Eric and I got up pretty early today. We were out of the house and on the road by 10:00am, which is pretty early for us! We went north 18 miles to Rancho Penesquitos, which is the neighborhood where Bob’s new house is.
Bob gave Eric the tour, and I got to see the work that’s been done since I saw the house last. He had an epoxy floor put down in the garage, which is really cool. He also had popcorn ceilings removed from the three bedrooms. I don’t know who invented those popcorn ceilings, but they are the absolute WORST! It looks so much better without them!
I took a lot of pictures and made some suggestions, as did Eric. Bob loved all our ideas, and then we talked about wall colors. I told Bob the best thing to do is go to the paint store and pick up a lot of chips, so off we went to HOME DEPOT, which was just about 2 miles from his house.
We looked at the RALPH LAUREN and BEHR paints. He picked out a lot of neutral taupes, sands, and tans for the living room, dining room, office and hallway, a pale yellow for the guest room, and a nice sage green for the master bedroom. We also had to pick out a brown for the beams that run across the ceiling in the living room.
We brought a bunch of chips back to Bob’s house and then walked around checking them against the floors and matching them up together to see how they would look. It’s SO hard to tell with such a tiny chip, but Bob prefers more subtle colors, so there won’t be any big surprises when they’re up on the wall. He was so relieved to have that taken care of, because – like a lot of people – he was totally intimidated by the whole process of picking paint and he was so happy to have someone like me (and Eric) steering him in the right direction.
The whole idea behind great decorating is not to tell people what to like, or what is good, but to find out what THEY like and steer them in the right direction. Once I showed him the difference between a lot of tans and taupes (some were very green, some were very gray, some were very yellow), he was able to decide what he liked and what he didn’t like.
He ended up liking the RALPH LAUREN paints best, which are more expensive, but – hey – you go with what you like!
I wanted more flowers for the pots outside our apartment door and so we picked some up at HOME DEPOT. When we got home, we brought the flowers upstairs and then headed out again to go to COSTCO. We picked up a case of bottled water, and a few other things we needed and then headed home.
When we got home, we put everything away and then Eric planted the new plants in the pots. It looks SO pretty!
Both our TVs were out, so I spent some time on the phone with the cable company until they finally figured out that there was a problem in the area. It was so frustrating, because first they make you reboot, and do all kinds of stuff and then they transfer you to someone else and they inform you that everyone's cable is out! It came back on about 2 hours later.
Meanwhile, I downloaded all the pictures I took of Bob’s house. Then, I sent them to him in 5 emails. They came out great. Some will be useful for “before” and “after” pictures, and some just capture the best aspects of the house.
Then, Eric and I watched SHREK 2 on DVD, which my friend Elsa, who drives me to work, had loaned to me. She said it was so good, but Eric and I really don’t appreciate that kind of animation. I enjoyed it, and liked the actors who supplied the voices, but I didn’t love it at all. So sue me!
We had a simple dinner of steamed broccoli, veggie corn dogs and Uncle Ben’s rice. We watched the season finale of SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE (my favorite – Joshua – won!) and then we watched the season finale of LAST COMIC STANDING (my favorite – Iliza – won!). Then, we watched Friday’s episode of PSYCH, which guest-starred Steven Webber. It was funny.
Tomorrow we are going to brunch with Elsa and her husband, Stephen. We’re going back to THE WAVEHOUSE, where the company summer picnic was held. We heard they have a great brunch on Sundays and I told Elsa that Eric and I love brunch, and she said she and Stephen do, too! They live so close, so they’re going to pick us up at 11:00am. I’m really looking forward to it!