Taking pictures, crossing fingers

Interesting weekend with the Bungalow, in that it involved others availing themselves of the house without needing me around.  Yesterday, while Abby played the model parent helping Isaac's new school do last-minute set-up stuff (I think it's called "barn raising?"), I took the kids to the Bungalow so a local photographer could do a shoot inside.  I had seen her stuff while doing online searches of the place, and had commented about liking some of it on her blog.  She wrote back and asked if she could shoot inside, and I didn't see the harm, so yesterday happened.  She showed up with an assistant and they took about two hours to shoot, while the kids and I rode bikes outside until we were sweating too much, then headed inside to the community room, ostensibly to play foosball and pool.  But it was Saturday morning, and some kids that lived in the apartments were watching cartoons, so invariably my kids sat leaning against the foosball and pool tables, transfixed with the images on the tv screen.  (Pokemon: what a ridiculous cartoon...)  Once the kids left, I switched it to something more palatable for me, and enjoyed the air conditioning.  In a week or so, I'll be able to see some of the shots she did, and hopefully they'll be linkable so I can put them up here, but in the meantime you can see the photographer's stuff at her blog, Laurie's Lane.  Her assistant also has an interesting website, and says he's shot album covers for local bands on the grounds of the Seminary, which would definitely be cool to see.

Today we went to Six Flags, but my friend Dave, who works for State Farm Insurance,  told me he wanted to see the place.  So I gave him the combination to the lockbox and hoped he wouldn't find some terrible reason we shouldn't have bought the place-- a reason the home inspector and the general contractors missed.  I trust him because he's been an interested bystander (and frequent contributor) to our current house in its various states, and because of his professional background.  He came over afterwards and had interesting and constructive things to say, but nothing like the crazy awful things we were fearing, so yay!  (And no, Dave's not the holding-punches kind of guy...)  He did mention it was funny we had two lockboxes on our door, yet some of the window panes were knocked out and, if you really wanted to, you could just reach in and unlock the door from the inside.  (It's like I teach in Botswana: it's the appearance of security that matters!)

We're still crossing our fingers for Tuesday's board meeting, after which I've convinced myself the Maryland Historical Trust is going to call me personally to gush over our wonderful plans.  That, or there are 1000 things we left off the forms, and we have to redo it all and spend another 45 days waiting until the next meeting.  (I already know we forgot to talk about removing the paneling from the basement, and talking to Dave has me second-guessing our room placement again...  Argh!)  But no matter: it'll be another 36 hours until the board meets, and it could be up to two weeks before we hear their results.  I asked Abby to bake some cookies and show up at the meeting, but she says she doesn't think showing up with baked goods as well as two screaming kids would help our cause.  I say bake a second batch and stuff the kids to stop the screaming, but she says I'm crazy.

Movement Behind the Scenes

So nothing's been doing, on the house or on the blog.  The absence of blog movement can be explained in that I was in Russia for work, and was hesitant to sign into anything from which I felt the Russians might grab password information; not being in Russia anymore, here I am, updating.  The absence of house movement is just a further testament to the patience we're all going to have to show during this whole process.  Believe me, there is movement; just behind the scenes!  Of course, we have been shown the drawings, and have signed off on the initial where-walls-go stuff.  While I was away, Rory put all of the HVAC and electrical stuff into the drawings, and says we should have the complete set by this weekend.  My hope is that, after we sign off on those, there will be a submission to the Historical Trust and the bureaucratic process can finally get moving.  We won't have picked tile colors or appliance brands by that point, but we will have been given the go-ahead to start demo work, which will feel SO nice!

The problem lies in that, having a federally-secured loan, we have to have a monthly home inspection.  We didn't have one in July, since, well, nothing was changed to inspect.  We are fast approaching our August inspection date, and our lender is requesting an inspection in no uncertain terms.  I'll leave it to Rory and Mark to explain to them what's going on-- I don't understand how they (the bank) wouldn't be familiar with this whole historical-homes-progress-slowly process-- but hey, that's why we pay Rory and Mark the big bucks, right?  So we don't have to deal with stuff. :)

So all in all, there's movement, but just nothing appreciable.  I'm looking forward to getting back to see the house very soon, and this time with a new set of eyes: my friend Dave, who's a State Farm Insurance guy, really wants to see the place.  He was very enthusiastic about stopping by while he's in Frederick for the month (or more), and was actually a great resource to have while we were rehabbing our current place.  I guess I'll just be holding my breath for him not to compare the Bungalow to the hurricane- and tornado-ravaged places he's used to evaluating.  Fingers crossed!