One of the keys to a successful blog is update frequency. Clearly I fail. Oh well, I don’t care :-)

I’ve just come off two weeks of annual leave, spent at our house, so you’d think there’d be no excuse for not having the time to sit down and have a yarn? Well, the first week was flat out – Adam and I got a lot done on the house, Adam was in charge of the painting and has repainted every room, removing the horrible baby-poo green “suede” colour and putting in our own style. My job was the lighting – I ripped out all the hideous single compact fluro bayonet fittings and put in nice 240V halogens in every room. Those who know me will know well that I am no eco-warrior! The combination of a decent paint scheme and better lighting instantly made the house seem twice as big.

To give you an idea of how much work has gone on in the last couple of weeks, I’ll give you an idea of what we’ve done:

New Appliances / Furniture:

  • Microwave – Smeg Convection microwave (those who don’t know what a convection microwave is, you are missing out!)
  • Washing Machine – Bosch Front-loader – I’ve never had a front-loader before, and I have to admit the first time I plugged it we couldn’t find the shipping bolts, so we assumed it didn’t have any. Needless to say, it tried to shake the house down and when it went into its spin cycle tried to walk out the door – I literally had to chase after it before it pulled its hoses out! (Think: Simpsons washing machine vs. dryer racing)
  • Television – Sony Bravia. Finally, goodbye to the old Trinitron CRT! I mean, how can a television broadcast engineer NOT have a decent box? This one is a 40″ HD (of course) LCD model. It sits mounted to the feature wall, no cables visible – just hanging there like a picture frame

    • [GEEK] nSetting the TV up was of course the part I’ve been looking forward to the most – for it involves converting my old server PC “XANDIR” (until recently the host for this very blog and other websites) into a fully-featured media centre. For the geeks out there I’ll go into the features briefly (I intend to give it its own post!) – it runs on Windows 7 Media Centre, looks fantastic (Micro$oft got something right! Apple doesn’t even come close to this one) – has dual digi TV tuners for pause / record / EPG functionality (essentially a TIVO with 2TB (current) storage), native capability to play almost every video file I have, DVD playback, aaaaand… Blu-Ray!! Plus, if that wasn’t enough, FM radio stations, internet radio stations, MP3 collections, visualisations plus a few other features I haven’t fiddled with yet. Naturally, it all sits in another room, hidden in a cupboard and is controlled by a single remote control :-) [/GEEK].

  • Dining Table – We scouted all over Sydney for this one, and after going over many choices, settled on a solid black glass table (extendable from 1.8 to 2.8 metres!), that looks incredible under halogen lights.
  • Dining Chairs – White sude high-backed chairs, we couldn’t find *exactly* what we wanted, so we had them custom-made (after screwing the price down to almost half!)
  • Couch Set – This one too needed a lot of searching and testing – after all, couches are an essential part of the home! What we settled on was absolutely divine – a chocolate brown 3-seater where each end is its own recliner and the middle back-cushion folds down to become a central table! Needless to say, watching a movie on the media centre whilst reclined on the lounge with a wine beside you – it doesn’t get much better I have to say!

    • That’s just the purchases! Needless to say, the cost is astronomical :-) As for the rest of the work, we’ve:

  • Ripped out most of the overgrown and unloved back garden
  • Re-wired the TV antenna and removed the water-sodden and corroded passive splitter and installed an active splitter on new RG6 cable (I can now pick up Wollongong!)
  • Built a roof on the back timber deck – This was a big job and we had help from our friends to install it. Until this was up, the monsters dogs spent the nights in the kitchen, and you need not imagine what one hyperactive adult labrador and one hyperactive labrador puppy undergoing toilet training would be like cooped up inside! I must have used an entire bottle of bleach re-sanctifying that kitchen…
  • Painting / lights

    • as mentioned before – This really took up most of the time

  • Should I have mentioned actually moving our furntire and things from the 5 places that they have been in storage for the past 4 months?

    • Then, in true ironic fashion, the week of holidays I had by myself (Adam had a few week’s holiday too), I got sick with man flu and just sat on the couch feeling sorry for myself (then again, it is a REALLY nice couch!).

    I was starting to feel better last weekend (yesterday and Saturday), but Adam and I decided we had far more to catch up on than our social lives. That took most of the weekend – I should probably omit the rest of the details :-)

    No rest for the wicked, huh?