We Have an Air Date

Bang for your Buck contacted us last week and said we are scheduled to be on the air 9/18. HGTV's website says the show will air on 9/11 at 9:30. I guess we'll just have to tune in to find out. :-)

Here is the rundown of the show from the website.

Designer Taniya Nayak compares three great rooms in Baltimore that were recently renovated with budgets of $50,000 each. Along with a realtor, they look at a modern great room with horizontal metal cabinets, a contemporary great room with a wood-burning fireplace and a spunky great room with a built-in bar.

I'm assuming we are the spunky great room with the built in bar. I'd prefer bad ass over spunky, but I suppose beggars can't be choosers.

More Turkey Pictures

Houseblog Schmouseblog

While I should be in the backyard slaving away at landscaping and plumbing, I felt like writing a blog entry about Turkey. Procrastination is a beautiful thing.

While in Istanbul we took a cruise along the Bosphorous.



The Blue Mosque was also pretty impressive. The intricate tile work was amazing.



There were tons of stray cats throughout Turkey. This one was escaping the days heat in front of the Blue Mosque.



I liked the look of these doors. I'm thinking about blowing it up to hang on the wall.



While the Queen was smiling here, we were less than impressed with the cave cities in Cappadocia. They are neat and all, but after we saw one we were ready to go.



The cave churces at the Goreme Open Air Museum were much better than the caves at Derinkuyu.



The town of Goreme in Cappadocia was impressive. Our hotel room was in a cave. If you look behind the Queen you can see the valley is filled with cave dwellings.



While riding ATV's around Cappadocia we stopped to pet a horse that was tied out on a hillside. Another lady was stopped by the horse reading a book and enjoying the view. The horse wasn't hers.



The highlight of Ephesus was definitely the Celsius Library.

Backyard Landscaping Update

While I may not have blogged in a while, this doesn't mean we haven't been busy. We installed crown molding in the living room, had HGTV over for filming, and have been busy on the backyard. While I'm sure you want to hear dirt about HGTV's visit, I'm going to cover our progress in the backyard. :-)

The last post of the yard show the space as being a lot better than before the concrete work, but it still looking prison-esque. It was 342% better than the untouched version, but I think the place is now approaching 514% better. Here is the space as you last saw it.



The concrete work was done, but the gate and fence wasn't in and the planter bed is sufferring from a severe lack of dirt and plants. These problems have been remedied, and the Queen is now enjoying the space much better.



The horizontal fencing and gate is in place. I am quite pleased. This Saturday was spent creating a drainage system in the planting bed, and Sunday hauling 4,000 lbs of dirt to fill the bed. The low voltage landscape lighting is showing off our walls and new tree, and looking swanky while doing so. We even managed to get our fancy new Forest Pansy Redbud over the 2' tall planting bed. I wasn't sure how to get the tree in the bed, but after building a ramp it wasn't too bad.



The tree will have small pink flowers in the spring, with new leaves showing a purple color all through the season. I originally wanted a 'Bloodgood' Japanese Maple, but the redbud was only $115 and allowed instant coverage between our seating point at the table and our neighbor's back deck. The Japanese Maples were considerably more for the same initial size. Eventually the redbud will have a 18-20' diameter spread, which will help to canopy the area.



I still need to hook up the plumbing for the spigot in the back and plant the boxwoods and other plants, but all that will come in due time. And by due time, I mean this weekend.

Keep on the lookout for a guest poster to cover the first two topics I mentioned early in the post. :-)

HGTV, Here We Come

A while ago Summer & Matt let us know that HGTV was looking for people in the Baltimore area who had recently renovated their space. The Queen contacted the show, we filled out the application, and over the past few weeks have been communicating with the Bang for your Buck folks. We found out yesterday that we were selected. :-)

The week of July 6th a film crew will descend on the rowhouse to film our great room, and a realtor and designer will critique the space while we look on. We are excited to be on the show, and are also really happy that Jon and Craig from Project Rowhouse will also be on the same episode.

While I'd love to spend every last minute fixing up the minor things before the film crew comes, we are off to Michigan for the week before July 4th and are out of town this weekend. Hopefully this will give the designer and realtor more items to critique. :-)

The Invasion of Grillasaurus Rex

We are back from Gallivanting across the pond and back at work in the backyard. The gate and garbage corral are built, and looking HAWT. We even got some inspiration from Jon & Craig's backyard and got some planters, plants and a fire pit for the backyard too. But the planters, plants and fire pit were minor additions. We also got Grillzilla.

We already have a charcoal Weber grill, but the Queen said she would cook more if we had a gas grill. We now have a gas grill. Now that I've blogged about it you are all witnesses, and as such this will allow me to guilt trip her into using it. Anyway...

We went to Home Depot hunting for a grill. I just wanted a small grill. Nothing too fancy. We didn't need anything with 43 feet of grilling surface, a 1/4 acre for a prep area, and side burners to keep my non-existent side dishes warm. But this is all Home Depot had. It was either a $100 piece of crap, or grills with saddle bags and sidecars. I liked a smaller Weber grill, but with half the heat output and double the price it was out of contention. At the end of the day we decided Grillzilla was coming home with us - the other options sucked beyond belief or required our first born child as down payment.

I got around to putting it together tonight and got about half way through it before it got too dark. I am damning it already. While it appears to be a fine machine I just wish it were half as big. I fear this grill will turn me into a meatatarian. I will try to resist it's urges. I may have to use the side burner to steam some broccoli. Oh hell, who am I kidding. I'm sure in another week I'll be using the sideburner to fry up some bacon to top my cheeseburger.

Ballooning Over Cappadocia

The day we arrived in Cappadocia there was a ballooning accident. One died, and eight to ten injured. Our flight was the next day. The Queen was worried, but I figured the day after an accident would be very safe, as people would be extra worried. The flight was beautiful. We floated over Goreme, dipping into Love Valley and touching down in a field to the west of town. We can now check hot air ballooning off of our bucket lists.