Chris loves his technology. He does it at work, and lucky for me, he does it at home too. Even when we lived in an one room studio (two if you count the bathroom I guess, but I don't), he wired the place for surround sound. Before it was easy though because we couldn't drill into the walls - the result was a messier look with visible wires, but a simple project.
But now we own and he was determined to hide the wires. I got my first lesson in snaking wires as he fed them up from the basement to the wall behind the couch. He was frustrated, but I actually thought it was going to be way worse than it was. No matter now though, its done. And the finished product pictures (right and left):
And a big group shot:
And Chris is thoroughly enjoying his hard work already.
So one of the things that I love about having made the move to the suburbs is the wealth of small animal life. As Lucy has already discovered we have bunnies, squirrels, and lil chipmunks (also shrew-like mammals that the hawks keep dropping in the pool....not so cute). There is also a wealth of flying life that makes for nice, peaceful background noise around the pool. There are robins, sparrows, owls, woodpeckers, and love birds (along with some others I haven't yet identified). I also found the blue jay hangout at the local park...so they don't just steal tater tots from the sonics. As much as I enjoy the bird, it seems also that the last owner did too. He incorporated them into some of the exterior design elements. Here is an example from the back of the house:
Not to be outdone, there is one for the front hose too:
As adorable as both of these guys are, they have nothing on the painting on the back fence:
The ivy has done a number on the painting over the last couple of years. I keep trimming it back, but it is a tenacious plant. Regardless, I think these little touches are really charming and they make me appreciate the little critters even more.
As I mentioned before, we were planning to place the television on the blue accent wall in the Living Room:
As you notice in that picture, the plugs for both the power and the cable are located at the bottom of the wall. When placing the TV in the middle of that wall this would leave several wires exposed and would generally look pretty messy. Chris planned to run the wires further up the wall and create new outlets. He is pretty handy and this isn't that big of a job for him, but I was impressed.
This started a debate on the proper height of the TV. After some debate and an internet consult, the TV is placed a eye level while standing (for those who are super serious TV watchers, the 'correct' height is sitting eye level, but we thought that was too low). And the boy went to work:
Look Ma, no wires! He did a pretty awesome job and the only lose thread is that the switch that you see in the picture did control that electrical outlet...now it doesn't control anything....oh well. When you have TV, you care much less about the orphan outlet.
And since Jenna asked, here is another picture of this wall with the flooring (we are still working out the placement of the cable box, so it is hanging out below right now):
