Is it possible to have a single remote?

Why, yes it is! My brother and his family gave us a Logitech Harmony 550 Universal Remote, to augment our setup. You can read my review on Amazon.com for details, but the upshot is, after setting it up, it allowed us to dispense with the other remotes and use it exclusively. Initial setup was easy, although I had to do some additional customization before it would operate everything in a logical way.

Having used it for a few days, I still prefer the layout of my TiVo remote, and my consider swapping it for the Harmony 670, which appears to be better suited for heavy DVR/TiVo users. But for now it solves a big problem.

Next up is to get a subwoofer and perhaps replace the center speaker with one designed for the purpose.

Home theatre setup

The home theater is mostly set up. But it took a little bit of doing, and a lot of cursing. So I'll tell you what I did to spare you some trouble if you're looking to do the same thing.

First off, I ordered my TV (a Sony 52KDLXBR4 52 inch LCD TV) from LCDTVs.com -- I just couldn't resist the name! It was far cheaper than buying it locally. I checked that it was in stock before I ordered (I called them, having been warned in advance that some sites list that the TVs are in stock and they aren't). They upsold me from free shipping (which uses a slow carrier and lands the TV at the curb) to a shipper that specializes in shipping big TVs and will take it to the door. This cost an extra $129, but the total price was still $800-$1000 less than buying it from a local store. The TV arrived about 10 days after I ordered it (or so). The shippers took the TV downstairs, where I turned it on to make sure everything was working okay. And everything was.

Oh, word of warning. When the store verifies your order, they try to upsell you to buy the extended warranty, wall mounts, and other things you might not have researched. Don't bite -- it's just not worth it.

The next step was to get our home theater guy to come hang it on the wall. He also is a dealer for Denon receivers, and we had been planning to get the receiver he recommended: the Denon 2308CI A/V receiver. Craig (Bever Electronics) and his assistant came the next day and installed the wall mount, mounted the TV on the wall, fished the wires through the wall to the outlet below, and set up and configured the receiver. I should have paid more attention to what they did with the receiver, because the Denon manual is unbelievably bad, and the remote control for the receiver is also very hard to use. (Eventually I figured it out... more on that later.)

The one thing that we didn't do during the remodel, which one of the many of us should have noticed, was to put the power outlet high on the wall so the TV power cord would be hidden by the TV. When the electrician comes for the (hopefully) last time to finish up the undercabinet lighting in the kitchen and a few other remaining things, we'll get him to move the outlet so that the TV cord isn't visible.

I moved my two TiVos downstairs, and my Slingbox (which still isn't set up again... and after a couple of weeks of fussing and cursing, I was able to get things set up to mostly use the TiVo remote to control everything. That being said, it's quite clear that I will need to buy a universal remote control (like a Harmony) to control everything the way I want it to.

Here's what I did. First, I borrowed a newer TiVo remote from a friend of mine. This TiVo remote has a 1-2 switch that allows you to tune each TiVo to a different frequency so that you can control each TiVo separately. (I wish I'd known this months ago, because it plagued me when I had them in the same room with the Slingbox.) I was also able to program the TiVo remote to control the volume on the A/V Receiver, and the power on both the A/V receiver and the TV. I set the TV up to operate like an LCD monitor (since we use the built-in speakers, not the TV speakers, and we use the tuners on the other devices, not the TV), and the only time I need the TV remote is if I want to adjust some display property of the TV.

So now, I use the TiVo remote for everything but changing the source input (TiVo 1, TiVo 2, or VHS (like I'm every going to watch a video tape again!)). I use the Denon remote for changing the source input, since I haven't yet figured out if it's possible to set the TiVo remote to do that. It turns out that I still have to use my old TiVo remote to access some functions on the built-in DVDs though. A universal remote would solve that problem. All in all, it's workable, and I think I could even explain to someone how to work it!

It would have been nice to just be able to buy an LCD monitor rather than a TV. Given that we have an A/V receiver, and built-in speakers, a lot of the functionality on the TV we just don't need or use, so we've paid for functionality we're not using.

The quality of the display is good, but I can't help thinking how much better it would be with real HD input (this is the danger in buying a new HD TV). So, come the beginning of the year, I'll "trade" one of my TiVos in for an HD TiVo. And later in the year, once the HD DVD formats settle down (if they do), I'll probably buy a separate HD DVD with HDMI outputs that will output true 1080p resolution. Finally, I will need a universal remote. But I will wait on all these things until after the holidays, as the setup I have now is quite workable.

It would be nice, however, to have some place to sit downstairs, so since the upstairs sofa appears to be months off (at which point the sofa upstairs will move downstairs), I will need to figure something else out, as sitting on the floor or in a hard-backed chair just isn't cutting it! Beanbag chairs are my current thought... other ideas?

Pods be gone!

Major milestone! We came home and the pods were no longer there. (And yes, we meant to do that.) Slowly but surely, the last vestiges of remodeling are fading away. Next up: clean out the garage and move the remaining furniture back into the house. Maybe we'll try to move the piano back into the living room this week!

Reflections on Living in a New House

We've been "living" in the whole house for a little over a month now. We just finished unpacking the pods today. The library shelves are almost full, and somewhat organized. And we've even bought a few small pieces of furniture. The ripped Ingo Maurer shades have been replaced. We are still waiting for our remaining kitchen cabinet and trim pieces, for the buffet shelves to be fixed and for the undercabinet lighting, but otherwise we're "done". We've had seven "dinner parties" (more than we've had in the previous four years). We ordered a TV. And we've paid our final bills. So now it's time to take stock.

Did we achieve our objectives? Emphatically, yes. (I will have a lot more detail on what the objectives were in another post. Bet ya can't wait!) I love our new house! Although there were a few things that didn't turn out quite like I'd imagined (the inside railing and the fireplace front, for example), the overall house is really pretty incredible and we are using the house in ways we might not have anticipated. Even the aspects that didn't turn out as expected still turned out nice. And the basic objectives of the remodel (fix the floorplan and make the house more open and livable) were more than achieved.

The breakfast nook area is still my favorite area of the house. I thought I'd take use the dining room as the office, but the breakfast nook area serves the function even better. I can listen to the living room stereo and gaze out at the view from my perch in the kitchen, all the while keeping track of who (or what) is coming down the drive.

The dog, on the other hand, loves the downstairs server room the best. It's dark and cozy and she can get away from all the fuss and bother upstairs. It's like her own ten by ten kennel.

The wall of windows in the great room has really enhanced the view tremendously. I always thought we had a good view, but in the new house it's spectacular, primarly because we now have an uninterrupted 180 degree view of the bay and hills. It's the one aspect of the house that people comment on the most.

The floors and ceiling turned out beautifully. The rich tones of the rose river gum floor really compliment and warm up the neutral tones of the surrounding stainless and quartzite. The stone floor is great for sliding on in your stocking feet, and both floors are very easy to clean.

One thing I also really like about the house is that it's very unassuming from the outside. It looks like one of the many ranch-style houses that dot the landscape in Los Altos. But once you step onto the front porch you get an inkling that it isn't an ordinary rancher. The broken-glass front doors and the eerie blue doorbell help set the stage for what's to come.

All in all, the end result was a success in my book (except for perhaps the stress and the pricetag... but those quickly fade).

As we've been unpacking the pods we've been offloading a lot of our old stuff. Is there really a need to keep 30 mismatched coffee mugs? Or a set of 3 (because we broke one) champagne flutes when we don't even drink? We've taken this opportunity to pare things down to only what we really need and what fits with the design of the house. The temptation to chuck everything is strong, but we are trying to strike a balance so that we'll have something to sit on and plates to eat off of.

We will probably continue the slow process of re-furnishing the house over the next year, buying things slowly as we need them. Although we're a bit tapped from the remodel, we're less broke than I thought we would be. We have already bought stools, folding chairs, and an outside bench from DWR. The stools were originally supposed to be here in February, but we've already received two of the three so far! How's that for exceeding expectations? (Versus our kitchen, which likely won't be complete until February, over a year after we ordered it!) I also finally bought a dining room table (the Poliform Dolmen), which should be here in a couple of months -- our old one really is showing its age (we've had it since 1982!) and only seats four. We still have to settle on/purchase dining room chairs (we're thinking about the DWR Bottega chairs, to match the stools), and buy the sofa for upstairs (either the Flexform Groundpiece or Molteni & C Reversi, and an entertainment unit for downstairs. (If only the dollar were stronger right now!) But we'll continue to do this slowly over the coming year.

I still have dreams that I can get a company like DWR to do a catalog photo shoot in the house (and perhaps leave a spec of furniture or two behind while they're at it). I'd also really like to get the house featured in a magazine like Dwell. But I can't begin to pursue this until the kitchen is completely done, so I'll probably tackle this in the new year. In the meantime, I'll continue to enjoy the new house and have dinner parties!

Movin' in

Yesterday we unpacked and stocked up the kitchen with everything I could find. I know we're missing things, because I couldn't find any serving dishes. It's possible those are still at the folks' house.

We moved some furniture in. We moved the bed downstairs but then stopped, as it was very muddy on the side of our house, and mud got tracked into the house. Sigh. But at least the bed is downstairs so if a guest wants to come stay we have a place for them to sleep. We already have a reservation for November. I also tried out the new downstairs bath for the first time, and it was very nice. Love the new faucets! We still need a few accessories but this will all come with time.

We had Kurt's folks over for dinner, so that ensured that we at least had to have a dining room table/chairs and a sofa in the house. It's probably a good thing that we moved the old furniture in, because it's a good template for buying new furniture. I now know that I don't want a sectional sofa upstairs; most likely I'll get two sofas which will face each other.

We also need a rug that's big enough to sit the sofas on so the floor doesn't get damaged. We also hooked up the stereo and tested out the acoustics upstairs. (The speakers and amp were bought in 1976... I think it may be time to upgrade!) The sound was very nice, but I probably need a bit more power. The piano will stay in its practice room for a while while we get everything else sorted out. But it's pretty clear where it's going.

Even when you're done you're not done... there's decorating to do! Slowly but surely, we'll move things into the house. But my prediction is that only half of what we have will make the trip. When you have a new house it's an impetus to clean out all the old mismatched stuff that you could never bear to throw away. If anyone needs coffee cups, glasses, etc. holler!

FINALLY! The FINAL!

Yes, folks, two years + in the making, and we have finally passed the final inspection for our house! This does not mean we're completely done, as there are a few items that need to be taken care of. BUT, it does mean that we can move into the new part of the house, including the kitchen! We can officially start stocking the pantry, the inside reefer, and we can move back to using real plates. HUZZAH! A momentous occasion indeed! Plus, the portapotty is gone, adding to the finished look.

No pictures to post today, but I will post once the handrails are sanded, and maybe after I've moved our temporary furniture back into the house.

Time to party!!!

The final piece of the puzzle

The railing guys came yesterday and they finished putting the modified railing on the stairs. It looks much better with the modifications, and I think we are now DONE! Well not completely done -- there are some items that still need to be completed/finished before it's done done, but done to the point where the city can come tomorrow and sign off on the project, and then we can move back in! So with any luck, we'll start moving back in this weekend!