Firming plans, Parking signs

So we just met with Mark and Mohamed to firm up our plans, and it seems like everyone's on the same page now.  Some lines were moved around since the last time we met (I promise I'll get the plans on the site as soon as we get an electronic copy.) and, alas, I have lost my bid for a laundry chute.  It's weird because the front porch is much bigger than I had thought, and I just assumed a chute where I thought it could be would drop right into the laundry room... but instead, it would be a big hole in the family room ceiling.  Not so good!  We finalized that although Isaac will get a bigger room, Lola will get a bigger closet (Mark told Lola to remember this detail when she was in her teens), and we also now understand our bedroom will be a whopping 91 square feet.  Yeah, 9.5' x 9.5'.  And 7' x 5' of that will be our bed.  We went home last night and measured it out around our bed, and figured we'll actually have more space on one side than we do now, given the crazy placement of Abby's grandpa's armoire at the foot of our bed.  (I can't wait to get that thing outta my room!  I bank into it constantly because it doesn't close properly.)



Our poorly numbered entranceway

 So I was told by some readers that there has been all talk and no action lately, and although that is very much the truth, there supposedly was some action yesterday after I left.  Immediately south of the house are four pull-in parking spaces; the two on the right are posted as belonging to the windmill, and the two on the left have empty posts-- they're ours.  I went to the manager's office and asked when ours will go up on those posts, so that when we go there we'll actually be able to park (and not have to park all the way over in the common lot or steal one of the windmill spaces...).  Funny enough, apparently the signs were printed a while ago, but no one knew where they went, because they say "9618 Dewitt Drive."  Yeah, that's our address.  But the thing is, the house has two different numbers by the front door, and neither is 9618: one, 106, is the building number from when the house was part of Walter Reed; the other, in the 2800s, is an address on Dewitt Circle, which we front.  No idea when that went into effect, but it isn't our address, and now it's screwed up not only the local mailman but also the parking people.  Dave thanked me for checking something off his list and for allowing him to get random signs out of his office.  Can't wait to park in my own space next time we're up there... that is, if someone isn't bogarting it!

The four spaces behind our house.  Notice our car parked in one of the marked spaces... Sorry, Richard!

Finally, there's a debate Abby and I are having about the downstairs bathroom.  It's one Abby's probably going to win, mostly because it's not something that matters a crazy amount to me, but I figured I'd bring it up anyhow... What do you all think about seeing a toilet when a bathroom door is opened?  I had never considered that it's something that does or doesn't happened, that it's something people plan around.  Have any of you ever planned a bathroom so you can't see a toilet while standing outside the bathroom and looking through the door?  Do any of you have bathrooms that allow for prime toilet viewing from afar?  I'd be interested to know.  Anyhow, the real debate stems from this one: would it make more sense to halve a medium-sized bathroom so the shower and toilet are behind a wall (and door... gotta get in somehow) and the sinks and cabinetry are in a separate room?  Abby says when she was growing up, she would be late to a lot of stuff because her brother was taking too long in the bathroom (and it would never have been the other way around!).  Since Isaac and Lola will be sharing this bathroom and may be in the same schools and therefore on the same schedule, especially in high school, this is an interesting point.  I like a bigger bathroom, just to have more air, but I see where she's coming from.  Any ideas?

Floorplans! Finally! Kinda!

So I haven't written for a couple of weeks... I apologize profusely.  But you see, we were in Buffalo for a week for Courtney's wedding, and then we spent the last week waiting for Mohamed to finish up with the plans.  Happily, I got them today from Rory, so now we can change them!  (It does seem we can never quite agree with what's handed back to us...)  Things are mostly right, but there are a few things we still need to change on the plans, like the placement of the HVAC closet on the ground floor and the line of the bedroom wall on the main floor.  Little stuff, really.

The moment Abby gets new house info, she pores over it, generally forgetting things like her children, or good conversations skills... (Love ya, Abby!)

So with no further ado, I present to you the current plans!  So many of you had mentioned it was pretty hard to get a handle on what I was describing just through words and pictures of what was existing, so this should help you out.  Just know that there will be tweaks here and there, and then (hopefully soon) a lot of finger-crossing when it gets sent out to the good folks at Maryland Historic Trust.  (I love those people.  I should bake them some cookies.  Did I mention I was a History minor in college?  No?  Well doesn't that bring us together as more of a family than just plan old applicants and deciderers?  I think it does!  Love, Gregory)

Fun part about all of this is the extension of overall stats from how it is now.  The addition under the porch will add nearly 250 square feet to the house, and it'll be pushed up from 1 1/2 baths to 2 full baths, not to mention four bedrooms.  (The fourth bedroom is labeled as "storage" on this plan, but rest assured, guests, you will not be "stored," you will be "accommodated.")

We'll go back and forth with Rory and Mohamed over the next few days for sure, and hopefully I can get revised plans up here as soon as possible.  Until then, enjoy!

Local wildlife, more visitors, and the art of persuasion

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

Tracking the deer in the glen in front of the Bungalow

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

Isaac in Forest Glen

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

No Movement, Nighttime

Courtney just emailed me: "Why aren't you updating your blog anymore, slacker?"  Well, unfortunately there has been nothing about which to blog.  Well, not nothing, but the most newsworthy thing that has happened this week was that I spoke with Patty, the woman at the obscure Delaware-based firm that will be managing our FHA Mortgage until we (hopefully) refinance in a year or so.  Patty informed me that we'll need to have monthly inspections of the house to make sure work is progressing, which will be interesting considering the first couple months will likely have nothing concrete to show for them, save for building plans and the necessary submissions to the various historical boards in order for those plans to go through.  Especially with our next-door neighbor, the Dutch Windmill, going full bore ahead with exterior renovations right now, it's gonna make us itch to sit and wait.  We do have to remember it took several months for the Windmill to get the go-ahead to start construction, but it's gonna be hard; with our current house, I was on the stairs pulling out carpet staples before we even closed, and it wasn't long after that when we invited my coworkers over for a day of free labor, bashing in all of the old ceilings and walls.  It's definitely going to take patience to a) go at the required snail's pace that is the historical review process, and b) allow for the fact that most of the work is going to be done by contractors and subcontractors, on their schedule.  We rest assured with the fact that everyone sees this as an approximately one-year-long project, and we all know how long it took to rehab the current place.  (Bid October 2003, Closed December 2003, Moved in September 2004, Heating January 2006...)  At that pace, Isaac'd be in third grade or so by the time we get in there.  Not gonna happen!

We did get to see a new face of the Bungalow last night, when we took my second-cousin Donna to see the place at night.  I realized I had never been there at night before.  The lighting around the house is actually not nearly as bright as I thought it would be, which is nice.  Directly behind the house are four parking spots-- two for us and two for the Windmill-- and a streetlamp, which I assumed would light the place up as much as the streetlamps directly outside our current place do.  Instead, it's much more subdued lighting; the kind that would be romantic/eerie in the fog.  Out front, there's no lighting on our house yet, of course, but the circle is pretty much dark, but for the lights on the front of the main condo building, which are pretty subdued as well.  That's great for me, because I'm a big front-porch-light guy, but I wouldn't want to overdo it.  (In fact, Bonnie from the Seminary just let us know she had saved the original light from the house, and will give it back to us when she next sees us.  It'll be interesting to see whether it's salvageable... and whether its design is something we're gonna want to salvage!)  Other than lighting, the place is pretty neat after dark.  Enough ambient lighting that it's not completely black, but with all the tree cover, there's a definite barrier between Forest Glen and the rest of the DC Metro area.  Okay, so you can hear the cars on the Beltway, and the occasional freight train crossing the bridge nearby (Abby & I both noted it was the first time we had heard a train while we were outside of the house, and although it was louder than expected, from inside the house you hardly notice it), but neither are enough to annoy.

The main Seminary buildings, directly across the street from our house, at night.

Inside the place, the first floor gets decent shadowy light at night, thanks to the (over)abundance of windows.  There's no electricity, of course, so we were able to get an idea of how bright the house might be at night with the lights off.  Definitely can walk around without bumping into things, but that's the same as our current place, thanks to those aforementioned streetlamps outside.  Downstairs is a lot darker, but will probably lighten up some because of some changes I'm proposing to the downstairs layout.  (Oh no! Changes!)  Nothing huge, but our current plan is to have Isaac's room run lengthwise, along the rear two-thirds of the house, with Lola's being situated where the current kitchen is.  The change would basically be a 90-degree shift of the two rooms, having Isaac's now run along the side of the house (with one wall along Dewitt Drive) and Lola's running the rear-two thirds, albeit the two-thirds closer to to the Windmill, not to the street as Isaac's room's current positioning is.  (Got that?)  Regardless of whether you can picture it, it would take 3 big windows away from Isaac's room (which currently has 6) and add three small ones, and would add 3 big windows to the family room / den area, brightening it significantly.  It would also make me feel better in that we wouldn't be wasting as many windows by putting them in closets.  (We'll still have a few of those, just not as many.)  I'll see if I can put some plans up on this site for you all to peruse... although our architect may have something to say about that as well!

A Great Room It Is

Thanks to the sweltering heat, we spent a good deal of this weekend indoors (in the car or the house) planning out the floorplan for our main floor.  If we didn't draw up a dozen different takes on the plan (and use up half of Becky & Larry's pad of graph paper) then we did nothing at all.  Turns out, we think we'll be going with the "Courtney Plan" -- namely, the one with the large Great Room and the teeny tiny bedroom.  By moving the fridge from one theoretical wall to another, we opened up a big part of the kitchen to cabinets (and a pantry!) we hadn't previously considered possible.  We should be able to keep the radiators, which is a bonus.  We think it's gonna be the best of both worlds, but we'll hold our breath until Mohammed takes a look and says it's doable.  (Fingers crossed)

Other news?  Abby met with Bonnie Rosenthal this morning.  Bonnie is the woman who spearheaded the whole movement to save the Seminary site.  I haven't met her yet, but Abby says she's super nice.  (And who knows: with that last name, maybe she's a relative?)  She handed over the code to get into the main Seminary building, where we will find the various gyms and common areas (pool tables, foosball, computer terminals and, most importantly for the next few months, bathrooms!).  Some annoying stuff: apparently we don't get access to the ballroom, and we don't have a key to the front door-- which is directly across the street from the bungalow-- and instead have to circle the complex to enter from the other side.  I remember meeting some of my neighbors a few months back and hearing complaints about who gets access to the ballroom and who doesn't.  All I know is I'm paying a homeowner's association fee, and I am now extremely interested to find out what that required $112.50 a month gets me-- and what it gets other people.  More to come on this issue, I'm sure.

Finally, I knew it wouldn't take long: a big ol' thumbs down to Home Depot.  With all the crap we took from them doing our current house, it shouldn't be a surprise that they're ready to screw us again!  This time, Abby was at the Home Depot in Columbia, MD, and someone there asked her if she would like to have a closet professional come out and talk to her about organizational needs for the house.  Abby explained to the person that there was nothing in the house, and all the closets were aspirational at best at this point, and the person said that wouldn't be an issue.  So Abby packed up the kids early this morning and took them to meet the closet person.  She showed up late, and annoyed that it was hard to find the place.  (My guess is she didn't use Google Maps!)  Then, without even going into the house, she said she only works with existing closets.  The best part: she turned around and left, and didn't even say goodbye!  Good thing Abby had arranged the meeting with Bonnie, or schlepping the kids up to Forest Glen the morning after getting back from a road trip would've been for naught. 

We're on the map!

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



Google Maps: 9618 Dewitt Drive



The Seminary Grounds, with properties labeled.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Gregory,

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

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

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

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

Layout Dilemma

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

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

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

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

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

Courtney's Plan:

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

Rory's Plan:

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

Thoughts?  Votes?