ourhouse

Today was a productive day. We worked all day on the house, unpacking and getting things ready, and the guest room is now ready to use and all the books there are unpacked.

Most of the previous weekends have been like this. It's a lot of work, moving into a house, but very rewarding.

Tonight I pulled the coax cables from our garden into the basement, where the cable modem will be. There was already a hole in the basement wall which was used for 4 coax cables to the roof where an old satellite dish stands. We won't use that so I disconnected them and reused the opening for a new coax cable, connected to the Comcast cable outside.

I grounded the cable where it enters the house using a copper water pipe and then sealed the hole with caulk. It was the first time I've used caulk and it was fun.

Once everything is done there will be an ethernet connection from the cable modem in the basement to a wireless router in the living room, providing coverage for the whole house. I ordered the cable modem from Amazon so we don't have to pay a monthly rent for the modem. After the cable work was done the activation of the actual connection was easy. We signed up for 50Mbps/10Mbps, which is faster than what we have now.

Slowly but surely we're getting ready to move into our new house.

In the afternoon a technician from Comcast, the cable company, came by. The cable ends at our outside wall -- I need to bring it inside myself -- but he tested the connection and we should be ready for cable internet.

Tonight we visited the house together. Sasha and I were talking about the paint color, Balboa, and Nora liked the word and started repeating "Balboa, Balboa".

We started packing too. We can't move anything in the main rooms yet, but most of the things that will be in storage in the basement are already moved. This will save us quite a lot of time during moving day, which is going to be Monday or Tuesday.

Today we bought our first house!

It is in an awesome location, on a few minutes walking from the Clarendon metro station, in the heart of Arlington.

We are very excited, and after we feed Nora we will be on our way to check out our new place.

This is so much fun! Over the last few weeks I've been playing with Google Sketchup and I've tried to faithfully draw our apartment.

A special rendering plugin converts the sketch into a semi-realistic image. Using PaintShop Pro I added the background (from this photo), and here is the result.

This is the Sketchup model.

This is how it looks in real life.

And here is the final result.

The crib arrived! It is a present from Opa and Oma, and it is beautiful (thank you!). The crib can also be converted into a toddler bed and even a children's bed, so it will be with us for many years.

I worked from home on Monday to accept the delivery and around 11.30 am they called and brought the big package upstairs. The package shipped from Washington state and was more than 100 lbs.

We put it together on Monday evening and it fits nicely in our bedroom.

Our living room and kitchen are in good shape, and slowly but surely we're getting the rest of the apartment ready as well. Today we worked mainly on the guest bedroom.

After a visit to Home Depot I mounted the bookshelves against the wall and we opened the last boxes. We threw out a lot of old papers, which is a nice feeling.

This weekend we're officially moving to our new apartment in Arlington. Yesterday I brought most of our remaining boxes there, today we'll only have to move our clothes, some small stuff and three plants.

Two weeks ago I bought a drill, and I used it again yesterday to mount to our bookshelves against the wall. Unmounted the bookshelves were pretty stable too but now they are nice and straight and look even better.

I configured our music setup on said bookshelves. It's all going a little slower because I've had a cold since last weekend but most of the rooms are now ready.

Tomorrow afternoon Verizon will install FiOS, fiber-cable internet with a speed of 20Mbps/5Mbps.

Last weekend we went to Ikea and bought two cabinets for in the dining area, and yesterday we went to the new apartment to install them.

We also visited Home Depot for some things; slowly but surely the new apartment is getting together.

Today we received the keys for our new apartment in Courthouse.

The moving company will unload our belongings tomorrow morning. Our rent in the current apartment is paid for through the end of the month, so we're not moving immediately but have some time to arrange things before we move in.

Our new apartment is very light with large windows, and a great view over Virginia. It's on the 7th floor, so it overlooked the tree tops of Arlington. From our kitchen window we can see DC with the National Cathedral.