Easy Being Green

While we're waiting for our stalled inspection-- more about that later-- we've worked on making the place greener over the last week or so.  We started last Saturday with a trip out to Johnson's Nursery in Olney, where we bought "The Irenes" -- four three-foot arborvitae that we placed alongside the SE side of our house, under the kids' bedrooms, between the window banks.  This weekend, I hinted to Abby I wanted to finish the job, but she had been noncommittal to the various plants the Real Irene had showed us.  There was, for instance, a series of Japanese hollies that came in normal, dwarf, and giant varieties that we'd be able to plant in between The Irenes and, right away, have the look that everything was the same size-- given the fact that the side of the house is on a slant.  Or any number of other plants.  But nothing doing.  So I suggested we go back to Olney this weekend and revisit the decision.  Abby suggested we go to Merrifield Garden Center out near Tyson's, since she thought it was bigger and had better choices.  If it meant I got to buy plants, I was all about it-- plus, we have had really good luck with their stuff; W.C. Merrifields, one of our favorite plants from the backyard of our old house, was in their clearance section, and now he's so big that our tenant tried in vain to suggest that we trim him back this spring.  NEVER!

So we went off to Merrifield, and spent a good couple of hours browsing around.  After about 20 minutes, the kids decided they'd had enough-- after only about five, Lola was pulling her "I'm tired of walking" shtick. No, sorry Lola, you're related to Gregory and Abby, so you're gonna have to deal with walking.  So while Abby pondered and pondered, as she's apt to do, I took the kids over to play with the fountains and the koi pond.  After an hour or so, we headed back to see what Abby was up to, and found she had arranged six plants from side to side, smallest to the left, largest to the right, in a display of what she thought would be good on the side of the house.  They were really pretty, but all together they cost almost $400.  Plus, I really didn't think we'd have enough room for them all.  Sure, we do now, but when they grow, they'll totally bunch up, and not in a charming-garden kind of way, like we want eventually out front.  So we winnowed them down to four-- although I think only three were necessary-- and brought 'em home.

The area we have is 30 feet across, and 32-34 inches wide-- about the width of a sidewalk.  It's at a crazy slant so that at the far left there is a clearance of about two inches between the ground and the window sills, but at the far left there's almost five feet.  So clearly, there was math involved.  With The Irenes positioned at the ends and between the windows, we had ten feet between the first two, nine between the next two, and another ten between the last two; however, each Irene will get about four feet wide, so that left us with three spaces of six, five, and six feet in width.  Follow?

They say a picture's worth a thousand words?
Well, this one's worth at least a few paragraphs.

Three of the four bushes we bought are really cool.  Funny enough, we ended up buying two more arborvitae (although way different looking than the originals), and two differed cypresses.  The shortest of the three cool ones went in the middle of the left space, right under Isaac's bank of windows.  It's a Whipcord Arborvitae, and the only way I can describe it is by referencing Side Show Bob from The Simpsons.  It's only about a foot tall right now, but it's got dreadlocks, and will grow to about four feet tall at maturity.  I think this one will be called "Marley," for obvious reasons, but also because Lola has a friend named Marley, and it's better that than the crazy thing Isaac thought of in his stream-of-consciousness style of thought.  Next, in the middle, is a Rheingold Arborvitae, which is rounded, about two feet tall, and is colored bright green with a tinge of yellow/orange-- hence the name.  It's smack-dab in the center of the stretch, right where the wall between the kids' rooms is.  Hopefully, it'll grow big and bushy enough that it'll block the direct view of the kids' bed areas, although with the curtains in, that matters less.  Finally, on the right side in Lola's windows is my favorite-- the Curly Tops Cypress, which is blue like a spruce, really soft to the touch, and looks like a bush made of poodle hair.  It's really cool, and can supposedly grow 8-10 feet tall, which would be awesome.  Ideally, all of the bushes will grow high enough that the bottom halves of all the SE-facing windows will be obscured... but that won't be until the kids are probably in middle school at least!

Interestingly enough, while I'm not "that dad" at all, I had very much been considering buying plants with thorns to put under the windows.  For Abby's sake, it was to deter people from stealing our kids through their windows, but for my sake, it was to deter my kids from using their windows to sneak out an night when they're older.  That said, they could just walk over to the back door, and it'd be easier and probably quieter, so there goes that idea...  We had found an amazing plant called a Mock Orange Flying Dragon that would have been amazing for that reason-- it was all spindly with big thorns, but produced beautiful flowers and tiny inedible oranges year round-- but Abby didn't like how it looked in the winter, so that was nixed in favor of the other three-- all of which are perfectly soft and quiet to brush against.  Oh well.

New sidewalk, new bushes, new hose,
and lots of unearthed stones

(Oh, and the fourth tree-- the most expensive, and the smallest-- was a Tsukumo Dwarf Cypress that's about the size of a bowling ball, and grows in that shape.  I convinced Abby it didn't belong with the rest, with the hope that we could return it, but she liked it a lot, so right now it'd just in a planter until we can think of something else to do with it.)

I planted them all on Sunday afternoon, and was lucky enough to have a huge rainstorm about an hour later, so didn't have to water them.  The number of big rocks I pulled out of that yard is ridiculous-- the area under the Yew tree in that corner is strewn with unearthed stone right now-- and the topsoil is a patchwork of colors right now, from the orangey-brown clay that was there originally to the brownish-gray topsoil and the black nutrient-rich fertilizer I bought, plus some other stuff thrown in.  But it's there, and I love how it looks.  There's just something about planting stuff-- especially stuff that'll stay around for years-- that's so satisfying to me.  Now, if we can just get to that damn front yard.

So now for the front yard update.  Meaning: what the heck is going on with the inspection.  Get a load of the latest: You all know we're waiting for our Certificate of Occupancy inspection from the county, and that  while we failed 13 different things, the main issue was that there was no record of an inspection of our new foundation wall at the front of the house.  You may also know that Mark said he might have to re-dig the area in our front yard so as to show the inspector what the now-buried wall looks like, thus precluding us from doing anything in the front yard,  But what you don't know is that Mark more-than-alluded to the fact that it would cost us $4,000 to have that done.  Yes, for him to dig up the yard to show the inspector who he claims inspected a wall, but who claims he did not, more than a year ago, he wants to charge me, and that charge would be $4,000.  When I mentioned this to Abby the other day, she flipped out.  Honestly, although it would be so much easier for the county to "realize" they had inspected the wall after all, part of me wants them not to, just so I can see my mild-mannered wife go ballistic on whomever it is that broaches the subject of us paying for that dig.  Ballistic, I tells ya.  For now, the news is that Mark has petitioned for them to approve the wall without a dig, seeing as he had to have the footer under the wall inspected at the same time, and the county does have a record of us passing that.  While it would totally make sense that both things would have been done at the same time, I don't put it past our contractor to have bypassed the one because the other would be done easily enough later on.  (If you can't tell, they're no longer getting even a modicum of a benefit of the doubt from us.)

Our bathroom window and the resulting
post-shower leak.  Oh, and that white stone
to the left of it is positioned where the roof leaks.

Also, as I mentioned last time, we "won" a giveaway from Montgomery County for a free home-energy audit sponsored by the Maryland Historical Trust.  I guess ten historic homes from each county were selected from among all the applicants-- and we applied, thanks to a heads-up from Bonnie (thanks!)-- and we were one of those chosen.  Originally, we had been told they might bring a film crew along to record it for local TV, but that never happened, which is good, since our house is pretty much a disaster inside right now, with us still in squatter mode and all.  But the guy came late last week and ran his tests all over the house, and we're supposed to get a report back one of these days on what we can be doing better.  I can only imagine the exclamation points that will be all over the thing.  So hopefully we can get going on whatever recommendations they make, without having to rely on Servicez Unlimited to do the job.  As it is, we've been going back and forth with Mark for weeks now on our list of stuff to do.  It's taken about the last four days to get the same damn list to him, this time broken down between stuff they have to wait until after the inspection passes to do, and STUFF THEY CAN DO RIGHT FREAKING NOW!  One thing on that list: fix the leak in the porch ceiling that I noticed yesterday while I stood outside during a downpour and Lola ate her ice cream cone.  Oh, and the fact that when we take showers upstairs, water trickles out the windows and pools on the floor of the porch along the wall.  Great.

But hey, we've got bushes, right?

An End to Fancy Camping?

When we first moved into our house in the District, Abby and I joked that we were "fancy camping," what with our one working electric outlet and our daily trek to the basement to use the shower, and our lack of central heating.  More than eight years later, we have found ourselves "fancy camping" once more.  Only this time, the hardships are the lack of television, Internet, and a kitchen sink.  Lo and behold: this week.

Up until Monday, I had been holding out hope that some cable company would come to our rescue.  You see, our neighbors all have cable.  That's because, well, they live in 2013.  Unfortunately, Dewitt Drive separates the historic from the pre-historic.  That's because while 9615 Dewitt Drive, across the street, has their choice of Comcast or Verizon, 9618 Dewitt Drive, us, is left in the dark ages.  No wires cross the street, aboveground or underground.  And although a conduit runs from approximately 250 feet up the street over to a location near our parking spots, it is empty.  Just like when we found out last year that our house was "eligible" to have public water supply access, but didn't actually have a connection, we found out this weekend that we are "close" to having cable companies accept our money in their exorbitant pricing schemes, but no proverbial cigar is anywhere to be found.  So on Monday night, after a fruitless meeting with Comcast, I officially gave up on cable.

Therefore, enlightenment.  Yesterday we got a FedEx package in the mail with our new Clear Internet equipment in it.  Clear is a provider that gives you Internet from cell towers, and doesn't require any wiring at all.  We unpacked the box, plugged in the receiver, scratched our heads for a moment while our computer told us we weren't installing something correctly, then noticed the web was already working in the background.  Yep, not even one button to press: Internet.  As a gift to ourselves, after we put the kids to bed, we officially sat down on the couch for the first time in the new house and watched an episode of our favorite British TV Game show, Q.I., off of YouTube.  And there was much rejoicing.  (For those of you who are interested, Clear is $50/month, and you can even take it with you when you travel.  You basically make yourself into a wi-fi hotspot for up to ten devices, which is great because we have a lot of things that want to hook themselves to the Internet, like our thermostat and likely the security system we haven't gotten yet.  Another thing that wants to hook to the Internet is...)

Television!  Today: Dish Network.  Nope, sorry, DirecTV.  (I always get them mixed up; it's the "D.")  After I called Clear on Monday night, I called DirecTV and scheduled an install.  They assured me that, despite our weird angles and the fact that the main NPS building overshadows the house, we'd be able to get perfectly good coverage.  Last week in Buffalo, when I realized satellite service may be in my future, I talked with my cousin Jenny about it, and she assured me that she had never lost coverage before-- and she lives n Buffalo, where there's this thing called "weather."  So we asked DirecTV to come out today, and of course Abby has a migraine.  But she was a trooper, because she knew it meant television was en route.  We had wanted the installer to put the dish on the side roof, above the first-floor bathroom, because it would be out of the way, but it needs to face in a southwesterly direction, and the house would block it there.  So the main roof was the only option, but as with everything here, there are considerations.  So I called the property management company and asked them what their satellite dish policy was.  Kwame, the property manager, told me there's actually an FCC regulation prohibiting prohibitions on satellite dishes, but that we should put it in the least conspicuous place possible, and not on community property.  Bonnie, from Save Our Seminary, said she didn't know of anyone else who had a dish on the property, but she also didn't know of anyone whose request for one had been denied; she also quoted the FCC regulation.  So we are now the proud owner of a satellite dish, located at the far eastern corner of the roof, where it can't be seen at all from the front of the house, and where it's partially obscured by the 100-year-old yews in the yard.  And I've already set the DVR to record Parks & Recreation.  Again, about $50/month, so $100 for cable and Internet, which would have been $139 with Comcast... whenever they decided to lay the lines.

Our new faucet.  All that's missing is water.

The entertainment hole has been filled now, but there are a few other holes that have been missing.  Namely, when our counters were set a few weeks ago, some holes were left undrilled.  The countertop guys came out for the install and asked Abby for the faucet we'd be using in the kitchen, so she handed them the box.  Only more than a week later, when we took the faucet out of the box, did we realize that, um, the faucet had never been taken out of the box.  Only one hole had been drilled, and it was a three-hole faucet.  I called the countertop people and got a definite attitude from the manager.  So I made Abby call back, because no one dislikes Abby.  And what do you know: we now have the proper number of holes drilled for our faucet, and should have a completely functioning suite of water-using fixtures in our kitchen by early next week.  And not a moment too soon, either, because washing dishes in a bathroom sink is truly disgusting.  I don't know why that is, actually, because it's not even like we're using the upstairs bathroom much, since the door to it only went in this week, and the shower's still doorless.  It's just that when you're cleaning out a pot that has cheese and tomato sauce stuck inside of it, and it's all going down the drain in your brand-new ultra-modern sink, it doesn't sit right.  One thing I'm sure of: we'll make very, very good use of the dishwasher once it's hooked in.

The dishwasher, pre-spacers

The dishwasher, by the way, does not need to be replaced.  Phew!  We had thought there was an issue because of the large gaps separating the dishwasher from both the cabinets on either side of it and the counter on top.  But when the guys came back to finish cabinet installation, fillers magically appeared on the sides.  Granted, the cabinet installation is still not completed, not the least of which is because the gap between the dishwasher and the countertop remains, but at least we know we don't have to buy a new one.  As for the cabinets, they're now all in.  The problems are very minor now: one door is solid, but was ordered to be glass; the drawer pulls were not attached; and the space above the dishwasher needs to be filled.  The fridge needs to be leveled, which is less the fault of the cabinet installers and more the fault of us having put the kitchen on a slanted surface (that used to be a porch).  Also, having bought "supercabinets" for the corners, convinced the inserts would allow us to use more of the space in the corner cabinets to each side of the range, we realized very quickly that the supercabinet inserts actually preclude us from using the back third of each cabinet.  We're going to try to return the inserts, but at the very least we'll be removing them from the cabinets and just using basic shelving.  We'll totally deal with having to bend down and stretch to get the less frequently-used stuff hiding in the back if it means we're not wasting so much space in the first place.  Oh, and our contractors have to raise the range hood, because they apparently think we're about three feet tall.

Our kitchen as it stands today.
The cabinet to the right of the range hood should have a glass door,
and the range hood will be raised significantly.

As for space, we are bouncing back and forth between thinking we have way too much or not enough.  I think it's because as we put stuff away, we see the empty boxes and think, "wow, there's not much left to unpack!"  Then we go to another room and realize, "wait, there are kitchen boxes stored in the library.  Crap."  And more boxes shift to the rapidly filling cabinets.  I think in the end, we'll be just about right, with maybe a bit of extra room, but not too much.

My doorbell!
It goes "Brrrrrrring!

As for other new stuff, we've now got all the doors installed.  Except the one for the storage area, which we swear we ordered but is not here.  So we'll have to buy another one.  But there are no doors sitting around anymore, waiting to be installed.  About half the trim is in, but none of it is painted.  That is going to be a huge, immensely boring undertaking that I'm totally going to pawn off on Abby if I can help it!  The misplaced door hardware has been corrected, and I realized the deadbolt on the back door was not done incorrectly-- it just works that way.  It's a keypad doorlock, which is awesome because it means we don't have to give anyone a key if they want to come over when we're not here-- we just give them the code and they walk right in.  I love it, because it's fantastic when you have your arms filled with groceries.  And speaking of awesome: my doorbell has been installed!  No one has rung it yet, though, because even though our house numbers have also gone up out front, still nobody can find our house.  I constantly have delivery people wondering where we are.  "I'm on a traffic circle, and all I see is a big building and a green house."  Duh, look at the numbers on the wall, blind guy!

Our main goal now is unpacking.  Because once we unpack, I really feel we can do landscaping, which I desperately want to do.  Oh, and because it will then feel less like "fancy camping" and more like "living in a house you've owned for 23 months already."  Abby and I had a bitch session while washing dishes in the bathroom last night, and went over all the reasons we were unhappy with the house.  My unhappiness has already been expounded on in this forum, but is generally concerned with my not wanting to have had a "fancy camping" experience in this place.  Hers, though, can be compared to watching that show on HGTV where they show people what their house would look like if it were rehabbed with an unlimited budget, but then they just go out and buy stuff from flea markets instead; yeah, it's way better than your old place, but you had so much more in your head.  Once we're settled, I'm sure it'll keep getting closer to that picture in our heads.  But for now, I'm looking forward to using the Internet, watching the television, and washing dishes in the kitchen.  In other words, the end of "fancy camping" for good.

The new up-lighting in our Great Room.  Decidedly NOT fancy camping.

Last Submission. We Hope.

Well, today was the day.  The day we submitted what we hope will be the last application necessary before being able to start work on the house.  It was for the Montgomery County Historical Area Work Permit, and it's a three-plus-week-process that started today with the submission.  Over the next three weeks, Montgomery County's planners will pore over our submission, make it all pretty, and have it ready for their December 7 meeting.  If all goes as we hope that day, we'll have an afternoon of running things around and getting stamps and whatnot, then we can proceed as planned.  I keep thinking to myself: "Remember, at the end of this all, they're giving you a lot of money back for filling out these mandatory forms.  And it'll all be worth it."  Mantra helps, sometimes.

This application wasn't too different from the state forms, other than it was a form we actually had to print out and write on with a pen, rather than typing it out online.  And there were spelling errors-- I don't mean that we made, I mean written on the official form!  We had to show them our plat, give them the contact information for everyone whose property abuts ours, take pictures of the house from an angle indicative of how each of those properties views us, et cetera.  It's only for the exterior, but I included everything -- interior and systems included -- just to make sure we didn't forget anything.  I spoke to Scott with the County, and he said there's no problem with including too much.  So it's all there.  And now we wait.

We also are waiting for word back from Maryland on our roof application, which we submitted last week, and which was debated at yesterday's Historical Trust board meeting.  Theoretically, it should go well, because we went with materials they recommended.  Okay, they couldn't "recommend" materials, since they're a government entity and they're not allowed to do that.  But they strongly hinted that the way we should go was in one direction, and that was exactly what we chose.  If only they could have told us that one cycle ago...  Regardless, we are waiting on that too, and the county has been nice enough to allow us to submit anything we get back from the state between now and December 7 as an addendum to the packet.  So that means more running around by Abby and Lola, who have already driven out to Crownsville three times (about an hour each way) to drop off materials for the state, and did a run to Rockville this morning (about 45 minutes each way) to drop off the county stuff.  It'll all be worth it.  It'll all be worth it.  It'll all be worth it.

By the time the county has its meeting, we'll have owned the house for more than 160 days without being able to touch it.  I haven't been there in more than a month, because, well, what would I do there?  Bonnie with Save Our Seminary was nice enough to bring by the house's original exterior lighting, which was saved when it looked like it might just fall down (and maybe bring the house with it?) a while back-- it'd be really nice to see that.  But for the moment, I think going up there's more annoying than anything else, just because I know there's nothing I can do.

So I'm doing other stuff, like reading the community listserve, where the current issue is whether people should have their porch lights on at night.  (Sorry folks, but I was raised by Chuck Wahl, and therefore my goal is to have the brightest porch lights possible.  Plus, as a security professional, I know darn well you don't want to be the darkest house on the block.)  I can't wait until mundane stuff like that is the big news of the day.  What was that mantra again?  It'll all be worth it.  It'll all be worth it.  It'll all be worth it.

No Movement, Nighttime

Courtney just emailed me: "Why aren't you updating your blog anymore, slacker?"  Well, unfortunately there has been nothing about which to blog.  Well, not nothing, but the most newsworthy thing that has happened this week was that I spoke with Patty, the woman at the obscure Delaware-based firm that will be managing our FHA Mortgage until we (hopefully) refinance in a year or so.  Patty informed me that we'll need to have monthly inspections of the house to make sure work is progressing, which will be interesting considering the first couple months will likely have nothing concrete to show for them, save for building plans and the necessary submissions to the various historical boards in order for those plans to go through.  Especially with our next-door neighbor, the Dutch Windmill, going full bore ahead with exterior renovations right now, it's gonna make us itch to sit and wait.  We do have to remember it took several months for the Windmill to get the go-ahead to start construction, but it's gonna be hard; with our current house, I was on the stairs pulling out carpet staples before we even closed, and it wasn't long after that when we invited my coworkers over for a day of free labor, bashing in all of the old ceilings and walls.  It's definitely going to take patience to a) go at the required snail's pace that is the historical review process, and b) allow for the fact that most of the work is going to be done by contractors and subcontractors, on their schedule.  We rest assured with the fact that everyone sees this as an approximately one-year-long project, and we all know how long it took to rehab the current place.  (Bid October 2003, Closed December 2003, Moved in September 2004, Heating January 2006...)  At that pace, Isaac'd be in third grade or so by the time we get in there.  Not gonna happen!

We did get to see a new face of the Bungalow last night, when we took my second-cousin Donna to see the place at night.  I realized I had never been there at night before.  The lighting around the house is actually not nearly as bright as I thought it would be, which is nice.  Directly behind the house are four parking spots-- two for us and two for the Windmill-- and a streetlamp, which I assumed would light the place up as much as the streetlamps directly outside our current place do.  Instead, it's much more subdued lighting; the kind that would be romantic/eerie in the fog.  Out front, there's no lighting on our house yet, of course, but the circle is pretty much dark, but for the lights on the front of the main condo building, which are pretty subdued as well.  That's great for me, because I'm a big front-porch-light guy, but I wouldn't want to overdo it.  (In fact, Bonnie from the Seminary just let us know she had saved the original light from the house, and will give it back to us when she next sees us.  It'll be interesting to see whether it's salvageable... and whether its design is something we're gonna want to salvage!)  Other than lighting, the place is pretty neat after dark.  Enough ambient lighting that it's not completely black, but with all the tree cover, there's a definite barrier between Forest Glen and the rest of the DC Metro area.  Okay, so you can hear the cars on the Beltway, and the occasional freight train crossing the bridge nearby (Abby & I both noted it was the first time we had heard a train while we were outside of the house, and although it was louder than expected, from inside the house you hardly notice it), but neither are enough to annoy.

The main Seminary buildings, directly across the street from our house, at night.

Inside the place, the first floor gets decent shadowy light at night, thanks to the (over)abundance of windows.  There's no electricity, of course, so we were able to get an idea of how bright the house might be at night with the lights off.  Definitely can walk around without bumping into things, but that's the same as our current place, thanks to those aforementioned streetlamps outside.  Downstairs is a lot darker, but will probably lighten up some because of some changes I'm proposing to the downstairs layout.  (Oh no! Changes!)  Nothing huge, but our current plan is to have Isaac's room run lengthwise, along the rear two-thirds of the house, with Lola's being situated where the current kitchen is.  The change would basically be a 90-degree shift of the two rooms, having Isaac's now run along the side of the house (with one wall along Dewitt Drive) and Lola's running the rear-two thirds, albeit the two-thirds closer to to the Windmill, not to the street as Isaac's room's current positioning is.  (Got that?)  Regardless of whether you can picture it, it would take 3 big windows away from Isaac's room (which currently has 6) and add three small ones, and would add 3 big windows to the family room / den area, brightening it significantly.  It would also make me feel better in that we wouldn't be wasting as many windows by putting them in closets.  (We'll still have a few of those, just not as many.)  I'll see if I can put some plans up on this site for you all to peruse... although our architect may have something to say about that as well!

A Great Room It Is

Thanks to the sweltering heat, we spent a good deal of this weekend indoors (in the car or the house) planning out the floorplan for our main floor.  If we didn't draw up a dozen different takes on the plan (and use up half of Becky & Larry's pad of graph paper) then we did nothing at all.  Turns out, we think we'll be going with the "Courtney Plan" -- namely, the one with the large Great Room and the teeny tiny bedroom.  By moving the fridge from one theoretical wall to another, we opened up a big part of the kitchen to cabinets (and a pantry!) we hadn't previously considered possible.  We should be able to keep the radiators, which is a bonus.  We think it's gonna be the best of both worlds, but we'll hold our breath until Mohammed takes a look and says it's doable.  (Fingers crossed)

Other news?  Abby met with Bonnie Rosenthal this morning.  Bonnie is the woman who spearheaded the whole movement to save the Seminary site.  I haven't met her yet, but Abby says she's super nice.  (And who knows: with that last name, maybe she's a relative?)  She handed over the code to get into the main Seminary building, where we will find the various gyms and common areas (pool tables, foosball, computer terminals and, most importantly for the next few months, bathrooms!).  Some annoying stuff: apparently we don't get access to the ballroom, and we don't have a key to the front door-- which is directly across the street from the bungalow-- and instead have to circle the complex to enter from the other side.  I remember meeting some of my neighbors a few months back and hearing complaints about who gets access to the ballroom and who doesn't.  All I know is I'm paying a homeowner's association fee, and I am now extremely interested to find out what that required $112.50 a month gets me-- and what it gets other people.  More to come on this issue, I'm sure.

Finally, I knew it wouldn't take long: a big ol' thumbs down to Home Depot.  With all the crap we took from them doing our current house, it shouldn't be a surprise that they're ready to screw us again!  This time, Abby was at the Home Depot in Columbia, MD, and someone there asked her if she would like to have a closet professional come out and talk to her about organizational needs for the house.  Abby explained to the person that there was nothing in the house, and all the closets were aspirational at best at this point, and the person said that wouldn't be an issue.  So Abby packed up the kids early this morning and took them to meet the closet person.  She showed up late, and annoyed that it was hard to find the place.  (My guess is she didn't use Google Maps!)  Then, without even going into the house, she said she only works with existing closets.  The best part: she turned around and left, and didn't even say goodbye!  Good thing Abby had arranged the meeting with Bonnie, or schlepping the kids up to Forest Glen the morning after getting back from a road trip would've been for naught.