Lights! Camera! Action!!!

We're in a bit of a holding pattern now until the Major Design Review is officially, officially done...the city won't let me put in any more building-zoning applications until then...super...so...

We Have Lights!!!!

The PO's apparently took all the light fixtures with them when they left...so the selling Realtor came in and installed some super-duper sweet Home Despot $9 Specials!

After much, much, much searching on the interwebs for lights that we liked that didn't cost a zillion dollars (sorry rejuvenation hardware) we went with lights from a company called Quorum International and the collection is called Barcelona....and yes the lights cost more than $9 each.....

Here's the collection of boxes we got via UPS.

Notice how the box in front is totally destroyed! That box also has the most expensive light! Hurray!!!

Now here's the pile of crappy lights that we took down.

Here's a training montage of me trying to figure out how to hang the lights. EVERY SINGLE LIGHT had to be custom mounted. The mounted screws had to be cut much shorter and the central threaded brass rods had to be cut to fit also (with out munging up the threads!)....so, it took a lot longer than I was expecting...what doesn't.

That and hanging lights on 11' ceilings single handedly, was a bit of a challenge.

On To Pretty Pictures Of Our New Lights!!!

The dinning room light!

The dinning room light up close.

There is some disagreement between me and Mrs. MadMadScientist about how high this light should be... I think it should be where it is at like 6' off the floor. Mrs MadMadScientist thinks it should be higher. What do y'all think?

Here's a shot of the new entry light and stair landing light in context.

Now here's a close of shot of the 'birdcage' entry light.

And the landing light.

The second stair way landing we had to do the same light flush mounted as the ceiling is lower.

It's odd but to us when the same light is on a chain it looks older and more authentic.

Continuing on up the stairs to the next landing..ya that's a lot of landings, we put in this sconce.

I was worried that it was going to stick out from the wall too much and be in the way but it looks pretty good in that respect.

Back down in the main entry area we hung another semi-flushmount light. One thing to notice here is that the 10" wide home despot lights can hide a myriad of problems...

Here's the big chandelier half way done.

And here it is all done! Pretty!

One thing that I should know but don't is. This chandelier has 6 40W light bulbs...shouldn't it be as bright as 2 100W bulbs? It sure isn't...in fact its exactly perfectly dim for a party but it's not going to be bright enough to read by or clean by...hmmm...

Another thing we realized AFTER all the lights were up... All these ceiling lights on the main floor NEED ceiling medallions....which means when we do install them I'll have to probably take most of the lights down to install the medallion and then re-install the lights.... Hurray!!!!!!!!!!!!

We also installed the Gargoyle light from Chez 2.0 into the library. One thing that we didn't realize when we installed the light is that when standing on the sidewalk outside the window perfectly frames the light! Like we meant to do it!

Closer up shot.

That's it for now.. next up, Down Spouts!!! How exciting!

Its Ours!!!! Its Ours!!!!! Woo-Hooooo!!!!!!!!

ITS OURS!!!!!! ITS OURS!!!!! ITS OURS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Over the weekend we had a very nice notary public come to the house so we could sign all the papers without Mrs. Madscientist having to miss any work.

After that we were like, 'Hey, why in the hell are we going to wait for the 31st to close.???' All the hurdles where jumped and we wanted to close quick before ANYTHING else could pop up. So we sent an email around to everyone about, 'Hey, how about we close on Wednesday the 26th instead??' Our loan guy was able to fund the loan on the 25th and the sale was recorded on the 26th and its ours!!!!

HURRAY ITS OURS!!!!! THE $26k GAMBLE PAID OFF!!!!!!

We didn't actually know when exactly it was going to close so I was out grocery shopping at Safeway when my Realtor called. He said,'Daniel the sale recorded I'm heading over to the house now to get the keys where you at?' We agreed to meet in the Safeway parking lot in 15 minutes.

I immediately called Mrs. MadScientist and gave her the good news!!!! It was finally over!!! All the hoops, the hand wringing, the stress, the many, many sleepless nights...

Mrs. MadScientist started crying, so of course I start crying right there in the meat section of Safeway.

HURRAY ITS OURS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HURRAY HURRAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mrs. Madscientist came home a bit early from work and we scooped up the baby and drove right over there. It was really, really, really. surreal driving up to the house and down that looong driveway to the garage...it was ours.....wow.

The baby wanted to get out and run around the back yard and we played on a swinging bench there for a while but I was itching to get inside.

We went through the entire house turning all the lights on and looking out the windows and the baby danced around in the middle of the big empty rooms...it was awesome...lots of laughing and crying and giggling.

Here's the best new thing we discovered about the house...from one of the top floor rooms you actually have a little-bitty water view of the bay!!! Mrs. MadScientist has always dreamed about living somewhere where you can see the water and this new surprise just really sealed the deal for us that this is 'The House' for us.....

Boy, I hope we can get a couple of stress free nights of sleep before we have to start the moving, and building process at the new place...oh and sell the current Chez too....no stress there no sirree bob...

One Last One
WOO-HOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!