The Farnsworth Technicality

As Professor Farnsworth says at the beginning of every episode of Futurama, "Good news, everyone!"  Our tax-credit application has been given the (unofficial) thumbs-up from the Maryland Historic Trust for the full amount-- meaning almost everything we spent on making this house livable (as opposed to the little indulgences like the gas fireplace) qualified for their program, and we'll be getting a whopping $50,000 back from the state. (Holy cow!) We haven't gotten the paperwork back yet, but Renee from MHT told me she just needed one small edit on one page of the form for things to go forward, and I'm totally psyched. I immediately began looking at financing our HELOC, which resets in December, with the hope that the fat fifty-G check we'd be getting in the mail at Thanksgiving could cut the amount in half and give us a way better rate. Alas, I was only half-right: yes, we will be getting the money, but no, it will not be coming anytime soon, and it will also not be coming in the form of a happy, gift-like check.

Rather, we have to file taxes in the Spring and claim the amount as a tax credit. Hmm. So here's the issue now: I planned our finances so we'd be DC residents until December 31, with a switch to Maryland beginning January 1. All DC withholding this year, then a clean break with no need for part-year resident filing, with all MD withholding in 2014. Now we have to file as MD residents for 2013, and I'm stumped. For those of you who know me, this is how stumped I am: I'm going to go to H&R Block and get tax advice. (I know, right?!) But this money is just too much to screw around with, and I'm willing to pay the $150 or whatever they need at the tax place in order to see my mortgage balance decrease by half-a-hundred grand. Now I just have to find some time to get there.

Once we get the official paperwork back from Annapolis (Crownsville, actually) we can then start with the Rockville paperwork--for the county. I already started talking to Josh over at the County Preservation office, letting him know to watch out for our impending application, and it looks like it may be an easy-enough process. The county looks at all the stuff you did to make the house pretty from the outside, as opposed to the state livability standard, so the amount we get back will be much, much less-- 10% of the exterior improvements will still be nothing to shake a stick at, mind you.

But the other reason I contacted Josh was to let him know we finally got the energy audit results back, and decided to go for it. Granted, all that wait (since what, August?!) was for a report that basically told us we had drafts -- in a 115-year-old house -- we liked their remedies, and we don't like how freakin' cold it is in the house. So next Monday and Tuesday, Smart Homes Maryland will be coming by to install seals on all 49 of our windows, new latches on almost half of them (to help close them more tightly than the current latches, some of which are the hook-and-eye kind you'd find at a campsite latrine), and what they describe as an inflatable device inside our chimney that will help divert the heat from the fireplace into the house. That last part makes sense but sounds strange-- but it's also less than $200, so why the heck not?

The whole project's not cheap, but do-able nonetheless.  They originally gave us an estimate in the high $2000s, and I balked at it until I thought about the cost of simply buying 49 windows-worth of that cheap weatherstripping from Home Depot, and how cheesy it'd look. Only problem was that the quote was for white weatherstripping and brass hardware; all of our windows are black. So we went back to their rep, Karim, and asked what it'd take to darken things up. apparently about a thousand dollars. But again, that now involves painting 49 windows-worth of weatherstripping, getting upgraded hardware, and being happy (and warrantied) at the end of the process. For energy savings, it's worth it. The bummer is we haven't been in the house for a winter without it, so we have nothing against which we can compare the cost savings. But I think I can deal, and I'm looking forward to being able to sit at my computer without feeling a cold breeze, to waking up to see something other than "57 degrees" on my bedside thermometer, and to snuggling with Abby under a blanket when we watch tv because we want to-- and not because we're trying to stave off hypothermia. That, combined with a nice big check from Maryland-- even if it's in the form of an income-tax refund check direct-deposited into my account at some point in late March-- will truly be "good news, everyone!"

That's Cold

Old married couples have their "normal" (to them) back-and-forths that go something like what Abby and I have. For instance:

Billy Ocean is dressed appropriately for my first floor.

A: Hey.

G: You.

A: Get into my car. (You can guess the rest.)

Similarly, and on the same '80s pop vein, there's this gem:

A: That's cold (or) I'm cold (or anything else ending with the word "cold")

G: So's your heart.

A+G: Random Paula Abdul reference. (Is there any other kind?)

Paula Abdul would be VERY cold in my downstairs bathroom.

Well, now we have something else that's cold, apart from each of our hearts: our house. More specifically, our first floor. Each morning, we wake up, put our parkas on, grab our chisels, and start chipping the children out of their beds. We can leave meat and dairy out on the counters without fear of spoilage. We have a family of hibernating bears under our stairs. It's cold.

"Of course it's cold," you say. "You have 100+ year-old windows and your first floor is partially submerged underground." "Yes," I would reply, "but you see, I had installed an enormous furnace, along with bulkheads for distributing all of that heat. And I paid extra for insulation of Buffalo standards. And I yell at the kids to close the door, for fear of (and I quote, unfortunately) 'heating the neighborhood.'" Still, very cold.

Madonna would probably be okay with a shawl,
but those dogs in the video would need sweaters.

Madonna once sang "You're frozen when your heart's not open."  I say "you're frozen when your freakin' cold."  And yes, I say this from the vantage point of someone who went through the winters of '04-'05 and '05-'06 without heat. But I was a lot younger then, and didn't have to worry about potential Child Services intervention.

We sit on our couch after the kids go to bed, and immediately crawl under a blanket. Abby's nose is probably 40 degrees. And I strongly suspect our little issue with Lola wetting the bed a few times last week has at least something to do with her preferring not to get out of her warm bed to trek across the tundra that is our family room, into the icebox that is the downstairs bathroom. Let's just say we have issues.

A few months back, you may recall, we won a free energy audit courtesy of the county, for historic homes. Following the audit, we were supposed to receive a professional estimate on how an organization affiliated with the county and knowledgeable about the limitations of working with historic buildings could work to make our house more energy-efficient. (Read: warmer in winter). And hey, I'm all about up-front payments with back-loaded, long-term benefits-- bring 'em on!

So the audit guy came out, did his thing, and said we'd have his report shortly. Then... nothing. around Labor Day, sensing the imminent change in season, I emailed the county asking about the report, and was told there were "issues" (with the auditor, not with our audit) and we'd get things shortly. Two weeks ago, I re-pinged them, and was told I'd have the report no later than... last Friday. I don't want to be the pain in the ass to people who are giving me something for free, but by the time we finally get the report, there may be a glacier advancing on Silver Spring, starting from my property.

Proper gear for the Aurora and the Bungalow

(I write this while standing on my Red Line commute, facing an ad for Icelandair, with a smiling couple in thick sweaters and furry hats enjoying the Northern Lights; they would be properly clad to visit the Bungalow too late in the evening.)

So what do I do? I could spend a whole weekend going back and forth to Home Depot buying weather-stripping and that cellophane stuff for the windows and door-sweeps and a giant knit house-koozie, but in the end I feel that my professionally-done house deserves a professionally-done insulation job, especially since I have actual tourists taking actual photos of the place at least once every month on the neighborhood tour. And also because I'm pretty positive that once I finally plunk down the time and energy on doing it myself, the county will call me, all ready to go.

In the meantime, we have decided to close our upstairs registers and pump the heat up a few degrees, with an eye toward tricking the HVAC system into warming things up downstairs without baking the upstairs. We've made sure all of our duvets are washed (following Isaac's barf-o-rama last week, and Lola's aforementioned string of accidents the week before) and on the beds. We turned on the fireplace during Isaac's party, which made the upstairs nice and toasty; the temperature downstairs may have been fine, had all the kids not kept leaving the door open (and heating the neighborhood...).  Oh, and we're stocking up on soup.

Here's hoping the county gets to us before we go the way of the Woolly Mammoth. (Or at least the way of that poor snake Paula Abdul was singing about back in the day.) In the meantime, we can only dream about the point whne we'll get to another of our regular-to-us conversations:

A: I'm hot.

G: And modest.

A: (Rolls eyes.)

Squatting No More

It's been a month since I last wrote-- more than a month, in fact. And I wish I could say there have been massive movements in construction. Actually, were it three days ago, I could say absolutely no physical movements have been made. But in the past three days, well, movement. First off, though, is the most important thing to happen since I last wrote.

The reason I haven't written about the house for so long is that I haven't actually been in it. Between a 2,500-mile road trip and a 25,000-mile business trip, I only slept in my own bed four times during the entire month of August. But early last month, while I was visiting friends and family in Buffalo, we got the big news we'd been waiting for for so long: we passed our inspection. So, for the first time on this blog, I can tell you we are no longer squatters in our own home. (I know, right?) And I wish I could be more excited about that pronouncement of officialdom from the good people in Rockville, but the thing is, for the next month, absolutely nothing happened in the house. Oh wait-- they planted grass seed that actually grew. So there, we have a lawn. In the meantime, my closet lay in ruins, having been assembled and active since April; as a result, unpacking after 17 days of leisure, and packing for 18 days of business just 4 days later, was accomplished with more than a little consternation on my part.

But then, there was communication. Yes, none other than Servicez Unlimited themselves texted us, we thought because they wanted to work. But no.  Actually, they just wanted money. You see, we still owe them about $15,000, money that was held by the mortgage company until all work was done. You may remember it as the money they decided to allow to lapse rather than having to deal with us anymore. So, sure, we owe it to them, but they ain't getting it all until we are happy. Abby met with Marc and, while I said she should give him a third of it, gave him half. In exchange, they agreed to wipe away some of the ridiculous charges they had amassed, like a $70 charge for delivering a door.

A week later, still nothing from them. So I texted them back-- seeing as it's apparently the way they communicate best now, although I prefer email because of the more easily-discernable trail. By the end of the day, I've worked out with them that there are several things they're just itching to complete-- do you sense my sarcasm?-- and they can start on Wednesday, and "be finished by the end of the week," if I get back to them by 7pm; otherwise, it'll be another week, for some reason. Interestingly enough, I get the text at 5pm, giving me plenty of time to consider. But consider I do, and within 15 minutes I respond to most of the bullet points as if to say GET YOUR BUTTS OVER HERE. Among those things I don't agree to? A $250 installation of the hot water tap they had already installed, only to remove because they screwed up the plans they submitted to the county. The tap cost about $125, and I know for a fact my dad can install it; I'm pretty sure I can too, which tells you either how easy I think it is, or how little further work I wish to give to these guys.

So Wednesday comes. And voila-- my closet is reassembled. I feel I can step back into the adulthood I had claimed in April.

But then Thursday comes. And all the whining and begging and debating and convincing becomes worthwhile-- at least momentarily. We pull up in our parking space, look up at our kitchen windows, and see it: nothing. Nothing, as in there had been a ridiculously high backsplash blocking half of our window array. And now? At least five inches had been cut off. Abby ran into the house-- I think she forgot she had kids in tow-- and opened the window, yelling for me to come up and see. Walking into the great room, the change is immediately perceptible; there are just so many more TREES visible. Standing at the counter looking toward the glen, you can actually see most of the backyard without having to get up on the counter with your knees. It's the view we fell in love with 31 months ago, when we first stepped into the house. And the icing on the cake? Tiles. Abby chose white subway tile, similar to what we had in our old kitchen, except with beveled edges, to line the exposed walls and what's left of the backsplash, and they look amazing. The look is exactly what she wanted, the installation is perfect-- even along the uneven stone wall backing the fireplace-- and Abby is giddy. She decided it looks so good that she wants one more wall covered in it, rather than being painted. (Being the nice one, she at least feigned changing her mind if I would be upset that her plan would tile over a wall I had painted in my paintathon a couple months back.) For those of you who know Abby, you'll appreciate that she wanted this bad enough the she was willing to drive a half-hour through the suburbs to get an extra pack of tile, and another half-hour back to deliver it to the guys before turning around and driving yet another half-four, getting to the kids' school in time to pick them up. That, my friends, is dedication to design.

So that's where we stand now. Still incredibly frustrated with the contractors, but more and more feeling that it doesn't matter. It's the end of the week, and they're not finished as they had texted, but it's not like I believed them. After all, we're about a year late now-- remember, we were originally shooting for Labor Day 2012. Regardless, only small stuff is left for them to do. The biggest thing on our horizon now is paperwork. Ten days from today is the due date for our submission to the Maryland Historical Trust. As long as we amass all the receipts we can, fill out all the necessary documentation, and get it in on time, we'll get a giant chunk of change back from the State of Maryland as a thank-you for saving a deteriorated old property. I've already gathered about $120,000 in receipts, and Abby was tasked with getting at least $20,000 more from Home Depot today, so we're well on our way. Pushing it, sure, but we'll make it.

What will be interesting is whether we'll be happier about finishing this project or cutting our ties to the contractors. My guess? The latter in the short term, and the former in the long term. But both will be welcomed, and that's for sure!

Easy Being Green

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But hey, we've got bushes, right?

Welcome to the Neighborhood

Scene of the Crime

Before I start today's installment, I just wanted to send a big, hearty FU to the jerk that stole my bike this weekend.  You see, I did go to Wal-Mart and buy a cheap bike because I didn't want to be upset if a more expensive one were to have been stolen, but I also figured any loss would be because I did something like leaving it out on my porch overnight-- as I've done several times-- or forgotten my lock or something.  But no, it was stolen over the weekend while it was locked to the bike rack at Forest Glen Metro Station.  You know-- the station in the suburbs to where I moved, as opposed to the one in the iffy neighborhood back in the District from where I moved.  But hey, in the interim, before I re-buy that $94.94 basic blue bike again, maybe my face will clear up, because it's just exploded since I started sweating in the morning on the bike-ride in.  Back when we lived in Petworth, we had a bunch of stuff stolen; in fact, both my dad's and my mom's bikes were stolen from our front porch last fall, but that was my own stupidity for leaving them out on the front porch.  Isaac's winter jacket was stolen from inside his pediatrician's office one winter-- now that's desperate-- and some jerk stole all of my CDs, my stereo, and a whole bunch of expensive tools from a friend's uncle who was helping us renovate, which totally sucked.  But for some reason, this one hits me different.  I had thought I had moved away from all of that shit.  But here I was again yesterday, filing a police report and calling pawn shops.  Argh.

Our four newly-planted Arborvitae, that hopefully
will grow in nice, straight, narrow columns into
the spaces between our windows.

The lovely incident came in the middle of what was an otherwise productive weekend on our part.  Abby and I decided to go ahead and start planting in the one area in which we have the power to do so at this point-- the tiny strip of "yard" on the south side of the house, along the kids' windows.  We drove up to Johnson's, a huge local nursery way up in Olney, and out of all of the amazing stuff they had, we ended up buying four Arborvitae.  Yep, Arborvitae, the generic, everyone-has-three tree-bush.  But we arrived at the purchase after consulting with a nursery employee who knew everything they had to offer.  Our need was for four thin, narrow, tall evergreens that are good in full sun.  Arborvitae.  In fact, we have a sad, little Arborvitae in front of the Petworth house that we bought from Johnson's in Tenleytown; his name is Johnson.  (And yes, we name our plants, for those of you who aren't aware.)  We made our purchase on Saturday, then kept them out in the yard overnight, since we had tickets to see Daniel Tosh that night.  (Good thing no one stole them!  Grumble grumble grumble...)  Sunday came around and it was pouring out, so I waited for the rain to subside, then went out to dig holes.  By the time I was done, the sun was blazing, and it was about 340% humidity, but we had four new Arborvitae planted outside.  And two of them are already named: the woman at Johnson's was named Irene, so of course the two are "Irene to the Left" and "Irene to the Right."  (The ones in the middle remain unnamed for the time being.)  The bushes or shrubbery (another shrubbery!) are coming next-- maybe even this weekend.  But for now, it's the two Irenes, the two no-names, the brand-new sidewalk, and a colony of wasps on that side of the house.

New sidewalk, new plantings, more to come.

Inside, some work has been done since the infamous list of 13 items was unveiled.  Most of it, unfortunately, was not done by our contractor.  He insists that the only major thing left to do is to show the evil inspector the retaining wall, which will require digging up our front yard again to show him underground.  He had better not kill my hosta,  I'll tell you that!  He supposedly needs three consecutive dry days to do this, and it's true that it's been raining non-stop the past few weeks.  He claims the rest of the things that need to be done can be done in about two hours, and he has all the materials in his truck, and they'll all be done on Wednesday at the earliest, if there's no rain forecast.  Hopefully, the things that need to be done will be done a bit less haphazardly, unlike the way he "fixed" the problem with the poorly labeled fuse box.  (Abby was furious when she saw it, and wrote him a pretty nasty email about it; he claims it was a temporary fix.)

Our new upstairs shower, and the new gray wall at left.

But other stuff that has been done include our shower door, which was finally installed last week.  I took the first shower upstairs, and was really happy with the size of the enclosure, which is a relief, since I had thought it would be really tight.  I guess standing naked in the space gives you a bit better idea of how it feels than when you are clothed...  Abby's still concerned about the window, since she showers at night, but she's got this totally ghetto wood block she puts up over the glass (which you can't see through, because it's pitted, but you can still see shadows) when she uses it.  Hopefully that'll all be moot once our front landscaping's done.  Also in the upstairs bathroom, we decided the walls looked too boring, and unfinished.  I complained to her that I wanted a bathroom that felt like one in a nice hotel, and got one-- downstairs-- while the upstairs one, which was mine, felt like a Days Inn.  A simple coat of gray paint on one wall may just have done the trick, and although they're not in yet, the towel bars should finish things off nicely.

Our newly-painted black-on-black family room walls

Elsewhere, Abby painted the white trim in the family room downstairs black to match the black walls, and immediately doubted herself because it cast a shadow.  She claims she wanted the black-on-black look to blend in with itself, rather than to stand out.  I don't quite understand, and told her-- likely to her frustration-- that I liked it both ways, but that it'd be awfully hard to re-white the stuff she already painted black.  So she finished it up, doors and all, and turns out we both really like it.  It may not be what she had envisioned, but those of us who know Abby also know her imagination sometimes leads her to magical lands filled with perfectly done, affordable, clean, timely homes-with-character, and, well, that's just a fiction as far as I'm concerned.  But I like the walls.

"Magnetite" is pretty much the same color Magneto wears.

I also painted one wall in the computer room the same gray as the front foyer-- so yes, now we have three different colors of gray in the house, in addition to all the white.  This one is called "Magnetite," but I think I'd just call it "Dark Gray."  Back when we had the floor finishers in the house, they were laughing at Abby for painting the walls so delicately, claiming that if she used more paint on the first coat, she wouldn't need a second coat.  So I tried that, but I think it still might need a second, which sucks, because I really just want to watch TV tonight...

Other than that, not much else is going on.  Just waiting for the damn inspection.  Mark stood Abby up twice last week, after she had called him demanding a meeting to talk about the snail's pace he's been on.  My parents were here for the weekend, and offered to help us do stuff, but there wasn't that much to do; my Dad helped us put doors on the cabinet in the mud room, but their biggest help was watching the kids when we went out on our Tosh Date.  Oh, and we were picked by Montgomery County as one of ten historic homes to get a free energy audit this Wednesday.  A few years ago, our friends Siobhan and Perry in New Jersey got an audit sponsored by their electric company that ended with a plan for how to make their home more energy-efficient, and the ability to pay for the work over time as an add-on to their electric bill; that was an amazing idea.  We had the same thing in DC a year or so ago, but it ended with an email showing us where we could do things ourselves.  We did like two of the things, but got sidetracked by this place.  This time around, I'm hoping the audit's a lot more like New Jersey's than the District's, because I'm totally willing to pay for the upgrades, but I have no patience to go out and get someone to do the work; tell me what's wrong, fix it yourself, and take my Master Card, or fuhgettaboutit.  In the meantime, I'll be sitting here, waiting for my inspection, ducking wasps, and getting to know my local pawn shops with the hope some idiot will come in with my month-old 26-inch blue and gray Roadmaster Granite Peak 18-speed bike from Wal-Mart.  Welcome to the neighborhood.

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.

Penultimate Passage

I won't beat around the bush, because I'm sure you all want to know: Yes, we have passed our plumbing inspection! Weeks after the plumbing was "done," and at least a double-digit number of days since it was actually completed, we finally got us a sticker. Despite having an inspection scheduled for last week (supposedly), it took until yesterday to do it, since we had to secure an inspection on the fireplace beforehand. Wish we had known that sooner, because last week, while thinking "hell, we might as well get some stuff done on our own," we called our trusted fireplace people and had them cap our flue and do some pointing. So of course, as soon as I pay them, I hear we need to find a chimney guy. "Nope, we're calling my guys and that's it." Within 48 hours, we had our certificate. (Granted, the inspector had a whale of a time trying to discern what the paper actually said, because of poor penmanship, but hey, maybe the guy was Dr. Chimney, thank you very much.)

But it's not just a piece of paper that we've scored since I last wrote. Our two straggler windows were finally delivered from the custom shop in Baltimore and installed; the one in the balcony doesn't make that big of an impact, but the one in the dining room is amazing, because it was the one window we never actually saw light through-- it had been boarded up since the first time we saw the house 28 months ago. Now? I sit at my dining-room table and am actually a bit distracted by seeing the top of the windmill on the right side of my peripheral vision. It's a distraction about which I will never complain.

Speaking of the dining room, we finally got our chairs. Or rather, we finally ordered our chairs, and they were delivered crazy-fast. We had been holding off until most of the construction was finished, and once we reached the point where we needed to self-propel, they were an obvious choice. We got six, and plan to get two more, either matching or complementary. They're uber-modern, metal chairs-- three with white coating and three copper. They look really great with the striated table from my grandma. They arrived in pieces, and we had to put them together; IKEA definitely didn't write these directions! After wrestling with the first chair, I got an expletive-laden voice-mail message from Abby about the experience, but by the time numbers five and six were constructed while I watched House Hunters Sunday night, they took about five minutes apiece. For metal chairs, they're really comfortable, although I did have a bit of an accident while constructing #4, and have a gash on my right wrist to prove it.

Also completed recently is the switch of our hot and cold controls on the kitchen sink, as well as the installation of the dishwasher. No more washing dishes in the bathroom, and the machine is really, really quiet, which is great. So quiet, actually, that it's already been opened twice mistakenly during the rinse cycle. Gonna have to learn how to lock it! Although it is working, it's not anchored to the cabinets, so when you empty the contents it lurches forward just enough to make you think that this is the time it'll fall completely out, just like my recurring dreams as a kid of that strong wind knocking my house over to the extent that the mailbox post across the street would come through my window. Yeah, not gonna happen, but not taking any chances. The fridge also leans too far forward, and the freezer opens every time you close the fridge door. But it's wedged so tightly in the cabinets that I can't pull it out to adjust the tilt. Gonna have to wait for the cabinet guys to finish up to see if they can do it for us.

Ahh, the cabinets. Still unfinished, but supposedly the last door is going to be delivered to Home Depot tomorrow. Once it's in, they'll come out, switch out that glass door for the solid wood one they mistakenly installed in April, and do a couple other tweaks--like anchoring the dishwasher. Also hoping they'll install all of our handles and drawer pulls, despite us having purchased them online rather than from Home Depot. Abby's not so sure they will, but I have faith.

We've done a lot of buying lately, but the fun kind of buying: home furnishings, rather than home improvement.  There were the aforementioned dining-room chairs, which are BluDot Real Good Chairs from Fab.com.  Then there's the computer desk we got on clearance from West Elm.  And the painting we bought from an alternative art shop in Old Town Winchester during our anniversary weekend-- I haggled them from $150 to $100, so I feel productive on that one.  There's the mailbox we found on eBay and bought, only to have the letter carrier say we should really have one on the curb instead of the house, so we just put it on the porch for the time being, but today we found it to have been installed by our contractor on the wall.

On the flip side, there's the storage-room door we swear we bought but is nowhere to be found, so we had to reorder it from Home Depot and it's due in later this week.   And of course the bathroom hardware for the upstairs bathroom that we found online and had shipped to us, only for Abby to decide she doesn't like it; it's already on its way back.  Oh, and the still-nonexistent upstairs-shower door that we had measured last month, received the quote for yesterday, and think we can do better on.  So obviously, WE still have some work to do; the ball's not entirely in the contractor's court.

But for now, our next big date is Thursday; that's when we have our big, final inspection.  Pass that, and we get our Certificate of Occupancy.  In other words, we won't be squatters here anymore.  We refinanced a few weeks back-- had our mortgage payment cut by more than a thousand bucks a month, which is like getting a KILLER raise-- and I had been worried that we'd need the Certificate of Occupancy in order to finalize the closing.  I don't know why, other than my mortgage company told me I would.  But here I am, with a new mortgage and my old one so officially closed that my website login has been disabled.  So all the inspection will mean to us is that Maryland blesses the work that's been done.  But we also have to pretend we're not living here for that to happen.  And by pretend, I mean pack up a bunch of our stuff and seriously pretend we're not living here.  Seriously.  So tomorrow, on what would normally be a fun half-day at work picking up the kids from their half-day, it'll be more about making sure the kids are happy and occupied while Abby and I repack the most important things we have here, into the boxes that have been sitting in the living room for a month awaiting this day.  Our clothes will go back into bags, our food... um... maybe into the community room fridge for a few hours?  (Luckily, I haven't been grocery shopping in a week and we're running low on basically everything.)  But hopefully, come Thursday night, we can forget about permits forever, and start focusing on the end goal: living here, with no more work to be done by the contractors, and beginning our quest for landscaping and that big Maryland Historical Trust payoff.  

In the meantime, though, off to repack our house.  

The Money Issue

I wanted to call this post "The Money Shot," but thought that would get too many hits for the wrong reasons.  And also, it's not nearly that exciting.

An earlier post of mine referenced that Tom Hanks and Shelley Long movie "The Money Pit," a movie about two crazy people sinking all of their money and their relationship into the renovation of a house, with terrifying and hilarious consequences.  I had mentioned that this project wasn't a money pit, but rather a time pit, since it was pretty much on budget, yet way, way behind schedule.  Well, that's still the case, but we've basically hit our wall.  Yes, we now officially have no money left.  Creditors beware.

I realize I may be overreacting here.  Some people are used to being in debt, whether from credit card bills or IOUs or whatever.  I am used to having a mortgage and some student loans, but I have never not paid a credit card bill in full, and have always been such a good saver. (Some would say I'm downright miserly, although I prefer the term "frugal.")  But this week, we've hit a wall.  And that wall is partially our fault, mostly necessary, and entirely freaking me out.

You may recall our meeting with the contractor in January where we decided we would be paying for all the remaining materials to ensure reimbursement was still available from our loan before it expired mid-February.  Well, that decision proved worthwhile, because all the materials magically appeared at our doorstep, from tiling to wood flooring to toilets to light fixtures.  What also showed up was a Master Card balance of $24,000, and that was fine because it was balanced off by a reimbursement check for $22,000.  No sweat.  My bank has no brick-and-mortar branches, so any deposits I make have to be made either by mail or by scanning the check in and sending it online.  Well, the limit for the latter method is $3,000, so I had to send it in.  Ten days later, as I'm wondering why the check is not showing up in my account (it usually takes 3-5 days), I get the check returned to me in the mail, along with a letter from my bank telling me that because the check was made out to "Servicez Unlimited and Gregory Wahl" they were unable to deposit it.  "Not a big deal," I think, because I'll just pass this check on to the contractors to pay for services rendered, and ask the bank to make the next check out to me alone.  We owe the contractors about $13,000, so I hand it over and tell them it includes a $9,000+ advance, which should pretty much cover everything else we're going to owe them.  Then I call Patty at the bank, who proceeds to tell me all checks have to be written out to me and the contractor together.  Can she write "or" instead of "and?"  No.  Can she direct deposit the check?  No.  In other words, when the next check, for $14,000, comes in, it'll once again be made out to "Servicez Unlimited and Gregory Wahl," and once again will be undepositable by yours truly.  

In the meantime, Chase would like its $24,000, so I attempt to muster up all of my money.  Seven grand from Citibank maxes out my home equity loan.  Ten more from savings pretty much empties that out, save for what we'll need to pay the mortgage.  And that's it.  So for the first time ever, I'm going to have to carry a balance on my credit card, and I'm not excited about that in the least.  Because we all know how this whole procedure has gone timewise, and there's no guarantee even that $14,000 check will materialize any time soon. That's because I have a more-than-sneaking suspicion that we have to have some sort of municipal inspection to certify the job's complete in order for them to release the final amount, and although we've made great strides in the last three weeks or so, we're still not completely done.

In addition, it looks like Pepco wants its money too, although not from us.  I guess the electrician set up the account, and now Pepco put his name and info on the bills, and is hounding him because (surprise!) he's not paying the electric bill.  (As an aside, the bill is $250 a month-- more than we've ever paid in DC-- since we're pretty much heating the neighborhood, what with all the holes in our walls...)  He apparently contacted Lee frantically, because Pepco was threatening to shut off power and he didn't know how to reach us.  Of course we'll pay it, so I called Pepco to sort things out.  The phone call was a bit ridiculous.  After explaining that my electric bill had mistakenly been issued in my electrician's name, I asked if they could put my name on it instead.  Heck, I can give them my credit card number now and pay the thing in full, plus set up automatic withdrawals.  Nope.  I need to go to the Pepco office in Forestville (FORESTVILLE?!) in person with documentation proving I own the home.  What?  Truly, I do not need to venture an hour out of a major city to deal with an electric company do I?  "Oh," says the guy on the phone, "I guess you could go to the office in downtown DC if you want."  D'oh!  I chalk this mistake up to the fact the guy's in a call center in Alabama or India or something, and doesn't realize how inconsequential the state borders are around here.  Only at the end of the conversation, though, does he casually throw in that I could just fax the documents in rather than trekking down to the office on the same day I need to run to the Azerbaijani Embassy to get my visa and then schlep myself out to Dulles to fly out.  Yeah, guy, thanks for that late addition.  I hung up, printed and faxed the document, and it was all done in about three minutes.  Sheesh.

Okay, so Forestville doesn't look as far on this map as it is psychologically,
but you understand that faxing is a much better option, right?

So where we currently stand money-wise is at the end of our loan, with no more credit line, with no more savings, with a balance on our credit cards.  It's not like we're broke, and that's making things even more frustrating.  When we started this process nearly two years ago, we had to put $50,000 cash into an escrow account to prove we had the financial wherewithal to complete the process.  In theory, if we were to flake out of rehab, they'd use that escrow money to complete the job themselves-- whoever "they" is.  But since we're done with the loan, and pretty much done with the project, that idle money is just pissing me off, because I know it's sitting there (earning like a quarter of a percent in interest) while I'll be paying something like 18% interest on my credit card debt-- something I only have because their check won't work in my bank.  But I have no idea how to get it back, and no idea whether it too requires that final municipal inspection-- and neither does the bank.  They'll "get back to me" on it.  Oh, and as if to rub it in, we get a mystery check for $900 in the mail this week from Montgomery County.  Apparently it's a "brownfields property-tax credit."  I don't care what it is-- it's an unexpected $900, and I'm all about it.  Only it's arrived soggy, and to the wrong address.  (How is it that the people responsible for my property taxes don't know the right address to my property?)  One or the other of those issues has made this envelope come about six months late.  The check is dated August 3, 2012.  It also says it's void after six months.  That means it was void as of February 3, 2013-- three weeks ago.  I called the county and they were as puzzled as I was as to why it came so late, although they're the ones who verified that, no, it was not a mistake and, yes, it was supposed to come to me.  Although to 9618 Dewitt Drive, not 9618 Dewitt Avenue, to which it was addressed.  A new check will be issued shortly, although that $900 could have been used very well presently.

I've never understood the theory of charging a tax to someone who had no money.

This all feels rather ridiculous.  So many people are out of work or have massive medical bills or are otherwise down on their luck.  Meanwhile, we have a second home for which we spent inordinate amounts of money on countertops and wood floors and a designer closet, and can't make one credit-card payment.  I understand these are truly first-world problems.  But it is what it is, and I live in the first world.  A month from now, when I'm on vacation with my family in Florida, this will all seem like a distant (or at least recently-dealt-with) memory, but for now I'm pretty freaked out.  And those of you who know me well can understand, because I'm the one who runs across an airport five minutes before my flight to grab free food from the airport lounge rather than pay six bucks at the kiosk at the gate.  I'm the one who buys the small cup at McDonald's and volunteers to go back and forth to get the refills.  Heck, my upcoming vacation includes airline tickets paid for entirely by airline miles, and lodging provided in a house Abby's family owns-- not exactly disposable-income luxury!  So yeah, this is foreign territory for me.

That said, all will be well.  Eventually.  Eventually...  Right?

PERMITTED!

At long last, today we got our building permit!  It's only been 237 days since we closed, but who's counting?

Now, nothing bureaucratic stands in the way of us beginning work on the Bungalow.  (At least nothing we've thought of...)  Rory reports the subcontractors will all go through the place in the next few days, everything will be scheduled, and within two weeks the whole place will be humming like a finely tuned... Okay, I don't care about what kind of machine or instrument-- I just want construction!

I promise posts will be more regular now, and pictures will be forthcoming.  But now, I'm stuffed full of pizza, and I just want to take off my clothes and veg with Abby in front of the DVR.

Permit!

New Year, New Movement?

Happy New Year, all!  And with a new year, hopefully this thing will get going in a new way.  First good sign: on the first business day of the year, yesterday, our drawings and plans were stamped and we have officially said goodbye to the County historical permitting process.  Small glitch today, when Mark took the plans to County permitting and was told he needed an original signature by the owner, as opposed to the copied one he had.  So tomorrow, he'll meet Abby and get her Jane Hancock, and can submit the permit application.  (This is the final application at this stage, and when we get it, hammers and saws and all that good stuff will start doing their thang.)

The shingles we settled on: kinda gray, kinda brown,
kinda boring... but the type is approved by the State,
and we're hoping the color soon will be too!

Abby and I finally settled on a shingle, after having to settle on the shingle type.  The problem, we found at the last minute, was that the tin shingles above the porch were completely white.  (They didn't look white, since they are not in the best condition, but when I poked a few down through the big hole in the roof to see what kind of gray they were, well, I was surprised.)  I contacted Amy and Renee at MHT and they said, barring hot pink, any color we wanted on the roof was fine.  So we picked out "weathered gray" shingles, and when we refurbish the tin, that'll be dyed to match.  I had to submit an amendment to the State for the shingles, but that should be a simple day-or-so response and we can actually order the shingles from Home Depot.

So where we are now is:

1. Waiting for the okay from the State on the color of the shingles;
2. Waiting to sign the form for the County to submit for the building permit; and
3. Waiting for Rory to get the roofing guys out to measure the roof so we can know exactly how many shingles to buy.

And that's it!  It's very cool to think we actually may be spending money very soon...

Day 204: MoCo Approves!

Big night tonight in Silver Spring: The Montgomery County Planning Commission approved our application for an Historical Area Work Permit!  (Hooray!  And hooray for lots of capitalized words!)  Although this was not a contentious thing-- we knew we were recommended to be approved by the staff, and we were placed on the consent calendar, which means there was pretty much nothing wrong with our application-- it was still one of our last obstacles to get this darn thing moving.  And it took a grand total of about three minutes.  At 7:30 they called the meeting to order; by the time I silenced my cell phone they had introduced the agenda; by 7:33 I was walking out the door, my and four other applications approved by unanimous consent.  Not bad.

So here's where we stand right now:

• We've got permission from both the State of Maryland and Montgomery County to go through with our plans, as modified of course;
• We have to bring whatever architectural drawings we have to the County in the next few days to have them approved, which I'm told takes hours, not days or weeks or SIX AND A HALF MONTHS, which is how long we've owned this house without legally being able to do anything to it; and
• Once the drawings are approved, we have to apply for building permits, just like anyone else does working on any other house.  Again, days, not weeks or HALF A YEAR.
• Also, we just got "approved" for a six-month extension of "work" by our loan servicer.  Kind of ridiculous, if you ask me, because there was no way we were doing the whole thing in six months, but we had to put that down initially and extend after that was over.  Then they loan people were apparently going to give us shit about not having stuff done, as if we had been sitting on our butts the last six months, just paying this enormous mortgage and enjoying our shell of a home.  Weirdos.

The State did reject not only our choice of shingles, but the very thought of anything other than extreme top-of-the-line shingles or regular old cheapo Home Depot shingles, which does suck.  Apparently in the 115-year history of the house, there have only been two documented types of roofing: the original cedar shakes, which would cost upwards of $40k to install; and the current army-issued cheapos, which just look cheap.  We tried to argue that having higher quality shingles that look like cedar shakes should be good enough, but the State argued that their goal is to avoid the Disneyfication of historic areas-- only historically documented materials are allowed, and reproductions are a non-starter.  So it looks like we'll be searching for the best cheapo shingles we can buy, and dealing with it.  I'm disappointed, not only because I wanted to be able to upgrade, but because the Dutch Windmill's owners replaced their dilapidated roof with beautiful cedar shakes.  But, alas, we can't break the bank on roofing.  Maybe when I win the lottery... which I don't play...

The shingles we can't afford.

The shingles we wanted.

The shingles we'll have to get.

 Anyhow, it looks like we're now reaching the light at the end of the tunnel.  And that means, hopefully, more things to update on the blog.  We were hoping to decorate the place for the holidays, but we had to run out of town unexpectedly and only got back two days ago, so Bungalow Christmas Part One is going to have to wait until next year.  But I'm looking forward, albeit very warily, given all the crap we've had to deal with just in the red tape, to getting moving.

And I promise, if we all take sledgehammers over to the house this weekend as a Christmas present to ourselves, I'll definitely take pictures. :)