USB-to-Serial Adapter Issues

mahnked:
Switching the TX and RX pins did not work. And thank you aarg as using the uno as isp programmer worked in loading a blink sketch to homemade board did work! And that will work for now!

I would still like to get the adapter working since that would be easier in the future.

When you were first setting up your processor, did you upload a sketch through the ICSP connector after you burned the bootloader? That overwrites the bootloader so that you have to burn a fresh bootloader if you want to do serial uploads. That could be your problem.