Now You Can Find TP, But Not T-Shirts

A while back, my sister approached me with a very important directive: under no circumstances were we to put the toilet-paper holder to the right of the toilet; it causes undue difficulty for right-handed people.  Additionally, dispensers placed directly across from the toilet can be problematic should the distance between the seat and the opposing wall be great enough to require anything more than a slight forward lean. Having never actually thought about the placement of toilet-paper holders in the house-- other than my distaste for free-standing holders placed beside the toilet-- I proceeded to visit both of our bathrooms, sat on the lids, and groped around to see which were the optimum placements for our specific set-up.

Turns out, my sister was not only correct, but will have to deal with the reality that neither of her directives were heeded. The toilet-paper holder upstairs can really only be placed to the right of the toilet, since there's no wall to the left, and the bath towels hanging directly across would make any roll underneath them humid--yuck. Downstairs, there's no wall on either side-- regardless of the fact that we wanted one, if you can recall that from a ways back-- so the opposite wall's the only choice, apart from a free-stander, which is out of the question. This is all to say, however, that after living in the house for three months now, and having working plumbing for several more, we now have mounted bathroom hardware!

Now you can actually dry your hands in our upstairs bathroom.

What you see when you sit on the toilet
in our upstairs bathroom.

What you see when you sit on the toilet
in our downstairs bathroom.

My bed, with my closet sitting
on top of it. :(

As an aside, holy crap is it bright in Isaac's room!  My mom complained about it last time they were over, but I didn't think anything of it. But on the second night in there, Isaac woke us up saying he couldn't sleep, and I had no idea what time it was-- judging by the light coming through the shades, I guessed it was about 5:30, but when I checked my phone, it was barely 3:15. That street lamp outside has some major power, and is positioned perfectly to make Isaac's room the Forest Glen equivalent of Times Square. (Maybe that's why all his guppies are dying? They've all got insomnia!) Needless to say, last night we moved the pile of clothes onto the closet floor and we all slept-- soundly-- in our own beds. Still, I worry that the brightness will somehow affect Isaac, even if he doesn't complain. I'm not worried about guests like my mom, because once the guest room is up and running, lack of light may be the problem, rather than overabundance. But black-out curtains might be in Isaac's future, unless we can somehow persuade the community to let us cover up the half of the light that points at our house.

The contractors have been at the house a few times this week, if you can believe it, and have supposedly put our house in compliance with twelve of the thirteen items that had caused us to fail our inspection the last time around. The one that's left I'll discuss in a moment, but I'll note that the reason I say they put us in compliance rather than "they fixed the stuff" is our closet work-around situation. The issue in there was that my closet system, which was installed back in April and represented a big, unusual splurge for me, did not leave enough clearance for the inspector's taste when it came to the ceiling lighting. So rather than rerouting the electric and tearing drywall up, the contractors wanted to tear out my closet. Abby called me at work, asking if I would be okay with the system's temporary removal, pending the inspection. I freaked out, since part of the draw for me was that a) the system was installed by the manufacturer, and b) it has a lifetime warranty. I didn't want anything the contractors did to void the warranty, so I called Closet America to see what the deal was. Apparently, they're okay with it, but anything broken during the process would not be covered. In other words, you break it, you buy it. I communicated this to Abby, telling her that they could take it apart as long as they took responsibility for any issues. Abby confided that she trusted Fernando, the guy who'd be doing the work, so it all went down on Tuesday. As a result, our entire closet was emptied onto our bed, and we slept in Isaac's room for two nights while the kids had sleepovers in Lola's room.

My closet, stripped naked of its accouterments.

So back to lucky #13: the foundation wall. When we last left off, we were in a weeks-long wait to get the new downstairs front wall approved, and were looking at a $4000 bill (and most definitely a fight over responsibility for that bill) to dig up our front yard for a day to show the inspector something he supposedly saw and forgot to record several months ago. This week, Mark told me there's an alternative: a third-party inspector who can approve the job by looking at the plans, figuring out where weaknesses would be that should be able to be detected even with finished walls and a filled-in front yard, and ensuring none of those weaknesses are present. All this for the bargain-basement price of about $2000. To me, this all sounds very fishy: some guy is allowed to okay a permit that some other guy can only approve once earth is moved, and all he has to do is knock around on some walls, and all we have to do is pay a fee about twenty times the price of normal?  If I were abroad, I would call the Embassy or Transparency International to get the 411 on this, but now? I just want this thing completed. I feel defeated. I don't want to do anything that would jeopardize our investment in this place, but jeez!  Meanwhile, we're steeling ourselves for what will inevitably be a brawl over the cost. But first things first: get the damn inspection!

So as it sits right now, we're potentially on track for a final inspection in the middle of next week, although I'll believe it only when the inspector physically enters the premises. But in the meantime, at least twelve-thirteenths of the requirements were completed, according to the contractors. And hey, we've got toilet-paper holders mounted on the wall now too-- and I'm totally willing to take the necessary flak from my sister.

Lucky Number Thirteen

When we last left off, there were a number of things wrong with our house; wrong enough, that is, to preclude us from passing our inspection to receive Montgomery County's seal of approval to officially move into the house.  Since then, we have found out that number: 13-- not usually the luckiest of numbers.  There are 13 things wrong enough with our house to cause us to fail the inspection.  The inspection was on June 6; today is June 16.  What, you may ask, has been done in those ten days to remediate those issues?  I can tell you definitively, in fact: Nothing.

My hostas are going to have to be dug up temporarily.
But they're just beginning to bloom!

Mind you, that doesn't mean we haven't been in contact with our contractors.  There have been a couple of strongly worded emails from us.  There have been a couple of nonchalant replies back.  There have been two telephone conversations: one right off the bat, explaining Montgomery County had "misplaced" or "misfiled" the certification that our retaining wall had passed inspection; and one tonight, explaining that they were waiting for a period of time when there were three consecutive sunny days forecast-- enough to re-dig our front yard to expose the subterranean retaining wall, schedule an inspection for the next day, and refill the whole on the following day.  While that made perfect sense, here's what I heard from that explanation: Blah blah blah someone screwed up it's not us; Blah blah blah it's too rainy; Blah blah blah we want to rip out your hostas just as they're starting to take.  (Oh, and no mention of who's paying for this re-exposition of the aforementioned wall with the mysterious lack of ,municipal approvals.

In the meantime, Mark assures me, there will be a guy out here tomorrow to fix most of the stuff on the list.  And what's on that list?  I'm glad you asked:

1. "Stabize the lot."  Yeah, I think they mean "stabilize," but I'm not quite sure what's so unstable about our lot.  I mean, the house has been here for 115 years; it ain't going anywhere.
2. "Outside outlet is loose."
3. "Need backfill inspection for retaining wall."  Discussed above.
4. "Anti-tip device for cook tops."  Oh, you mean the one that was sitting on our counter for a month?  And our dishwasher leans forward, too, when you pull out either rack.
5. "Shower curtain rod."  The one thing that's our fault, but we have ordered the upstairs shower door, and it's due to be delivered and installed this week courtesy of Navij, our friendly Next Shower Door salesman.
6. "Bedroom closet lights too close to shelf."  Don't know how he's gonna fix that.  It better not involve just getting rid of the light.
7. "Need four-inch clearance on back of fireplace."  This may just involve moving the gas unit forward; I'm not sure.
8. "Mudroom outlet missing cover plate."  Really?  I'd hope that, were this the only problem, it wouldn't have failed us.
9. "Need arc fault breakers."  Um, okay.  Something electric.
10. "AC breaker max 25 amp."  Thinking it needs to be bigger?
11. "Panel directory too general."  I agree.  I want to know exactly how to turn everything off if there's a problem or a project.
12. "Patch storage wall."  Yeah, that thing my dad has been complaining about for months.
13. "Schedule all permits together."  Because obviously we're attempting to make this go as slowly as possible.

So in my estimation, there are about eight things that need to be fixed.  Hopefully at least six of them can be done tomorrow.  In addition, we have had a storage-room door sitting at Home Depot in Aspen Hill for a week now, and I just found out yesterday that our last remaining cabinet door is ready for pickup there as well.  Was going to pick them both up tonight after we put the kids to bed, but I forgot that the place closes at 8:00 on Sunday, so I'll either go tomorrow evening or attempt to get them to deliver, since they offered to deliver the cabinet door for free.  What I can do at this point, however, is to call the cabinet-install guys and schedule the final install for the kitchen, which should finalize not just that one remaining door, but also our pulls, as well as the things that go around the microwave and dishwasher to make the cabinets look complete.

While the contractors have been busy "working behind the scenes" (ahem), we have been semi-productive these last ten days.  I won't lie and say we've done tons of stuff and are being held back entirely by the contractors, but I will say that there are things we've done that, with a little work from the contractors, will help us finish everything up.  Abby, for instance, finally found bathroom hardware she likes.  We got the stuff at Lowe's and have it in a bag, ready to mount.  We are going to put Xs on the walls to show where we want everything mounted, because without doing so we're pretty sure everything will be put about a foot lower than it should be.  Our tradesmen are great workers, but apparently they think we're midgets-- something I think I've noted previously.  Our range hood is about 18 inches above the stove top, our vanities were originally set so low I had to bend over to brush my teeth-- I still have to stoop at the current, "highest possible" height-- and our mailbox is so low on the outside of the house that I'm fully expecting the Wicked Witch of the East's legs to be sticking out under our front porch.  To all who have not met us: I am 6' 1", my wife is 5' 10", and my kids are both above the 90th percentile for their age in height.  We have no need for those tiny toilets or baby-sized towel bars set two feet off the ground, thank you very much.

The new sidewalk out back,
and the new setback for our bushes.

We've also gone ahead and hired someone to help us with some landscaping issues; namely, that we have a number of spots on our property that are paved over that shouldn't be.  Along the back side of the house, under the kids' bedroom windows, there's a sidewalk that comes right up and literally touches the house in parts.  There is no need for strangers to walk that close to the house, easement or no easement.  So we had Paulino, a guy who does work for Paula and Richard (the Windmill's owners), smash up the concrete on that side.  The sidewalk's community property, sure, but the part of it that touched our house was on our land.  So now that things are smashed up, he's going to build a nice, straight, new sidewalk along the property line, where it should be.  With that extra space, we are going to put bushes in to form a border between what's public and what's private-- maybe something prickly, so as to discourage our kids from escaping out their windows in their teenage years...

All this blacktop was removed from the yard before we woke up today.
Amazing what can happen when people actually want your business.

Second, parts of our postage-stamp front yard are covered by multiple layers of blacktop.  When you look at old pictures of this place, one of the things that stands out is the constantly evolving shape of the front yard; sometimes it's straight across, sometimes jagged, sometimes rounded.  Currently, the yard is bounded by a curved curb.  However, inside that curb is a layer (or more, in places) of blacktop that impedes any sort of attempts anyone might have to actually grow anything.  Paulino pulled it all up Saturday morning and hauled it away before we woke up this morning.  Excellent!  (And just in time for Mark to come and dig it all back up... wonder how long it would have taken him to get around to pulling it up, had we asked?)  Finally-- and this is something I'm a bit wary of actually letting Mark know-- Paulino is going to pour a concrete pad underneath our AC unit on the side of the house.  Currently, there's a specially-made pad on top of concrete blocks-- I kid you not-- for the condenser.  (That's what the outside part's called, right?)  Paulino's going to make it so the unit doesn't fall down the slope during a hard rain, basically, which is something Abby and my dad helped forestall by putting in the longer drain hoses a few weeks ago.  All in all, I bet he'll be done before midweek.  And all this after two consecutive days of frustrating tries at meeting up-- first, I told him we lived next-door to Paula and Richard, not remembering they had another house; next, I told him Abby would be home, but told Abby I'd call her when he replied, and forgot to.  No worries-- he showed up unannounced on Friday and all was set.  On Saturday, the sound of him working on the concrete outside our window woke us up.  At 7:00.  On a Saturday morning.

This morning was Father's Day, and we had planned to get up early enough to make pecan pancakes and leave by 10 to make it out to my sister's place in Gainesville, where we'd spend the day with my parents at my sister's pool.  At about 8:00, I was aware Abby was not in bed, but rather with the kids outside doing something.  Unconcerned, I went back to sleep.  About 90 minutes later, I woke up, scrambled to take a shower, and found the three of them cleaning out our disgusting car as part of my Father's Day present.  So, pancakes were out, but so was the smell of spilled chocolate milk in the backseat.  I started to get bathing suits together and headed out to see what they were doing when I saw a family walking around the Windmill, heading toward the Colonial.  Wait-- they didn't look like tourists.  Could they be...  I had to ask... Yes!  They're the people who bought the Colonial-- the yellow house two over that was Abby's favorite, and that had fallen through so many times right before it was sold.  Eric and Christina (sp?) are native Marylanders who live with their two kids (Ryan is only three months older than Isaac and in the same grade!!) in Fort Lauderdale.  He's an attorney/developer, and they're considering making this their permanent residence.  Eric had bought the place without showing the kids, so now that Florida's schools are out, that's what they were doing.  Immediately, I volunteered my kids to show them the "Magic Trail" that starts under their house and leads to the Castle.  We all went along, barefoot, listened to their plans for the place, and commiserated with them about the approvals process.  (Hopefully we didn't scare them away...)  Regardless, not only is the house now truly owned by someone, but it's owned by someone who seems to a) know what they're doing, b) understand what needs to happen, and c) HAS KIDS ABOUT THE SAME AGE AS OURS.  Not that I'm excited about that potential or anything...  Funny thing is that my kids are so unused to having neighbors that are their age-- seeing as they've never had any-- that we had to actually explain what we meant by going next door to ring the bell and see if they were home.  "No, really, you can go over and see if your friend wants to play, without setting a play date.  No, really."

So there you have it: what I hope is read as a not-entirely-negative post.  (I think my sister may think we're suicidal based on some of my previous rants...)  Now, we just have to see if tomorrow really pans out as a cure-all with the contractor, and how deep we actually have to dig (in our yard and in our pockets) to get that damn Certificate of Occupancy.  And it's all based on the ten-day-old failed inspection and that (hopefully) lucky number 13.

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.‬
‪
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.‬
‪
3.      We’ve purchased a chandelier for the dining room and are waiting for delivery.
‪
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.‬
‪
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.‬
‪
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.‬
‪
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.‬
‪
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.

The Look

The six miles between points A & Bungalow.

When we were driving to the house on Saturday morning, we took our usual route: Illinois to Georgia to Missouri to Sixteenth to Second to Linden.  Halfway through the drive, you're still pretty much in Petworth, where we have lived for the last nine-or-so years.  But when you turn right onto Sixteenth, you enter a new world; that of Shepherd Park.  If you're unfamiliar with that neighborhood, I can only describe it as one of the most attractive you can have while still being on a major street in a major city.  The homes are large and expensive, although not all grand.  Most are from the 1920s I'd guess, although there are a few conspicuous 1970s modern specimens that look like they'd be more comfortable on a cliff somewhere along the Pacific.  A few have turrets, a few have ivy-covered walls, and a most are brick of one color or another.  Dotted amongst these stately homes are at least two synagogues and an atheist gathering spot, as well as the back side of the old Walter Reed complex.  At one end is the side entrance to Rock Creek Park, and at the other is a traffic circle on the Maryland border with one of the District of Columbia boundary stones in the middle.  This is the top of the diamond, geographically and economically, where all of the east-west streets are named after plants, in alphabetic order of course, rather than after the obscure statesmen you'll find in the rest of the city.

Our former neighbor Angie's gorgeous Craftsman in
Shepherd Park.  I wonder if she knows her house
is now featured in at least two local blogs?

When I drive the six miles from one house to the other, I'm often taken to dreaming about living in one of those houses.  Maybe the one with the huge magnolia out front and the bay windows over looking the park.  Or maybe the one with the amazing slate roof and the arched doorways and the understated cars in the back that cost well into the six figures.  Or even one on a sidestreet near, say, the corner of Geranium and Alaska, where our former neighbors have a gorgeous Craftsman Bungalow.  I know I'd never be able to live in this area, because it's out of my tax bracket, but who doesn't like to dream a bit?  Well, I was dreaming out loud on Saturday morning, and I think I hurt Abby's feelings.  I probably went a bit overboard by mentioning all the imperfections of the house I did own: the fact there was no basement or attic; that we'd have little privacy; that we'll be a mile from a Metro station; that we won't have a garage; that we will forever have to deal with a homeowners' association and an historical society; that we have terribly inefficient windows and a loud HVAC system and a huge water heater and a tiny bedroom and will forever be shooing people out of our parking spots.  And we live too close to that tiny industrial area off Linden, and the Beltway can be really loud at times.  And suddenly, Abby was giving me the look.  You know the one: "Are you serious? Are we not a week away from finishing into a project we've spent two years on? And you're dreaming about these houses that are easily three times the price ours will be when it's all finished?"  Well, if you don't know the look, I know the look.  After all, I have experienced it many, many times in the nine-plus years we've been married.

I had to explain to Abby that, sure, things aren't perfect in the house, but they wouldn't be in one of these either.  She asked whether I'd take any one of these as an even trade with the Bungalow if someone offered. Of course they'd have to be ridiculous to offer.  I mean, the houses at the top of the street have all that, and are walking distance to the Metro to boot, for Pete's sake!  It would make no economic sense for me not to do that trade.  But the thing is, that's not an option, because I know the entire zip code came up goose eggs for us when we were searching for homes in our price range, or even a bit above it, back in 2011 when we were house hunting.  And the market has only gotten stronger since.  Plus, no matter how perfect the house, we'd still have to do tons of stuff to it to make it "ours," and who wants to go through that again?  My sister asked us Saturday night whether we'd do a project like this again, considering all we'd gone through.  We shrugged and looked at each other, and pretty much in sync said we would, but only once the kids had moved out.  My sister was incredulous.  We were unfazed.

No, the Bungalow is not my perfect house by any means.  But it's a heck of a lot better than this place.  No, it's not fair to compare a medium-sized single-family home in the leafy suburbs with an English Basement in the District, especially when there are four of you, but these four months have made me wistful for the days we had a dishwasher, when we could use the laundry facilities without having to knock or grovel, when we didn't have to duck to get into our own door, when our kids had separate rooms and ours was not a hallway between theirs and the bathroom, when one of us could go to sleep early and wouldn't be kept awake by the sound of the TV or the computer keyboard ten feet away, when we had a family-sized fridge and an microwave that didn't have to be plugged in with a retractable extension cord.  When we had a dining room table, and the kids didn't have to sit on the floor to eat dinner.  When the toilet wasn't on the wall behind the stove.

The Embassy of the Republic of Congo:
Who would not want to live in this place?

I'm going to love the Bungalow.  In just the past ten days, I've gotten really, genuinely excited about the place at least three times, and I'm itching to go back up there, since it's been over 100 hours now since I last visited.  I'm going to love the new space we'll have-- and not compared to the basement, but to the house we were last in at Thanksgiving.  I'm going to love being able once again to host friends and family when they trek up, down, or over to see us and/or our city.  I'm going to love the view of the glen when I'm making dinner, or the sound of my kids playing on my grandma's piano downstairs, or being able to let the kids play outside all on their own as a regular habit.  But it's like being married: I made my choice, but I'm not dead.  There's no reason I shouldn't be able to wonder what it'd be like to live in that building that houses the Congolese Embassy on Sixteenth and Colorado.  And just because I will fantasize about living in walking distance to the kids' elementary school or staying within the five blocks we currently are from a Metro station, it doesn't mean I won't completely get a kick out of seeing deer stand on their hind legs to eat from the century-old yews in my yard, or enjoy the moment when I realize I know the names of more than three of my neighbors.

So please, even if I complain, be it about any of the things above, or any number of other things I haven't mentioned this time around --cost and schedule overruns, anyone?-- know that I'm really, truly, honestly excited to live in this place, and to get this part of my life started already.  And the only thing I'm resigned to is the fact that I'll never stop giving Abby reason to give me that look.  You know the one.

Home.  Almost.

Year Two Starts Today

These beautiful, newly-restored and reinserted windows
in our Great Room will *never* hold a Romney sign,
despite being in our "second home."

Yep-- today marks our first anniversary as owners of a second home.  "Second home" sounds so swanky, like we're automatically going to vacation in Aspen and send our children to expensive private schools and vote for Romney.  Let me clear that right up for those of you who don't know me: don't ski; having a hard enough time as it is sending my kids to a public charter school, after Abby & I amassing 37 combined years at public schools; and HA!  Still, this will only be our "second home" until we move in, at which it'll become "home" and the building currently known as "home" will become "absentee slumlord property."  (Wait-- did I say that out loud?)

First thing's first: it must have been the mention at the very end of yesterday's blog that we would be temporarily uninsured that caused the regional tornado warnings and accompanying thunderstorms this afternoon.  Well, Mother Nature, sorry: we're now officially insured, (Phew!) although not without requisite drama, of course. Contacted the insurance company this morning to get the quote and buy the policy, and it turns out they wanted $1100 for four months of coverage.  Yeah, this after $438 for the whole year.  However, they were the only ones that agreed to insure us, right?  NO, wait... way back when Travelers dropped us I went to Insweb and filled out a form and got quotes back that I thought were way too expensive.  I called the cheapest of the bunch, Lloyd's of London, and we are now insured by them at a much more reasonable (but still astronomical if you ask me) $570 for three months of coverage.  So yeah, I'm breathing a sigh of relief that I only have to spend five times as much on insurance, rather than eight times as much.  At least it'll drop back down once we move in.

Next: you might be wondering how our utility work is going.  I showed you pictures yesterday of the pipes going in under the house, but you may also be interested to know that the gas line was scheduled to go in yesterday.  Not sure it did, but things have been pretty much on schedule... once they've actually been scheduled, that is.  The gas company agreed to foot the bill for re-placing the meter at our back door, rather than in the ridiculous blocking-the-windows location where it currently stands; hopefully it'll be joined by the water and electric meters as well, and we can put a big bush in front of them all or something.  PEPCO has informed us that they would be happy to install a service line for us-- for the price of $1,800.  After some back and forth, there has been not a millimeter of budging on their part, so we've gotta swallow that price; sending a check tomorrow.  (Yeah, they'll only accept a check, which is super annoying.)  Regardless, they assure us they'll come out the moment the check arrives, so I'm hopeful.  Water's still up in the air, as I mentioned yesterday, because of the questionable placement of the toilet drain in the upstairs bathroom.  I'm also pretty sure the plumber's not done, because we haven't heard that he wants his money yet...

Painting is nearly complete on the main Tadpole Green color.  We were going back and forth, pre-painting, on whether to paint the spanking new cedar shakes on the dormer, because the wood is just so gorgeous.  There's no way we could leave the whole house unpainted because of the previous paint job, but we thought it might not look weird to have a painted house and an unpainted dormer.  Yeah, we were wrong-- dormer will definitely be painted.  Only a few spots remain that aren't Tadpole Green, and I'm guessing that's because they ran out of paint.  Next comes all the trim, which should be exciting.  

Yeah, we know: the unpainted dormer looks weird.

I was out admiring the paint job when Jimmy was here this week and a couple of neighbors came by with their kids in tow.  So nice to see kids our kids' ages in the neighborhood, because we were slightly worried the place'd be mostly retirees.  (Not that that's a problem for us, but Abby grew up in a 'hood full of kids her age, and I'd love that for ours.)  Judging by a spirited debate on the neighborhood listserv today regarding building a playground on-site, there are most definitely a bunch of families with small kids hiding behind those  historic and faux-historic facades around us... as well as a bunch of people who may be just a bit wary of having a playground so close to what apparently had initially been marketed as a quiet retirement-esque community.

Speaking of visitors, I must mention that Courtney & Chris (my sister and her husband) stopped by the house this week too; it was his first time over.  It's hard enough getting Chris to venture out of his Prince William County sanctuary, let alone drugging him enough to cross through the dreaded District of Columbia and into (egads!) Maryland, but we did it by bribing him with steaks.  I didn't remember their visit along with Jimmy's and the Stewarts' because, well, I didn't go with him-- Abby did.  But yes, Courtney, I do appreciate the visit.  

The Pagoda and Chalet

Anything else?  Well, The property manager, Dave, responded to my request that the ungrated opening underneath the lions, possibly leading to the inner workings of the fountain, be covered up lest ne'er-do-wells start being all nefarious in there, and it was fixed with one email: hooray!  It looks like new concrete has been poured all around the pagoda, and it looks great.  Don't know if construction is at a standstill at the Chalet, or if things are just progressing inside right now, but I can't see anything different in the last few weeks over there.  I heard the Spanish Mission was sold, but can't confirm that.  And our sad neighbor, the French Colonial, remains alone, destined to be sucked back into the realm of condo because of its peculiar connection with Practice House (I think that's what that building's called...)  Oh, and get this: for how political of a being I've been for so long, I made what I believe may be my first-ever call to my Congressman today about a house-related issue.  Abby's none too excited about the NPS property bordering the railroad tracks without any sort of barrier, so I called Rep. Van Hollen's office to see if they knew what we could do to get one built.  We'll see if that works, but in the meantime I feel like a bit of a busybody, especially since I probably haven't even been at the house for a combined 48 hours yet.  Still, I came out of the exchange with one new piece of annoyance, which seems pretty par for the course: the U.S. Postal Service does not recognize our address.  When you go to their website and try to find out our ZIP+4, it says they don't deliver to our address, and that any mail addressed to it will be returned to sender.  I called them to say, yet again, that yes, we do exist, but the woman on the other end said it was our responsibility to tell the city to tell the post office we existed.  

I'm'a leave that call for another day.

Local wildlife, more visitors, and the art of persuasion

My cousins Györgyi and Jancsi are here from Budapest, and haven't seen the DC sights since they were here in 1980.  So, of course, we brought them to see the Bungalow on Sunday morning.  Needless to say, there were more than a few raised eyebrows as we walked through the place.  My mom's side of the family tends to go with Courtney in the whole renovation scheme of things-- let someone else do it, and buy once it's done.  We took them on the path that starts at the French Colonial and goes around to the English Castle-- the kids call it the "secret passage."  Saw a whole bunch of wild raspberries, although Györgyi decided it'd be better not to eat any, lest they not be edible and cause her to go to a hospital in a foreign country...  (Anyone from the area have any idea whether they're good?)  En route back to the Bungalow, Abby and the kids happened upon a deer grazing in the bottom of the glen.  Startled, it ran straight up the incline, right past the house.  We had seen a couple of deer last week when we brought Donna by, but that was at twilight from across the glen, and this was midday right down there.  After his close encounter with a few deer on Teddy Roosevelt Island a few weeks ago, Isaac's gonna think he's the Deer Whisperer!

Tracking the deer in the glen in front of the Bungalow

It's funny how we've become the Welcome Wagon for the Colonial.  We liked Jason and Ashley so much (or at least the idea of them) that any time we see people looking at the place, we feel it's our responsibility to encourage them to move in.  As we came back from meeting Bambi, there were two different prospective buyers checking out the place.  (Not to mention the woman we met while heading to the path earlier in the day, who probably thought we were nuts for going right in with "hey, are you interested in buying this place?")  I gravitated toward one of the prospectives, a younger woman from Michigan who just moved here after a failed stint in Arizona; I told her about how the previous offer fell through, and offered to give her our finance guy's contact information.  Abby gravitated toward the other, a man who liked the house for its artistic qualities, and had enough cash on hand to be uninterested in the financing aspect of it all.  (To recap: I went to the woman from the Great Lakes, and Abby went to the artsy, rich guy.  Figures!)

Isaac in Forest Glen

In actual house news, Rory reports the plumbing and electrical subcontractors came out late last week, and the HVAC guy is coming out tomorrow.  Mohamed sent the plans he drew up, and we are trying to set up a time midweek to meet and discuss final room layouts.  I really hope to have this all done by Wednesday, when we leave for Buffalo for a week for Courtney's wedding.  And to top it all off, another set of cousins showed up in DC this morning, announced only about 12 hours previously.  Fingers crossed on getting stuff done!

We're on the map!

After a monthlong back-and-forth with Google, our house is finally on the map!  When we first started looking at the place, none of the local streets were listed on Google Maps; they were all stubs coming off the main road (Linden Lane).  But the satellite imagery was there, so it's not like Google hadn't seen the place or anything.  (Unlike Courtney & Chris's place, which is still in various stages of construction when you see it online.  I wrote in and opened up several "issues" with Google, and now all are fixed.  They put in all the streets, labeled them correctly, put the addresses in correctly, and got rid of the gray shading that showed it had been part of Walter Reed Army Annex, which now ends south of Linden instead of extending to the Beltway.  (Our property had been part of the Annex.  Wounded soldiers recuperated on the grounds during WWII, and officers were housed up through the early 1980s.)  Now all of my neighbors can thank me for making it easier for people to get to their homes.  (You're welcome, neighbors...)  Anyhow, all of those issues are fixed, and here are the results!



Google Maps: 9618 Dewitt Drive



The Seminary Grounds, with properties labeled.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Gregory,

Google Maps has been updated to correct the problem you reported. You can see the update here, and if you still see a problem, please tell us more about the issue:  Link to view and/or reopen issue

Report history
Problem ID: C468-E278-5ADA-F7E6

Your report: Dewitt Dr., Dewitt Ct., and Dewitt Cir. are all labeled as Dewitt Cir. Just the circle should be Dewitt Cir. Just the court sticking up at the far right (east) should be Dewitt Ct. The rest, from Hume to Dewitt Cir., and from Dewitt Cir. to Linden Lane (which is not even marked as a street on your map) is Dewitt Dr. It's possible you don't have Dewitt Dr. marked as a street because it passes under a building. But rest assured, it is there!

--
Thanks for your help,
The Google Maps team New! This email was sent because you clicked "Report a Problem" on Google Maps. We thought you should know that you can now edit the map yourself, on Google Map Maker.

Layout Dilemma

Alright, folks: we have a dilemma.  Today, we went out to the Bungalow to meet with the Maryland Historical Trust folks.  Not only were they exceedingly nice, but they were wonderful people and joys to behold. (I'm not just saying that because they hold the keys to our renovation in their hands, but still...)  We also met with Rory and our architect, Mohammed.  Everything went well.  But now we're confused and fretting about pretty much everything having to do with the top floor of the Bungalow.  What's wrong?  Well, in the last 24 hours, both Courtney and Rory have presented us with options for the layout of the floor that both Abby and I concede are better than our original plans.  (Yes, folks: Abby and Gregory are admitting not just one but two plans are better than their own.  Savor this moment.)

The original plan had a "Great Room" centered around the fireplace and having attributes of both living and dining rooms.  It had a half-wall separating the Great Room from an area with closet space and an entry into our bedroom, which would be surrounded by windows.  The half-wall would allow the Great Room to appear as if it stretched the entire width of the house.  And the kitchen would be off the dining room area of the Great Room, with counters flush to the windows and appliances against a far wall.  Don't worry if you can't picture this all: it's not happening.

Courtney's plan took out the half-wall entirely, stretched the Great Room into a truly great room that went side to side, giving more room to both the living room and dining room areas, and pushed most of the closet space into the bedroom.  If we thought the living room was the most important room, she said, then get those closets out of there.  She was right.

Rory's plan not only doesn't build a half-wall, but keeps the existing wall up in its entirety.  However, it relabels every room clockwise by 90 degrees.  The Great Room becomes solely a living room.  The kitchen becomes a dining room, thereby alleviating the need to block windows with cabinets.  The bedroom becomes the kitchen, with cabinets against a wall that would have had the bedroom's entry from the closet area. And the closet area, retaining its current walls, becomes the bedroom, with a whole wall of closets on the far side.  If we don't want to waste windows, and if we want more living room space, he said, then don't tear down the wall at all, and instead maybe put some sort of architectural element into it, like an antique salvaged window or something, that'd draw the light from the window boxes on the far side without giving away precious square footage.  He was right.

So here's our dilemma.  We know our plan is now moot.  But do we go with Courtney's Plan or Rory's Plan?  We're asking you, our potential visitors, to let us know which you think we should choose.  And just to be sure, here's our pros/cons list:

Courtney's Plan:

1. Kitchen located in preferred location, at NE corner of house, to see prettiest view.
2. Privacy issues in the bedroom; everyone in condos can see into our bedroom, necessitating blinds.
3. Cramped bedroom space.
4. Amazing Great Room, with fantastic view from main entrance
5. Kitchen cabinet issues, with cabinets against lower part of windows and no ability for upper cabinets.
6. Need to change from radiant to forced-air heating, due to placement of radiators in kitchen.  Loss of radiant heat means we will have to insulate the roof, and deal with Maryland Historical Trust's issues concerning keeping the historic nature of our roofline.
7. Air conditioning returns will be more conspicuous, possible need for a vertical conduit somewhere in the living room.

Rory's Plan:

1. No cabinets against any windows.
2. No privacy issues in the bedroom
3. Wall cuts Great Room's ceiling in half
4. Bedroom may feel more spacious, although it's only slightly larger, due to high ceilings
5. Dedicated living room and dining room
6. Living room furniture layout difficult due to angles of entrances into the room
7. Entryway divided with wall separating bedroom from living room
8. Possibility of keeping radiant heat, cheaper to power, and potential to leave roof as is (or fiddle with it less)
9. Natural conduits for A/C can be built into existing wall.

Thoughts?  Votes?