On the Line

A few of things were supposed to happen on Tuesday, and an hour into my phone call with DirecTV Tech Support, it appeared that not only would we fail on all counts, but we may have to begin the search for Internet providers -- if not television as well -- all over again.

The issue with DirecTV was not that the satellite wasn't working. On the contrary, we had watched TV for a couple of nights in a row, and except for the temporary appearance of rainbow-colored vertical bars on the screen on Monday, everything was good. Everything, that is, except our On Demand feature. Granted, this isn't a huge deal, but what it meant was that the satellite was not hooking up to the Internet, where all the On Demand content is stored. It would mean that we'd have access to current programming, but not to anything in the past, unless we DVR'd it. We'd also have no access to the "10,000 movies and TV shows" they say we have, which is a major part of the subscription cost, I would guess. 

As the hour-long call progressed, I became more and more nervous about having to scrap our Clear Internet and go webless for a while longer, until the cable companies got their act together and ran a wire under our street. That's because this weekend, two different DirecTV reps told me the two systems were incompatible. Of course, I didn't believe them-- not because I'm some electronics expert (ha!) but rather because a) Clear assured me I could get between 3-6 mbps for downloads, and DirecTV only required 2 mbps; and b) the Clear sales department directed me to DirecTV-- I used the same phone call to order both!-- so how the heck could they be incompatible?  But now, faced with a 15-day Clear trial period already half over, and a 2-year contract for DirecTV that has $20/month cancellation penalties, I was thinking I'd have to send back the system and not only have to deal with a cable company for Internet service, but at an exorbitant rate, due to us not actually getting cable from them. So as the 1:00:00 mark hit on my phone call, things were not looking good.

Earlier in the day, I had been on the receiving end of a sorry-'bout-that message, as Rory wrote to tell me the plumber couldn't come until Thursday. We have been waiting for him to come hook up the kitchen plumbing for a week now, since not only does it mean we can apply for a certificate of occupancy (and finally finalize our refinance), but also that we could put an end to microwaving water for tea, waiting for ice cubes, smelling a weird NYC-subway-like stench in the storage room caused by an incorrectly-sized waste pipe, and (most importantly) having to wash our dishes in the bathroom sink. Seriously, things like excess milk and chicken soup don't look very nice poured in your toilet-- trust me.

We're also waiting for the last piece of our dining-room chandelier: the lighting. Well, half of the lighting, to be exact. James, a local artist from our old neighborhood, created a larger version of an Anthropologie light fixture Abby really liked. It's installed now, after a process that freaked Abby out, since it involved him standing on the top rung of our step ladder, itself atop a six-foot scaffold on the dining-room side of the great room, with Abby holding things steady as James reached to place the electric box at the apex of the cathedral ceiling. But the install looks great; you don't notice the box at all, silver on the white ceiling, and hidden behind one of the rafters. (That's more than I can say for the smoke detector mid-room, which is still hooked onto the dark rafter like a big blob of marshmallow fluff on a Twix bar.) The unfinished part of the chandelier is that, as we plugged the bulbs in-- Edison bulbs, so as to make sure we pad the Pepco CEO's annual bonus more effectively-- we noticed only four of the eight sockets worked. James seemed unaffected, announcing he knew what the problem was, and that he'd fix it when he came back later in the week to adjust the height of the fixture. I'm still not a fawning fan of the thing, but I think it'll grow on me, and it's definitely a plus to have adequate lighting during dinner.

We did have some things completed this week. On Monday morning, we had our first trash pick-up, following the end of our annoying "please recognize us as an address, since we pay taxes and stuff" issue with the county. We have two different recycling bins, which means that we have to separate paper and cardboard from bottles and cans. And what's really weird is that we're responsible for providing our own trash bin, as opposed to the Supercans provided by DC to residents there. We also have to urge the mailman to start delivering mail to us, since everything's still being dropped off at the property manager's office even though we have our address on the wall now. Granted, we have no mailbox as of yet, but we have a doormat; just put it under that!  It's a pain because the office is only open during business hours, and as mail isn't exactly a priority for me dear wife, we can go a week without retrieving it. (Love ya, babe.) 

Pay no attention to the non-working bulb to Abby's right.

We also found out that our assessment of the plumbing situation wasn’t entirely correct—in both good and annoying ways.  The good way was that it turned out that our fridge actually had been hooked up, and the ice is now being made.  (C’mon, that’s the one bit of progress? I’ll trade you for a dishwasher!) When the plumber stopped by momentarily this week, he apparently was able to do that, as well as to affix the faucet to the countertop—albeit with no actual plumbing hookup underneath the counter.  He said that the subway smell was probably not going to happen anymore, since the washing machine was now working and there was enough water in the pipes to keep burps from the sewer down where they belong—although I don’t know whether I should buy that explanation.   But he also said they’re going to have to install a garbage disposal in our sink.  A disposal had kept showing up very early in the planning process, and we kept telling them that we didn’t want one.  But time and again, there it was on the planning documents.  Well, I guess one of the documents it was on was the plumbing permits, and without an install, we won’t pass the inspection.  So they had to install an accompanying switch on the backsplash to go with it.  My guess is that I’ll be charged for both of these things—whether on a line item or, more likely, buried in other costs—when I explicitly said on multiple occasions that we didn’t want a disposal.  I’m guessing it’ll be taken out after the inspection—again at my expense?—and I have no idea whether our access to the hot-water tap will suffer during that time, but I’m going to guess so.

Which leads me back to the beginning of the second hour on the phone with DirecTV.  Things aren’t looking good.  The lack of 50% of my chandelier, and the lack of progress on my plumbing was wearing on my mind, and I was looking for a way—any way!—to just end the call without pissing the guy off for having wasted an hour of his time.  Abby walks into the room, having spent the last hour (or so it seemed) in the shower, and plops down in front of the computer.  She announces that the Internet’s not working.  Wait, it was working at the beginning of my phone call.  I tell Mr. DirecTV, and we’re puzzled.  I say, “wait: would that switch we threw a half-hour back have changed that?”  Maybe.  I go over, throw the switch, and the web comes back online. And, an hour and three minutes into my call, all of a sudden a message shows up on the TV screen: “Congratulations?  Your DirecTV system has been connected to the Internet!”  Bells ring, angels sing, babies coo.  Happily, I take the piping hot receiver away from my ear, and sit down to watch our On Demand.  Hey—we ain’t got a kitchen sink, but we can watch Tosh.0, and that’s really all that matters, 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.

Living in a Fish Bowl

Not much has happened with the house since last I wrote, although a lot has happened in it.  My parents spent the weekend-- our first guests! --and helped us put a whole bunch of stuff away, emptying a lot of boxes and creating actual open space in the great room, rather than the huge pile anchored by our two enormous armoires and covered with plastic sheeting.  We put Lola's bed together, and decided to buy a new version from IKEA rather than putting together the identical one we bought from a couple off of Craigslist what seems like ages ago; it worked out, too, because my parents took the used one back to their place so the kids can use it when they sleep over.  Slowly but surely, the place is becoming livable.

Living in the house is definitely going to be interesting.  We have chosen to be in a fish bowl by buying the house that's pretty much at the center of the community-- and don't forget the 49 windows-- but at the same time, it'd be nice to, oh, I don't know, be able to change my pants in my own bedroom!  For the first four workdays this week, I would go downstairs to take a shower in the morning (the upstairs shower is still doorless), then come back up and grab clothes from my closet, then head to the upstairs bathroom to change.  One day I picked a shirt that was too wrinkled, so I came back into my bedroom only wearing pants, and a neighbor walked right by.  I'm sure all she saw was me standing there with no shirt on, but I'm also pretty sure by the look on her face that she was pretty sure I was naked.  Oh well-- that's what they get for letting exhibitionists into their fishbowl, right?  (Um, right?)  However, as of the weekend, all of that has changed, as we have had our cellular shades installed.  We got the kind that can be pulled up or down, so we can still have daylight in, say, the top two windows without putting on a show for the neighborhood.  The shades are in the three bedrooms, and should assuage my sister's fears of people watching the kids while they sleep.

The kids, by the way, are sleeping just fine.  The first night they slept with each other in Isaac's room, but ever since they've used their own bed. Lola's tickled pink about her new bed, and I'm sure she'll be even more so once Abby gets her built-in completed.  Isaac's still in his old bed, which will eventually be given over to the guest room once we get a new mattress and give him our current one, but his room's all decked out with the solar system on the ceiling, his toys already strewn all over the place, and his aquarium humming in the corner.  Ah yes, the aquarium.  Abby tried her darnedest to get that thing to stay in DC, but it's made its way over, which I'm happy about.  Having had one all through growing up, I really liked staring at mine as I was falling asleep, and I know I was much healthier for having had a giant humidifier in the room.  That said, we'll take much better care of it in the new place than we did in the basement; when I emptied the water there, it looked more like iced tea than something fish would want to live in.  Driving the six miles with the aquarium in my passenger seat was a lesson in how smoothly I don't drive; even when I tried the most babyish of rolling stops and starts, the couple inches of water I had left in there (with all 30-some fish wondering what the heck was going on) sloshed in a great example of what a tsunami might look like if the earth was placed in a car and driven up 16th Street...

The commute's not nearly as bad as I feared, although it's much better in the morning than in the evening.  In the morning, I'm getting up at 6 instead of 6:10, and I'm not making the kids' lunches-- at least not yet.  If I get out the door before 6:45, I can catch a Montgomery County Ride On bus right outside, take that to Silver Spring Metro station, and I get to work in Rosslyn by 7:40.  If I miss the bus, it's a one-mile walk to Forest Glen Metro station, which takes about 17 minutes.  Of the seven morning commutes I've had so far, I've missed the bus twice, but only once have I gotten to work late, and even then by only about ten minutes.  On the walk to Forest Glen, I see practically no one, which is weird.  That's not the same on the way home, though. Twice I've been timing myself to see which way walking from Forest Glen is the fastest, and each time I've been thwarted by pesky neighbors wanting to --gasp!-- talk to me!  Actually, it's great, because I'm making an effort to learn people's names, and there's no better way to do that than to actually meet them on a regular basis.  I'll admit that after living in our house in DC, there was one household on our block that knew everything about us, but we knew the names of exactly two people in their large family.  Yeah, after nearly a decade on the block.  Now you can imagine how embarrassing this was for me, since I grew up as the paperboy who at least knew the name of the head of every household on my block.  So this time around, I mean business, and started by going to the Homeowners' Association meeting on Thursday, and taking detailed notes not on the issues at hand (which are mostly about money), but about people's names and where they live.

So Susan and Ron, who moved here from Pennsylvania, I was very happy to talk to you two on the way home from work the other day.  And Amy, who just had a baby with her husband Tony, I'm sorry if I freaked you out by knowing your name (and saying it) twice as I walked by over the last couple of days.  And Bobby, who works as a wine specialist at Dean + Deluca, I hope you did well on your test, and will refer you to the winos that are my mother-in-law and her husband when they come by this weekend; and I'm definitely intrigued by your wife, because I can honestly say I've never met a woman named Lady Stacey. And Paula and Richard and Peg with the Easter egg tree and Minh and Janice from Australia and Miss Sally and her daughter Shelly and Jim and Susan and Carol and Lou (whose dogs are Diva and Pierre) and Brian and Laura (hey! I know two Brian-and-Lauras now!) and... well... you get the picture.  We may live in a fishbowl, but those things are made of glass and the fish can see out just as well as we see inside.  Abby and I want to live here for a long time, so it makes no sense not to know our neighbors.  So, neighbors?  Please don't get freaked out when I call you by name, because if I don't do it now, it'll be 2023 and I'll be asking my kids to find out the names of the people we've known since before we moved in.

So moving back inside the house, I guess there have been some small things going on.  All four new windows are supposedly in now.  One has been installed-- in the kitchen-- which is good, since any time the wind blew, the insulation that was there made a crinkly sound that reverberated throughout the whole level. I see one other one ready to go in up on the balcony, but have no idea where the others are.  The cabinets are not complete yet, but the last one has finally been delivered, so we are in the process of scheduling the final install.  Once that's done, they'll take back all the mistake cabinets, which will free up another huge corner of the great room.  The countertop is done, except we realized we needed them to drill four holes instead of two, based on our choice of faucets.  So I emailed them last night and am still waiting for a response.  As a result, the kitchen sink is still out of commission, so tonight I had to wash the dishes in the bathroom. It's gross to wash the dishes in the bathroom, but it's also very nerve-wracking to have to do it on a brand-new porcelain sink that is ridiculously shallow.  I was treating each dish as if it were bone china, not because of the preciousness of the dish, but because I didn't want the sink to get another chip.  Yeah, I said "another;" no idea how/when/why, but there's a tiny chip right on the inside corner of our upstairs vanity.  Already.  I guess it just follows us, since there's one in our upstairs sink from DC that's been there ever since I mistakenly dropped one of Abby's mysterious glass bottles from the medicine cabinet way back when. (Who'd'a thunk that the porcelain would break and the glass bottle would come out the victor in that contest?)

Tomorrow we're having the measure for the upstairs shower door.  If you'll recall, we turned down the $3000 custom door our contractor suggested, but Abby also turned down the perfectly good $700 one I found online because it had an edge on the side, and she wanted a perfectly frameless one.  So we're going to inch up a bit, and go for the Home Depot custom ones that are about $1500, after which we can take a shower in our own bathroom instead of running up and down the stairs to do it.  After that, hopefully the cabinets will be installed within the next few days, which will include the hookup of the dishwasher and range, and the ability of our contractors to install the range hood.  Next Monday we're scheduled for a Comcast install for Internet, cable, and a security system, although we're pretty sure none of it is going to work.  You see, we've been going back and forth with both Comcast and Verizon for weeks, trying to see if they actually provide service to us.  At first neither recognized our addresses, but then they did.  Now they want to just come out and do an appointment, even though Lee told us the windmill next-door was told they can't get service because no wires have been pulled for our side of the street.  If you can imagine, I'm trying to get Comcast to put my house on the same work order as theirs, to save us time as well as to save the Comcast guy from having to come out for no reason.  Comcast refuses to give me any information on an account that's not mine, even when I assure them I in fact want absolutely no information.  "Just look at their account, don't say a word, and see if they can physically get cable; if they can, great! Schedule the appointment for us; but if they can't, wouldn't it save us all the trouble?"  "I'm sorry, sir, but I can't give information out on anyone else's account."  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.   So Comcast is coming out on Monday, but the smart money's on us not having cable on Tuesday.

So that's the update for now.  Again, due to that whole not-having-cable thing, I can't upload pictures.  So I promise a buttload of pictures once everything's hooked up.  In the meantime, I've gotta run home and pack for my three-day Buffalo adventure that starts tomorrow and will hopefully include Duff's chicken wings, Anderson's lemon ice, and Alex Trebek. :)

First Post Post-Move

It's been a week since I last posted, but don't be too mad, because I have an excuse: we don't have Internet access at home.  Yet.  

Didja get that?  Home.  Yet.  Yep: we've moved in.  HALLE-FREAKIN'-LUJAH!

Late last week we said it was time to cut the cord, so we pulled up stakes from our DC house and moved almost all the rest of our stuff into the new place.  By Saturday evening a very good chunk of our belongings had made the six-mile trip north across the state line in three car trips, and by Sunday evening there were only a few things left.  (Actually, just as we've been living in the state of perpetual "just another few weeks" since last summer, it seems as if this week has been a state of perpetual "just another carload or two.")  By today, though, we officially have one carload left, which we'll pick up tomorrow: our tv and the aquarium.  And that's it.  We'll be moved.

What that doesn't mean is that we're living in something that would resemble a normal living situation.  We've got boxes everywhere, piled strategically so as not to block access to things the contractors will still need to get around.  And believe me, there are still a lot of things, which I'll enumerate at the end of this post.  But I want to focus on the positive, because, at least as concerns the house, this has been a great week.

So where to begin?  I'll go room by room and give updates.  In the kitchen, the countertop has been completed, including adding the extra hole at the sink for my beloved hot-water tap.  The sink is in, too, but no plumbing has been hooked up.  I believe that's the last step before livability, but since we have water in the bathrooms, we're making do.  (This very much resembles the "fancy camping" we lived through for such a long time with the old house, only this will not last nearly as long.)  The fridge is turned on and mostly stocked.  The missing cabinets still haven't been delivered, and Home Depot is going to let us know when they are.  We have a few extra cabinets that were mismade, and they keep calling to have them picked up and returned to the store.  But the timing on this is getting out of hand, and I'm going to insist to them that they put us out and we deserve to keep at least some of the misfits-- especially since a couple of them will fit really well elsewhere in the house.  The range is in but not on; the range hood is not in, but the hole for it has been cut; the microwave is in but not framed, and Isaac inaugurated it by reheating leftover pasta.  The dishwasher looks too small for the hole it's supposed to fit in, but we're going to wait until the cabinet guys come back for the final install because, who knows, maybe it will magically fit in.  I think, though, that we might have to get a new dishwasher and do something with this one... although I can't imagine what.  And all the lights are in, including the two pretty ones with the incredibly wasteful Edison bulbs.  Abby always turns those on, and I turn them off, because they cost a fortune to light.

Our bedroom is the room that's probably the most complete.  The closet had already been installed, and over the course of a few nights almost all the shelves and hangers and drawers were filled up with clothes.  I had to reinvent how I folded my tee shirts, because the old way was only filling the front half of each shelf; by folding shirts in thirds, I now get 50% more shirt per shelf.  I bought one of those tie hangers that holds like 40 ties, but it's hard to use and only gets about two-thirds of my collection onto it; similarly, I bought four of those five-pants hangers from IKEA and I don't like the work it takes to take a pair off without disturbing the others.  Both save space, but I'm going back to my regular tie rack and one-pair-per-hanger style.  Abby put the new bed together-- which is the same as our old bed, except a new frame, since West Elm gave it to us for free.  The bed fits right up to the windows, with both side tables in the room, with only a few inches to spare-- perfect fit.  The first couple nights in there, we switched sides of the bed to see which would work: on night one, I was on the closet side and she was on the window side; on night two, we switched.  Night two was incredibly awkward for both of us-- it's so weird, but after two nights, I believe we have decided what side of the bed we'll be sleeping on for the next couple of decades. (And it's neither the same as we had it in the old house or the way I had expected it to be, since Abby's usually freaked out being next to windows.)

The windows do freak us out a bit, but I think we'll survive!  We ordered custom-made cellular blinds, which arrived at the house on Saturday; just waiting for them to be installed.  Once installed, they'll not only help with shielding from onlookers, which seem to be everywhere, since the house is located pretty much in a giant fish bowl, but will also help with efficiency.  They're made to be pulled up from the bottom, so we'll be able to block off the bottom half or two-thirds of the window, but still let in natural light from the top part.  It'll be nice to be able to change my clothes in my own room, or to sleep without knowing everyone can watch me from the street.  This morning, for instance, I had my pants on but decided to change shirts, so I was standing there looking into my closet when a neighbor walked by.  I'm sure it looked like I was standing there naked, but, well, I wasn't, so there.  Next week at this time, hopefully the blinds will shield the neighbors from the less-than-flattering exhibitionist that is my pasty self.

The great room is pretty much the same, since it had been painted way back.  The up-lighting along the sides looks great, and even the workers agree-- I think they thought Abby was a bit weird for her choices in there.  Instead of spot lights or track lighting, she chose these little linked LED lights that were plug-ins, and had them hard-wired in so each light lighted the area between two of the rafters.  It looks really cool-- the only problem being that they were wired in a weird way, so if we want all of them to be on we have to flip four different switches, one in each corner of the room.  We put Anyu's dining-room table together and have actually been eating at an honest-to-goodness table, rather than on a trunk disguised as a coffee table in front of the TV in the basement with the kids sitting on the floor.  We don't have chairs yet, but since they're going to be a major purchase, we're going to wait with them until the construction is done-- don't want them to get scratched right away if we can help it.  Oh, and the fireplace is in and turned on.  Actually, it was so turned on that when we got back from Florida it was about 80 degrees inside, even though it was in the 50s outside.  We still have to learn how to make it work, because it's a little trickier than we had hoped, but I think we'll get it.

The front door has the wrong hardware on it, but other than that it's the same.  And the front foyer has been painted really nicely in the same gray color we used in the downstairs bathroom.  And what do you know: our wedding lily made it through our vacation and is still alive, so I rewarded it with a good dusting and a move into the bay window.

Downstairs, the kids' rooms are both moving along.  Their beds are semi-set-up, in that they're sleeping in them but the frames are not done altogether.  My sister came by this weekend and helped put together some of their furniture, so now they each have a desk and a book case.  Once all my clothes made it out of my old dresser, Isaac inherited it, we stuck it in his closet, and his clothes are also all put away; only Lola's remain sorted in a laundry basket and suitcase.  Both sets of closet doors have been delivered, but aren't up yet.  Abby even helped Isaac decorate his ceiling with a solar system set he got for Christmas (or was it Valentine's Day?  I don't know... Abby gets them presents for everything, which is a point of contention...)  Anyhow, it's coming along great, and more importantly they love their rooms.  There have already been more than a handful of times when they've disappeared into their respective rooms to play.  Alone.  Quietly.  (I know!)  However, one of those times?  Yeah, not so good.  I got back from picking a load up from the old house on Saturday and Abby was fuming, and Lola was pouting.  I guess the kids found their spin-art toy that takes paint and splatters it all around on a piece of paper that spins around... and started playing with it on their own-- and more importantly, on the new floor.  They had paint all over their hands, and got it all over Lola's floor, and we hadn't even slept there one night.  Abby was furious, and the toy has been banished.  Luckily, the mess cleaned up because it was caught early enough.  Phew!

The family room actually has a seating arrangement, and once the TV arrives tomorrow (we need to bring it when there are no kids in the car but two adults handy, since it's heavy and requires the seats to be dropped down) it'll go in.  We won't have cable yet, but that's only days away.  Last week I called Comcast again, and they again insisted they don't cover our house.  9610 and 9615 and 9620 Dewitt Drive?  Sure.  But 9618?  Yeah, no.  I insisted they were wrong, and implored them to come out to check.  36 hours later I get a call: "Mr. Wahl, we'd actually be happy to charge you $200 a month to watch ten channels and check your Facebook status."  Actually, that's not exactly what they said, but it's what they meant.  They're coming by on Tuesday to install cable, Internet, and potentially a security system.  We don't know yet whether we'll do that, since it's such a good neighborhood.  But Abby's freaked out by the windows-- understandably-- and the fact that the kids are on the ground floor, so my money's on us having it installed.

The laundry room?  Well, apart from being able to move the washer and dryer back from where they were perched so close to the door, nothing looks different.  But it's so incredibly nice to have in-house laundry back.  Those nearly five months of begging others to allow us to wash in their place, or going to a laundromat even though we own two washers and two dryers, was definitely wearing on our patience.  I have a load of laundry going as I type this, and no one's paying attention to it, and that's how it should be.  It's nice and quiet, too, and plays a silly little electronic song when it's done, just like my parents' does.  On the other side of the floor, though, things are not so quiet.

That's where the water heater is.  What, you didn't hear me?  I said, "THAT'S WHERE THE WATER HEATER IS!!!"  Yeah, this thing is crazy loud, and I'm not happy about it.  I'm wondering if it's the difference between having a gas water heater and an electric one-- our electric one in DC never made a peep, but this one sounds like an espresso machine gone berserk.  We don't have it enclosed-- yet-- but believe me you, that will happen.

The bathroom is great, and taking a shower down there (since we don't have a shower door upstairs yet) is really nice.  The water heater is directly behind the shower, so it's instantly hot.  The window fogs over in about 30 seconds, so there's no putting on a show.  (We're going to frost the window, so sorry potential peepers.)  And I managed to cajole Abby into letting me put fluorescent bulbs into a couple of the fixtures.  The toilets flush beautifully, and ridiculously fast.  And the door locks.  Did you hear that?  For the first time, we have locking interior doors.  It's magical, really.

So that's where we stand. In the morning, I've been getting up ten minutes earlier than in DC, and getting to work right on time.  The way home I can't judge yet, because this week I've had to stay later than usual, and the Metro at 5:00 is way different than it will be at 4:30.  One day I got home in under an hour, and the next it took me nearly 80 minutes because of a delay on the Blue Line.  (I couldn't get mad, though, because the delay would've affected my old commute as well.)  I'm definitely gonna get a bike to park at Forest Glen station on nice days, but for now, especially since I've got room on my SmarTrip card, I've been taking the Ride On bus to and from Silver Spring station, since its schedule lines up perfectly with mine, especially in the mornings.

Once we get settled, I'll be able to write with more frequency again, and will post pictures.  But for now, I leave you with an email we sent to Mark this evening, of things we need to discuss tomorrow.  (My more frequent readers will see the tone has changed a lot since the last letter of demands... for the better, that is.)  It seems like the closer we are to the finish line, the more things there are to do.  But we're moved in, and that's all that matters.  At least this week :)

Mark: here are the current issues with the house. We would like to discuss them with you on Friday, but wanted you to be aware of them as soon as possible. Thanks, and talk to you soon. -G

1.      Flooring issues: There’s a really weak spot in the great room just in front of the kitchen doorway.  Every time you walk by, your heel depresses the spot a lot; also, in the same spot ther's a nail sticking up.   Also, in our bedroom, just at the entrance on the right, one of the boards is split lengthwise, and will catch on your socks as you walk by,  Definitely just waiting to pull right up and out.‬
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2.  After the inspection, your guys can come in and cut down that backsplash, which is still ridiculously high.  The electrician installed the outlets vertically on the backsplash, even though we requested (and he said he could do) horizontal.  The height of the backsplash is unacceptable as is.‬
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3.      We’ve purchased a chandelier for the dining room and are waiting for delivery.
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4.      We need to switch a couple pieces of the door hardware that were installed in the incorrect place.  We need the knob currently on the back door switched to the front door.  (I labeled all of the knob  boxes… don’t know why this one was put in where it was.)  Also, the deadbolt in the back door was installed improperly; it locks from the inside, but there’s no way to lock or unlock it from the outside—the knob doesn’t catch for some reason.‬
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5.      I bought the lighting timer that I wanted to have installed for the switch beside the front door, to use for the front porch lights.  It requires a neutral wire, which is why I called you from Home Depot on Sunday.  Let me know if this is not possible, because then I’ll exchange it for the one one step down, which does not require a neutral wire… I just like this one better.‬
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6.      We have an old-fashioned doorbell that we’d like to have installed on the front door.  It’s sitting on a box on the piano (which itself can be moved downstairs if you guys can do it) and the directions and hardware are all in the box.  Abby can show the guys where it goes; it actually gets mounted right to the door, I believe.‬
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7.      Also, Abby will show the guys where we’d like the address numbers to go.  Apparently, not having them up is very confusing to a lot of people (FedEx, mailmen, etc.) so putting them up would be a good idea.  We’ve given up on finding the mailbox, so we’re just going to buy a new one to have mounted on the wall.  Both the mailbox and the address numbers will go on the wall to the right of the front door, as you look at it from outside.‬
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8.    The water heater is crazy loud!  We will definitely want to have it encased once all is said and done.  I have never heard our water heater in DC make the noises this one makes—we can hear it in the kitchen! 
9. You can hear everything between the kids’ bedrooms. Abby installed her secret passageway and discovered there was no insulation in the wall. I'm very disappointed with this, since we paid more than $1000 to have this done throughout the house.‪
10. The light fixture in the mudroom is too low and needs to be raised.

11. The spigot outside is dripping.

12. The issue with the front door opening outward has not been resolved.

13. The paint on the stair risers still needs to be scraped.

14. The doors for the bathroom and upstairs closet can be installed.

15. What is going on with the PVC pipe looping out of the left side of the roof (as you look at the house)? Also, there's a pipe of some sort sticking out of the ground by the back door.

16. One of the great room ceiling lights (the one all the way to the left above the kitchen door) keeps going out.

17. What is the switch on the countertop for? There will be no garbage disposal, and the hot-water heater stays on all the time with a plug.