Ellen Does Design	March 20, 2007

I love me some David Bromstad (the dude who triumphed over DesignStar on HGTV last year and now has his own show, Color Splash). He is an extraordinarily talented designer, plus he’s one big hot gay stud who often does his carpentry work while shirtless.

I have come to the conclusion, however, that I need my own show. The business of decorating a new house is a time-consuming one, if you allow it to be, and I’m having ever so much fun with it. We bought a new bed (I’ve finally graduated from a twin!), which means comforters and sheets and headboards and endtables. Plus the ground floor, which will mostly hold Steve’s furniture, is in mad need of some color, which will come in the form of curtains and re-upholstering the dining chairs and accent pillows and wall art… oh, this is fun. Oh, I am making myself want to puke. I’d imposed a decorating budget upon myself, and thus far, I have spent 54% of it, and we haven’t even moved yet!

Back to television… Now, this Top Design show with Todd Oldham is OK, but I loved DesignStar much much more. I don’t know that I’d say the designers are of a lower skill level, but something about the show makes it seem so juvenile – I guess it’s because they fight a lot more. I haven’t really found a favorite, yet. Of who’s left, I think I hate Matt the least, but that’s not saying much.

Apartment update: great big huge sigh of relief	March 12, 2007

After bringing you the blow-by-blow of our apartment search in great detail for a while, I've grown surprisingly quiet given the new circumstances in which we recently found ourselves - I guess I just didn't want to jinx anything! Basically...

The place in Springfield that we thought was ours got yanked out from under us - another prospective tenant offered to buy the place, which is something we simply couldn't compete with. So after I'd turned in my notice to vacate at my current place, after we'd ruled out the other apartment possibilities, and after my mom bought tickets to fly out here and visit us in April (expecting an available guest bedroom) - we were back to square one! The first thing I did was re-approach the one landlady from our first search who hadn't gotten back to us, and it turns out she had a family emergency (hence the non-response), and wasn't going to have the place ready by April 1.

After yelling the longest stream of swears I think I've ever uttered, I got mad-serious with the apartment hunting, and set up no fewer than eight appointments for this weekend, in lots of different neighborhoods. Saturday morning we saw some bleak offerings (my apologies to any of you who might live in Huntington, but Huntington sucks). And Saturday afternoon we saw three places in Old Town that we liked. Sunday we hit up the Shirlington/Fairlington area again and saw a townhouse that quickly became our #1 choice.

Never have I ever written up my financial info so many times. Near the end, we were starting to get really sick of filling out applications. Place #1 was willing to let us submit our info by e-mail, which we did on Sunday afternoon, hanging on to the other three to fax in on Monday morning. But on Monday morning, I came into work and there was an e-mail saying... it's ours! And since then, a lease has been signed, a deposit has changed hands... it's official! We have a home!

And I'd say we came out way ahead. It's even better than the place that was our first choice in round 1. It's actually in the same community (Fairlington), but it's a slightly different floorplan that is bigger, has one more bedroom, and the rent is actually cheaper! The kitchen is kinda 'meh', but the rest of it is just beautiful - the floors, the sunlight, the facade, the backyard, the pools and tennis courts at our doorstep... I can't say enough about how thrilled I am! And relieved!

Do you know me?	March 5, 2007

Apartment update: on the home stretch	March 4, 2007

As you may recall, Steve and I have been stressing out like crazy people, anxious for our apartment-hunting to come to a close.  There’s a show on HGTV called House Hunters that I watch sometimes, and I keep likening our situation to the folks on the show (even though we’re not buying).  I have to be out of my place by the end of March, so the stress has been building.

To recap, we were down to:

1. the huge shiny-new 3-story Springfield townhouse;
2. the smaller, older, cheaper 2-story Shirlington townhouse; or
3. the 3-story Shirlington townhouse that’s not as small, old, or cheap as #2 (but not as huge and shiny-new as #1).

And the winner is (apparently)… #1!

Landlord #1 offered us the place last Monday, and we were in a sticky situation for a while, trying to keep that as a possibility while we waited to hear from the other 2.  On Thursday, landlord #2 told us that she’d gone with someone else (lame), and when on Saturday, we still hadn’t heard from flightly landlord #3, we called #1 and said, “yes please!”

So actual lease-signing has not yet happened, but hopefully it will by the end of this week, and moving will happen the weekend of March 31.  Local folks with strong backs, prepare for a phone call from me…