't do much!


Scott got the roller on the poll and put my work to shame.


Three of the four walls are complete.
The other wall mostly consists of a long closet, which we haven't primed yet.

Painting would be much easier if I was as tall as Scott! Most of the night I rolled around on the drop cloth picking up paint and making a lot of noise.

Even so, it's exhausting! Tomorrow we're off to pick out a color for the office and hopefully slap it on.

New Decor

update: we returned the table and instead, ordered this:

things are a'changin'

So... It's beginning to look like we're going to the closing table tomorrow!

We went by the new house today and the repairs were completed. Finally! I didn't take a photo of the fence, but it looks like it is supposed to look!

Here are a few pictures of our guest bathroom. Color suggestions? This definitely won't work :)


Very blue guest bathroom. See what I mean??

Here's another shot:


HELP!

If you are buying a house in the Baton Rouge area...

Try not to buy a home that is listed by this person. Our interactions, though through our agent, have taken the joy out of buying our very first home. This event that should be so much fun has been full of anxiety and discontentment. We're not even sure at this point if we are buying a home Friday or where we're going to live in February. Thanks, Keller Williams, for being such a pain in the ass.

On a lighter note, here's our "finished" fence. So nice of them to do such great, complete work.



We'll see if they can get it together before Friday. Otherwise we're not closing, and the house will be on the market Saturday.

improvements in our contract

i haven't written much about it, but this whole home buying thing has been incredibly difficult. for starters, the seller has been a super-jerk!

when we did the inspection, our inspector found several minor (but serious) problems with the house. for instance, in both bathrooms, there were the wrong outlets. sure, this is an easy enough fix, but all homes built after 1970-something are required to have these outlets. the garbage disposal didn't work and there was a leak under the sink. there were little things here and there.
we decided, to be fair, that we would only ask for half of what was wrong to be fixed. our real estate agent said "no way this guy will have you walk away from the house... he'll fix these things." we believed her.

the jerk-face came back and said he would fix not 9, but THREE things. we regretfully agreed... he was to fix the fence, have the air conditioner cleaned/inspected, and fix the leak underneath the sink. he actually said he would have the "fence company" come back and fix the unfinished fence.

we got the call today that the house was finished and ready for us to close next week. we were excited, but a little worried. last sunday we went by the house and the fence still had an 8" space in it. why have a privacy fence and not have privacy? we ran a few errands and drove by the house.

i wish we had taken photos of how it looked a month ago.. because it looked exactly the same today.


the gap between the fence and the house

what a wonderful "fence company"

oops... looks like the "fence company" left their tools!

the neighbor's fence (with the "fence company's" boards that were "left behind") -- see how it is 1 or 2 inches from the house?