Handing Abby the Hose

Aftermath of SEVEN hours of
digging up the grass on the
side of the house by the roots.
(Isaac, at right, is NOT peeing...)

And so the landscaping begins. Or at least thinking about it. Last month it was the French drain, which I think is fine, but Abby insists is still not draining correctly; I'm not convinced, and plan on running the hose in that corner for a while to see what happens. Then two weeks ago I spent a whole Sunday while the fam was at the National Science Fair digging up the grass on the strip between the house and the road-- about 35 feet long, 2 feet wide, roots and all-- so we can put actual plantings in there. Then I sowed in six bags of clay breaker, which pretty much disappeared into the clay, meaning I probably need at least four or five more bags...  And I'm planning on doing the same this weekend around front, hopefully tweaking whatever Abby feels needs tweaking with the French drain in the process.

But the big work is the backyard now. We had talked with Lee, the guy who did the windmill and the chalet and the pagoda (and who should've done our house...) About helping us with the backyard, but his quote ended up being a bit more than we wanted to spend-- although probably totally fair-- so it looks like we're going to try this thing ourselves.

We've been putting it off, though, because we're master procrastinators-- our children have proven to have learned well from us. (One of the reasons Lee was so attractive to us was that he represented a swift kick in our own pants, timing-wise.) We thought at first that we had to wait for a Landscape Committee meeting to get our first approvals, but were then told it's the Architectural Review Board, which is a different beast because there are no deadlines-- a procrastinator's dream/nightmare. We'll get there, though, because we desperately want that patio.

Last weekend, we had a party. An honest-to-goodness party, not celebrating a kid's birthday, not for a holiday. A just-because party. With 15 people. And grilled vegetables. It was awesome to be a real adult again, and it would only have been better had we had a patio. So there's our procrastinator's impetus: do this already, and there's a prize at the end; a prize of adulthood.

So yesterday, I handed Abby the hose.

(Alone, that is quite an interesting sentence.)

Never mind the hose; I know what it means
when Abby gets that look on her face.
There are all sorts of cogs a-churnin'...

Anyhow, I handed her the hose to use as a planning tool, to lay it out to demarcate where she wants the edge of the patio to be. She spent a few minutes smoothing out kinks, but --true to form-- knew right off the bat the size and shape she wanted: slightly oblong, bubbling out from the side of the house, but not far enough to encroach on any of the trees. (Can't touch those historic yews!) That was easy, but deciding how to alleviate the elevation problem won't be. There is a change in elevation of 28 inches between the back-door stoop and the sidewalk, so there are all sorts of questions: where do the steps go? how many are there? will they even let us do this?

Hoping this won't be too big of an area
for the Architectural Review Board
(and the State) to approve.

Hopefully, the last question will be answered in the affirmative. Our backyard is pristine and natural, but it is also completely uneven and unusable. My grill sits in the most even part of the yard, and it is neither level from side to side nor from front to back. Burgers and dogs in the back right corner-- the highest-- get blackened, while those in the front left stay rare. And we can't blame the grill; it's new, and doing its job as best as possible. I feel we should be able to create a livable space in the backyard that will accommodate a level grill, a few pieces of furniture, and space for our trash cans. Is that too much to ask?

I met one member of the Architectural Review Board (Kellie, a blog reader, and a fine, upstanding citizen if I may say so myself...) at a residents' meeting last night, and she didn't balk at my idea of a front-yard flagpole (which I have ALWAYS wanted, along with a circular driveway), and I think the patio is much less intrusive. So there's hope. But remember: after the Board, there's the State. And we all remember how that process can be. (See: 2011)

So for now, I do what I know I can do. Amending the soil on three sides. Planting shrubs and bulbs and some big grass on the side. Encouraging my hostas, four of which have survived the awful soil to peek out into the so-far full-sun locations they inhabit (and probably hating me, because their cousins at the old house-- in the shade-- are already huge and about to bloom). Attacking weeds with a shovel. And making sure Abby's happy with the French drain. (What is it they say about a happy wife and a happy life? Oh, I forget...)

  

As an added bonus, look at this thing I found while digging.
They were all over the place. Anyone have any ideas?

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.