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Our NEW dining room set!

Yesterday we stopped by Hudson’s Broyhill to check on a dining room set that we had seen there previosly. We had our eye on a collection (American Modern) from Stanley, that was being sold on clearance at another location. The tag on one of the pieces had said “Discontinued”, so Amanda was concerned that we would not be able to get it. Long story short, the sales lady at the Hudson’s we went to showed us a set from Broyhill that looked similar to the Stanley collection. The price for all the pieces that we wanted was very good (compared to what we were being quoted in the past). They had a special deal as well, If you buy the china cabinet you get one free arm chair, and if you buy the table with four side chairs, you get another free arm chair. We thought about it all day Sunday, and finally decided to just order the pieces that we would need for Christmas at our house. We bought the oval table that opens to 103″ long, four side chairs and two arm chairs, and the china cabinet. We will get the matching sideboard later. Hopefully it will all be delivered before Thanksgiving.

Welcome back!

Well, I was asked to post some pictures of the new house all decorated. We haven’t completely decorated, but we have received our new bedroom set and done some decorating, so here are a few pictures to check out.

Wow, It’s been almost a few weeks since my last entry. I kinda had a feeling it would be difficult to make updates to a blog consistently.

Well, we’ve been quite busy with unpacking and setting things up in the house. I finally got the garage cleaned up enough to be able to park cars in it this past weekend. The builders finally finished the majority of my list. There are just a few small things that need to be patched up at some point. We’re still anxiously awaiting our new bedroom set to arrive so we can finish decorating our room (and then start on the spare rooms).

Mandie finally picked our her wedding dress. She’s quite relieved to have that out of the way. I think now she just needs to get the bridesmaid’s dresses. I’ve already picked out the tuxedos for my part of the party.

I think this week’s big task will be to figure out what to do with Mandie’s house. Originally we were going to rent it out, but now we’re thinking that it’d just be better to sell it. I think she wants to cash out and re-invest her part of the equity into a piece of land somewhere. Yes, we’re already thinking ahead to our next house.

I’ve been so busy since we moved into the new house. It’s a lot of work setting things up and unpacking everything. Most of my possessions have been in storage for so long, I forgot how much crap I really own! It’s starting to come together now. I finished hanging the light fixtures and ceiling fans we purchased awhile back. We bought some curtains from JCPenney’s the other day that should be in soon. Tomorrow we get to take the foil off the bedroom windows when the shutters get installed. Oh, and about 3-4 weeks we should have our new bedroom set delivered! We found something we liked at a local furniture dealer when we out on Sunday. I originally wasn’t going to purchase it until I paid off some other debts, but they had a new promotion where there is no interest if paid off by January 2008, and the first 12 months there are no payments, as long as I never miss a payment. Knowing how anal I am at paying off accounts like this I decided to take advantage of the offer. Besides, we got them to come way down on the set, and throw in a couple Tempurpedic pillows (to go with the mattress!).

Sunday Lowes came back and delivered our new (convection) oven. Speaking of Lowes, I found this link that will get me an additional 10% off my appliance purchase. The sales person told me this would come from the USPS with the MoversGuide, but he was confused, that was The Home Depot that has a 10% off coupon in the MoverGuide. Anyways, he said I could bring the coupon into the store to be credited the money back to my Lowes account. Not a bad deal, I bought the appliances at the best prices around and, with the rebates and coupon I saved almost another $900!

I think our new house is jinxed. First it’s all the problems we’ve had building it, which is still not complete. The cabinets in the study have no top on them, some trim work needed to be painted, and the pool bath door is missing the blind insert (it’s sitting in the garage, until someone has courage to install it, apparently it’s very difficult to install without cracking the glass). We’re still waiting for the oven to come from Lowes. And yesterday I had an appointment with Brinks to activate the security system. The appointment was for between 8am-12pm. I took the morning off hoping he would show early and I could get to work before lunch time. That’s not how it worked out though. He eventually showed up around 1pm, and informed me that the process takes up to 3 hours to finish installing and testing everything. YIKES! I ended up having to take a personal day to stay home while the security system was setup. He ended up having several problems with one door (the pool bath door, go figure!) and drilled several holes in the door frame looking for the wires. Apparently when the builders put the door frame on they cover the wires up. He had a bunch of other problems from there, and eventually finished up around 8pm.

The day wasn’t completely wasted, I put some more things away, fixed some smaller stuff around the house, and hung a ceiling fan. There’s still alot more to do though!