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.  

DIY Because They Certainly Won't

Our newly-painted stair risers

Last Monday, I wrote to our contractor, asking when four specific items would be completed. He picked one-- sanding and painting the risers on the stairway-- and said that'd actually been planned to be done the next day. (What a coincidence!) It was, but here we are a week later and nothing else has been done--on the list or otherwise. By Wednesday, we knew we'd be in this situation, so we started brainstorming everything that was left. Lots of little things, for sure, but "lots" is the important word here, not "little!"

Maybe the mailman
can find us now...

One of those things was an issue with the fireplace. (We did the gas fireplace ourselves, and just had his guys install it.) There is no way to close the flue to the fireplace, which means when we turn it on, we lose almost all of the heat up the chimney. Granted, we're more worried about getting rid of heat right now, but hey, I'm nothing if not a box checker. The good thing about this whole situation is that, of all the contractors we have worked with in both house projects, there is one who has come through on multiple occasions with flying colors: American Professional Chimney Services. I would recommend these guys without reservation. In fact, I called them for an estimate, didn't even bother calling around, just hired them to do the work, and expect that they'll be done before I get home from work tomorrow.  By the end of the week, we'll have all the pointing done, the flue will be capped, we'll have paid the bill, and we won't have to think about our chimney again for a long time. Over the weekend, Abby and I thought maybe we could incorporate a whole-house fan into the project, and the owner actually emailed back and forth with me several times (on a weekend evening!) to discuss the issue. Ultimately, we just went with the original plan, but why the heck can't all of this job be this way?

They say if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. Or, at least micromanagers say that. But when my parents asked us what we would have done differently with this project, my answer in all seriousness was that we should have hired Abby as our general contractor. Sure, we tried to do that with the first house, but that was also while we were both working, and eventually, while she was pregnant with and then nursing Isaac. This time? She's not planning to go back to work until the fall, the kids are in school, and she did so much anyhow; it just seems like such a waste to have gone the route we did.

One of six Hostas, originally from Tonawanda, via
Grand Island and Petworth.

But at this point, I'm not whining. I'm happy living in the house-- even if we're still technically squatters. And it's not just because it's not the basement, although that's definitely part of it! It's nice to be able to get home from work, do normal family stuff, then maybe do something on the house after the kids go to bed. Last week I spent a half-hour hanging hooks in my closet. Tiny stuff for sure, but now my belts and backpack and shirts in need of laundering are up off the floor, and the closet can actually look clean. This weekend we were able to make IKEA runs to pick up some As-Is cabinetry Abby found (that is identical to the stuff we already had, but already put together and 30% off) while the kids took naps. I was able to go to the old house and dig up a couple of my Buffalo Hostas, then transplant them into the front yard, while Abby was in the shower. Heck: we can grill out now that we've replaced our sad old wedding-gift grill with a snazzy new one, just a couple weeks shy of our tenth wedding anniversary.  If you want to get something done, just do it yourself, right?

My dad helped me move the
perfectly-sized extra cabinet
into the laundry room yesterday.

But we can't do everything. We were able to keep a couple of the cabinets Home Depot brought that had been mismeasured, and put them downstairs: one fits perfectly in the laundry room with not even an inch to spare, (thanks Dad!) while the other will serve as our coat closet in the mudroom. But we had to wait an agonizing two weeks for a plumbing inspection; the inspector's coming "Wednesday or Thursday," but the hot and cold are still reversed on the kitchen faucet, Abby says the spigot on the yard side of the house is leaking, and there's still the possible issue of the pipe behind the laundry room that my dad strenuously objects to due to the fact that it may overflow and spread poop all over the area under the stairs. The inspection for the Certificate of Occupancy can come only when the plumbing's been certified, and our refinance, which is set for Thursday night, can only be finalized once our current bank sees the occupancy permit. Dominoes have to fall, and we're not in charge of finger-flicking; no matter how hard we try, they're not being blown over with our breath alone.

Our new doorbell

So where we stand is in the middle of a construction-zone-that-isn't. It is a construction zone, because, you know, the thing's not finished. It looks like a construction zone, because we have piles of boxes and cardboard on the floors, just in case we need to make like we're not actually living in it for the sake of the occupancy permit. It feels like a construction zone because on the way back from taking a shower in the gorgeous bathroom, your feet get gritty from stepping on dust left by prior projects on those cardboard panels, and your family and friends are constantly referencing the fact that you live in an unfinished project. But it isn't a construction zone because, well, no construction is actually going on. Little projects, sure. But nothing ongoing, and nothing integral.  In the spirit of DIY, I guess the next thing we've gotta do is have the kids drywall the rest of the storage room.  But in the meantime, Abby and I will be enjoying the burgers I just made on our grill, eating under the new dining-room chandelier that we commissioned, and watching So You Think You Can Dance on the DirecTV we ordered.  Oh, and stuffing food down the disposal we think we're gonna keep (thanks to commentary on my last post), because that's just a crazy novelty at this point...

3.5% Moved In

Originally, we were supposed to get our stuff delivered from storage today, so I took the day off.  Unfortunately, what ended up happening is that Zippy Shell had a technical issue.  The way Zippy Shell works is that they deliver you what is basically a cage in a trailer, or as they call it, a Shell.  You fill the cage, the trailer takes it back to their warehouse, where they keep it until they put it back in the trailer and deliver it to you.  From what I understand, someone is being belligerent about returning one of their trailers-- the same one they had planned to use when delivering our stuff, in our cage.  So instead of getting our stuff this morning, we will have to wait until Sunday.  That said, the owner of the franchise seemed genuinely sorry for the situation, and said he'd waive the delivery charge, so we'll deal...

Can you find Abby under all the stuff?

But the problem was that I had already taken the day off, and didn't want it to go to waste.  So, before we took the kids to school, Abby loaded the car full of stuff to take to the house.  It was frigid outside, so we made a pit stop for apple fritters and hot drinks, but we made it up to the house by 10 to deliver our first load of actual belongings into our home-to-be.  Really weird feeling... After a half-hour of procrastinating by giving a tour to Anique (sp?), the really nice woman who works in the main office, we headed back home to pack for round two.  This time, with no kids in the car, we were able to smash a lot more stuff in, including a giant tub of shoes on Abby's lap.

A window-box-full of stuff from Day One

After dropping the second load of stuff off, Abby dropped me off at the kids' school and went home to pack for a third round.  I got off pretty easy on this one-- she's so motivated to get out, that she's perfectly happy to do most of the packing work.  Not complaining of course, other than the fact that I had to stand out in what became the freezing cold playground for an hour (with good company, though) before she came back for us, again with a rather full car.  After a third round, we now have a decent dent taken out of the basement, and have made some rather substantial piles in various rooms throughout the house.

The rest of the weekend looks to be a LOT more fruitful, what with the Sunday Zippy Shell delivery and the appearance tomorrow morning of Abby's dad and brother; they're coming up from North Carolina to help us with moving our big stuff from the basement, like the couches and a giant bureau, with the help of my father-in-law's pick-up truck.  We're also hoping to use them to pick up some stuff from IKEA, like three new desks Abby's had her eye on.  (And if we get some meatballs in the process, it wouldn't be a shame.)  Once the weekend's over, we're hoping to have a bare minimum of belongings in the basement-- basically, the clothes we'll be using for the next week, our two mattresses, foodstuffs, and maybe some cushions from the already-moved couches.  Oh, and the TV; can't forget that.  Then?  It's only a matter of time, because on Monday the plumber is supposed to show up to finally hook up the toilets, the washing machine, the hot-water heater, and the fireplace.  On Monday night, I fully intend to go to the house and pee and wash clothes, maybe simultaneously.  Oh, and maybe dry them by the fire. In the meantime, I'll have to make due with the image of our newly-stacked laundry facilities, just waiting for their hookup.

Hook us up!  Please!

A bonus when it comes to the laundry room will be the fact that, due to erroneous ordering by our cabinet people, we're likely going to be left with several extra kitchen cabinets.  Abby says that, while talking to the installers, she found out that they generally just toss the misfit cabinets, or the installers take them home themselves.  Since to of ours are 90-inch-tall pantries, we're definitely interested in keeping them for ourselves, especially since one of them might fit perfectly next to the washer and dryer if we just push the two machines over a couple inches to the right.  It's not often we get silver linings like that, and I'll take it!

Another silver lining came to us when we found out Freedom Mortgage had officially severed our loan-- or whatever they call it when they cut their losses and run.  We had about $16,000 left in the credit line they had extended multiple times, and they just decided to put that money back into the mortgage and call it quits.  It actually works out for us, because we'd already paid that extra money (and more) to the contractors months ago, and had they written us a check, we just would have put it right back into the mortgage.  What this all means is that we are now officially good to refinance our mortgage, something I've been aching to do for a long time. Our current rate is 5.25%, which is not bad at all for what we had, which is called a 203(k) construction loan.  But now that the construction part is over, and interest rates are still historically low, I felt a need to take a refi and quick-- especially since our loan was FHA-backed, and they require PMI (mortgage insurance) on top of all payments, meaning we were paying an additional $200+ each month that had nothing to do with the interest or the balance, just for the right to have had the loan in the first place.  After 20 payments, I'm ready to shed that onus, that's for sure.

So I called Citibank, which is where we have our DC mortgage, and asked for rates; they told me 4.0%, which was great.  On a whim, I went to LendingTree.com and filled out a form on Wednesday night just for kicks.  On Thursday I faced a barrage of calls from lenders wanting to help us with refinancing, which was really refreshing, since when we bought the house we had to fight for exactly one obscure bank to make us an offer.  We ended up getting the best offer from a local broker with a bank I'd never heard of-- Round Point, which sounds like an oxymoron but I digress-- and locked in a 3.5% rate with no points and very low fees.  That means our payment will go down more than $800 a month once we refi-- hallelujah!  I called Citibank before we locked with Round Point and asked them to match the offer, since I really would rather have all my stuff at one bank, and they told me their rate desk required me to lock in my rate with the other lender first, then send Citibank the paperwork to consider.  I don't know how I feel about that, because it feels a bit like screwing the first guy buy having him do the work, then jumping ship for the too-big-to-fail chain.  I'll get back to you on my decision, but the gist of it all is that my  nearly $3000 monthly mortgage payment will soon be a thing of the past.  Phew!

"Round Point.  Because after all, we don't want you to poke your eye out."

Anyhow, that's all for today.  I'm staving off a cold, and have been popping generic DayQuils all day; about to NyQuil it and hope I won't drop before I physically hit the bed.  Tomorrow?  Progress.

And meatballs.