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.  

First Post Post-Move

It's been a week since I last posted, but don't be too mad, because I have an excuse: we don't have Internet access at home.  Yet.  

Didja get that?  Home.  Yet.  Yep: we've moved in.  HALLE-FREAKIN'-LUJAH!

Late last week we said it was time to cut the cord, so we pulled up stakes from our DC house and moved almost all the rest of our stuff into the new place.  By Saturday evening a very good chunk of our belongings had made the six-mile trip north across the state line in three car trips, and by Sunday evening there were only a few things left.  (Actually, just as we've been living in the state of perpetual "just another few weeks" since last summer, it seems as if this week has been a state of perpetual "just another carload or two.")  By today, though, we officially have one carload left, which we'll pick up tomorrow: our tv and the aquarium.  And that's it.  We'll be moved.

What that doesn't mean is that we're living in something that would resemble a normal living situation.  We've got boxes everywhere, piled strategically so as not to block access to things the contractors will still need to get around.  And believe me, there are still a lot of things, which I'll enumerate at the end of this post.  But I want to focus on the positive, because, at least as concerns the house, this has been a great week.

So where to begin?  I'll go room by room and give updates.  In the kitchen, the countertop has been completed, including adding the extra hole at the sink for my beloved hot-water tap.  The sink is in, too, but no plumbing has been hooked up.  I believe that's the last step before livability, but since we have water in the bathrooms, we're making do.  (This very much resembles the "fancy camping" we lived through for such a long time with the old house, only this will not last nearly as long.)  The fridge is turned on and mostly stocked.  The missing cabinets still haven't been delivered, and Home Depot is going to let us know when they are.  We have a few extra cabinets that were mismade, and they keep calling to have them picked up and returned to the store.  But the timing on this is getting out of hand, and I'm going to insist to them that they put us out and we deserve to keep at least some of the misfits-- especially since a couple of them will fit really well elsewhere in the house.  The range is in but not on; the range hood is not in, but the hole for it has been cut; the microwave is in but not framed, and Isaac inaugurated it by reheating leftover pasta.  The dishwasher looks too small for the hole it's supposed to fit in, but we're going to wait until the cabinet guys come back for the final install because, who knows, maybe it will magically fit in.  I think, though, that we might have to get a new dishwasher and do something with this one... although I can't imagine what.  And all the lights are in, including the two pretty ones with the incredibly wasteful Edison bulbs.  Abby always turns those on, and I turn them off, because they cost a fortune to light.

Our bedroom is the room that's probably the most complete.  The closet had already been installed, and over the course of a few nights almost all the shelves and hangers and drawers were filled up with clothes.  I had to reinvent how I folded my tee shirts, because the old way was only filling the front half of each shelf; by folding shirts in thirds, I now get 50% more shirt per shelf.  I bought one of those tie hangers that holds like 40 ties, but it's hard to use and only gets about two-thirds of my collection onto it; similarly, I bought four of those five-pants hangers from IKEA and I don't like the work it takes to take a pair off without disturbing the others.  Both save space, but I'm going back to my regular tie rack and one-pair-per-hanger style.  Abby put the new bed together-- which is the same as our old bed, except a new frame, since West Elm gave it to us for free.  The bed fits right up to the windows, with both side tables in the room, with only a few inches to spare-- perfect fit.  The first couple nights in there, we switched sides of the bed to see which would work: on night one, I was on the closet side and she was on the window side; on night two, we switched.  Night two was incredibly awkward for both of us-- it's so weird, but after two nights, I believe we have decided what side of the bed we'll be sleeping on for the next couple of decades. (And it's neither the same as we had it in the old house or the way I had expected it to be, since Abby's usually freaked out being next to windows.)

The windows do freak us out a bit, but I think we'll survive!  We ordered custom-made cellular blinds, which arrived at the house on Saturday; just waiting for them to be installed.  Once installed, they'll not only help with shielding from onlookers, which seem to be everywhere, since the house is located pretty much in a giant fish bowl, but will also help with efficiency.  They're made to be pulled up from the bottom, so we'll be able to block off the bottom half or two-thirds of the window, but still let in natural light from the top part.  It'll be nice to be able to change my clothes in my own room, or to sleep without knowing everyone can watch me from the street.  This morning, for instance, I had my pants on but decided to change shirts, so I was standing there looking into my closet when a neighbor walked by.  I'm sure it looked like I was standing there naked, but, well, I wasn't, so there.  Next week at this time, hopefully the blinds will shield the neighbors from the less-than-flattering exhibitionist that is my pasty self.

The great room is pretty much the same, since it had been painted way back.  The up-lighting along the sides looks great, and even the workers agree-- I think they thought Abby was a bit weird for her choices in there.  Instead of spot lights or track lighting, she chose these little linked LED lights that were plug-ins, and had them hard-wired in so each light lighted the area between two of the rafters.  It looks really cool-- the only problem being that they were wired in a weird way, so if we want all of them to be on we have to flip four different switches, one in each corner of the room.  We put Anyu's dining-room table together and have actually been eating at an honest-to-goodness table, rather than on a trunk disguised as a coffee table in front of the TV in the basement with the kids sitting on the floor.  We don't have chairs yet, but since they're going to be a major purchase, we're going to wait with them until the construction is done-- don't want them to get scratched right away if we can help it.  Oh, and the fireplace is in and turned on.  Actually, it was so turned on that when we got back from Florida it was about 80 degrees inside, even though it was in the 50s outside.  We still have to learn how to make it work, because it's a little trickier than we had hoped, but I think we'll get it.

The front door has the wrong hardware on it, but other than that it's the same.  And the front foyer has been painted really nicely in the same gray color we used in the downstairs bathroom.  And what do you know: our wedding lily made it through our vacation and is still alive, so I rewarded it with a good dusting and a move into the bay window.

Downstairs, the kids' rooms are both moving along.  Their beds are semi-set-up, in that they're sleeping in them but the frames are not done altogether.  My sister came by this weekend and helped put together some of their furniture, so now they each have a desk and a book case.  Once all my clothes made it out of my old dresser, Isaac inherited it, we stuck it in his closet, and his clothes are also all put away; only Lola's remain sorted in a laundry basket and suitcase.  Both sets of closet doors have been delivered, but aren't up yet.  Abby even helped Isaac decorate his ceiling with a solar system set he got for Christmas (or was it Valentine's Day?  I don't know... Abby gets them presents for everything, which is a point of contention...)  Anyhow, it's coming along great, and more importantly they love their rooms.  There have already been more than a handful of times when they've disappeared into their respective rooms to play.  Alone.  Quietly.  (I know!)  However, one of those times?  Yeah, not so good.  I got back from picking a load up from the old house on Saturday and Abby was fuming, and Lola was pouting.  I guess the kids found their spin-art toy that takes paint and splatters it all around on a piece of paper that spins around... and started playing with it on their own-- and more importantly, on the new floor.  They had paint all over their hands, and got it all over Lola's floor, and we hadn't even slept there one night.  Abby was furious, and the toy has been banished.  Luckily, the mess cleaned up because it was caught early enough.  Phew!

The family room actually has a seating arrangement, and once the TV arrives tomorrow (we need to bring it when there are no kids in the car but two adults handy, since it's heavy and requires the seats to be dropped down) it'll go in.  We won't have cable yet, but that's only days away.  Last week I called Comcast again, and they again insisted they don't cover our house.  9610 and 9615 and 9620 Dewitt Drive?  Sure.  But 9618?  Yeah, no.  I insisted they were wrong, and implored them to come out to check.  36 hours later I get a call: "Mr. Wahl, we'd actually be happy to charge you $200 a month to watch ten channels and check your Facebook status."  Actually, that's not exactly what they said, but it's what they meant.  They're coming by on Tuesday to install cable, Internet, and potentially a security system.  We don't know yet whether we'll do that, since it's such a good neighborhood.  But Abby's freaked out by the windows-- understandably-- and the fact that the kids are on the ground floor, so my money's on us having it installed.

The laundry room?  Well, apart from being able to move the washer and dryer back from where they were perched so close to the door, nothing looks different.  But it's so incredibly nice to have in-house laundry back.  Those nearly five months of begging others to allow us to wash in their place, or going to a laundromat even though we own two washers and two dryers, was definitely wearing on our patience.  I have a load of laundry going as I type this, and no one's paying attention to it, and that's how it should be.  It's nice and quiet, too, and plays a silly little electronic song when it's done, just like my parents' does.  On the other side of the floor, though, things are not so quiet.

That's where the water heater is.  What, you didn't hear me?  I said, "THAT'S WHERE THE WATER HEATER IS!!!"  Yeah, this thing is crazy loud, and I'm not happy about it.  I'm wondering if it's the difference between having a gas water heater and an electric one-- our electric one in DC never made a peep, but this one sounds like an espresso machine gone berserk.  We don't have it enclosed-- yet-- but believe me you, that will happen.

The bathroom is great, and taking a shower down there (since we don't have a shower door upstairs yet) is really nice.  The water heater is directly behind the shower, so it's instantly hot.  The window fogs over in about 30 seconds, so there's no putting on a show.  (We're going to frost the window, so sorry potential peepers.)  And I managed to cajole Abby into letting me put fluorescent bulbs into a couple of the fixtures.  The toilets flush beautifully, and ridiculously fast.  And the door locks.  Did you hear that?  For the first time, we have locking interior doors.  It's magical, really.

So that's where we stand. In the morning, I've been getting up ten minutes earlier than in DC, and getting to work right on time.  The way home I can't judge yet, because this week I've had to stay later than usual, and the Metro at 5:00 is way different than it will be at 4:30.  One day I got home in under an hour, and the next it took me nearly 80 minutes because of a delay on the Blue Line.  (I couldn't get mad, though, because the delay would've affected my old commute as well.)  I'm definitely gonna get a bike to park at Forest Glen station on nice days, but for now, especially since I've got room on my SmarTrip card, I've been taking the Ride On bus to and from Silver Spring station, since its schedule lines up perfectly with mine, especially in the mornings.

Once we get settled, I'll be able to write with more frequency again, and will post pictures.  But for now, I leave you with an email we sent to Mark this evening, of things we need to discuss tomorrow.  (My more frequent readers will see the tone has changed a lot since the last letter of demands... for the better, that is.)  It seems like the closer we are to the finish line, the more things there are to do.  But we're moved in, and that's all that matters.  At least this week :)

Mark: here are the current issues with the house. We would like to discuss them with you on Friday, but wanted you to be aware of them as soon as possible. Thanks, and talk to you soon. -G

1.      Flooring issues: There’s a really weak spot in the great room just in front of the kitchen doorway.  Every time you walk by, your heel depresses the spot a lot; also, in the same spot ther's a nail sticking up.   Also, in our bedroom, just at the entrance on the right, one of the boards is split lengthwise, and will catch on your socks as you walk by,  Definitely just waiting to pull right up and out.‬
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2.  After the inspection, your guys can come in and cut down that backsplash, which is still ridiculously high.  The electrician installed the outlets vertically on the backsplash, even though we requested (and he said he could do) horizontal.  The height of the backsplash is unacceptable as is.‬
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3.      We’ve purchased a chandelier for the dining room and are waiting for delivery.
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4.      We need to switch a couple pieces of the door hardware that were installed in the incorrect place.  We need the knob currently on the back door switched to the front door.  (I labeled all of the knob  boxes… don’t know why this one was put in where it was.)  Also, the deadbolt in the back door was installed improperly; it locks from the inside, but there’s no way to lock or unlock it from the outside—the knob doesn’t catch for some reason.‬
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5.      I bought the lighting timer that I wanted to have installed for the switch beside the front door, to use for the front porch lights.  It requires a neutral wire, which is why I called you from Home Depot on Sunday.  Let me know if this is not possible, because then I’ll exchange it for the one one step down, which does not require a neutral wire… I just like this one better.‬
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6.      We have an old-fashioned doorbell that we’d like to have installed on the front door.  It’s sitting on a box on the piano (which itself can be moved downstairs if you guys can do it) and the directions and hardware are all in the box.  Abby can show the guys where it goes; it actually gets mounted right to the door, I believe.‬
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7.      Also, Abby will show the guys where we’d like the address numbers to go.  Apparently, not having them up is very confusing to a lot of people (FedEx, mailmen, etc.) so putting them up would be a good idea.  We’ve given up on finding the mailbox, so we’re just going to buy a new one to have mounted on the wall.  Both the mailbox and the address numbers will go on the wall to the right of the front door, as you look at it from outside.‬
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8.    The water heater is crazy loud!  We will definitely want to have it encased once all is said and done.  I have never heard our water heater in DC make the noises this one makes—we can hear it in the kitchen! 
9. You can hear everything between the kids’ bedrooms. Abby installed her secret passageway and discovered there was no insulation in the wall. I'm very disappointed with this, since we paid more than $1000 to have this done throughout the house.‪
10. The light fixture in the mudroom is too low and needs to be raised.

11. The spigot outside is dripping.

12. The issue with the front door opening outward has not been resolved.

13. The paint on the stair risers still needs to be scraped.

14. The doors for the bathroom and upstairs closet can be installed.

15. What is going on with the PVC pipe looping out of the left side of the roof (as you look at the house)? Also, there's a pipe of some sort sticking out of the ground by the back door.

16. One of the great room ceiling lights (the one all the way to the left above the kitchen door) keeps going out.

17. What is the switch on the countertop for? There will be no garbage disposal, and the hot-water heater stays on all the time with a plug.

Keepin' it Clean

I don't often have really nice things to say about stores when it comes to this process, but I just wanted to give a quick shout-out to Sears at Seven Corners.  Charged with finding a washer and a dryer for the house during the day yesterday, Abby went to the blast-from-the-past store out in Falls Church and spied a pair of Kenmore appliances on a wacky sale: originally $1399 apiece, they were marked down to $699.  They were exactly what we wanted-- electric, not bottom-of-the-line, steam capability, front-loading and stackable, and even came in stainless steel.  (Who really cares about the color of their washer anyhow?)  She ordered them and checked two major appliances off our list.  (Yay!)

Wacky '60s Sears in Falls Church, VA.

I got an electronic receipt from Sears and clicked on it, just to see where the appliances were being delivered from.  (Yeah, I like to track my packages across the country.  You got a problem with that?)  What do you know: the same appliances that were $699 apiece at the store yesterday were $664 today online.  So I click on the link to chat with someone at Sears.com to ask them about price matching.  Dead link.  I click on the link to have Sears.com call me, the phone rings immediately, I pick up.  Dead line.  I just call the 1-800 number listed on the website, and the customer service representative tells me Sears stores and Sears.com do not price match against each other, so if I wanted the online sale price I had to return the order and start anew online.  Annoyed, I called the store.  The guy confirmed that they couldn't price-match against the website, but once I asked him how to delete the order before it was delivered, his tune changed dramatically.  My guess is they work on commission at Sears...  He had no problem taking the $70 off our bill, and even said he'd do it right then, rather than having us come in to make the change.

Our new washer and dryer.  Originally $2800, now $1330.

So yeah, now that I read this, it doesn't seem like Sears really did us any favors, did they?  But I like the fact that I didn't have to go in to get my $70 back, so that's a plus in my book.  Jeez, I'm easy to please...  That said, I'll leave you with a picture of our current washer and dryer, the subjects of one of our first Xmas card pictures as homeowners way back in 2005.  We tried to be all smart about the wording, but ended up convincing some people we were going to have a baby.  No, it'd be another year before that happened, and NO it's not gonna happen now (or ever again!) either.

Our apparently-confusing Xmas card in 2005,
starring our still-humming washer and dryer in DC.

A.J. Who?

Eleven days now since we left home, and we have little knowledge of what's been going on in Forest Glen.  We do know that our recessed lights have gone in, although only because after having worn Abby down and convincing her that we should get LED lighting, I emailed Mark and Rory to tell them... and they replied that they had just installed the regular stuff.  Oh well.  (FYI, it wasn't really me who wore Abby down; it was the fact that we have LED lighting in our hotel room here in London, and she was finally convinced that all LED lighting doesn't make you look dead.)  We know that they're working on "electrical and mechanical" at the house, but that's really it.  Hoping we'll get some pics or something from Mark and Rory to update us soon.

However, while no news is flowing from Maryland, there has been progress in Mayfair.  (That's where we're staying.)  We have ordered our kitchen appliances!  Okay, so that doesn't sound so monumental, but really it is.  We had been planning our kitchen cabinetry, as you know, and were told that Home Depot is pretty insistent (understandably) that appliances be purchased prior to finalizing cabinetry decisions.  That kinda caught us dumbfounded, so we fumbled around looking for appliances in our last days in the States, each of us in different states, and me without a car.  Nothing, and really, just confusion added to the pile.  Then we got here, and you'd think the last thing you'd want to do on a work-vacation to London when your kids are still across the Pond is look for appliances, right?  Well... we do walk an awful lot during the days (when I'm not working), and sometimes all we want to do is grab some food at the grocery store, and eat it on our bed while watching TV.  So why not channel that desire to have your feet up into online shopping?

That's just what we did, and we actually were finding that most of the best deals were at Sears, of all places. Home Depot had 10% off all appliances over $400, and so did Lowe's, but Sears had all sorts of stuff, and when we saw a sale pop up that was 20% off all Kenmore appliances, plus an additional 15% off if you open a Sears charge account, we were hooked.  We picked out a bunch of stuff-- although not everything -- and tried to buy.  But we couldn't.  There was a dishwasher with all the bells and whistles, originally over a thousand bucks but on clearance for more than 50% off, that just wouldn't go through.  So I called Sears, trying to understand what was going on.  Seems as if there may have been one dishwasher like that in all of the country, or something, and it just wasn't shippable.  It was late, so we went to sleep without buying.

Next day, we were wishy washy about what to do, so I said Listen, we've gotta do this, and took the initiative to march us back home to buy appliances.  Sears still had the sale, Home Depot and Lowe's couldn't match it, and searches on Google and Amazon were fruitless.  We had everything we needed, but still couldn't find a built-in microwave, which Abby really really wanted.  I don't want to pay $1000 for a microwave, and we couldn't find anything under $600-- and that was an IKEA microwave that I still think may have had to have been assembled at home.  Okay, Abby, just one more search for a microwave... and then...

Ever hear of AJ Madison?  I know I had at some point, but I am pretty sure I thought it was AJ Wright, which is a store that sells Thomas the Tank Engine toys and scrapbooking crap.  Well, what do you know: AJ Madison has a Frigidare microwave that fits the bill without breaking the bank.  Hmm... what about its other appliances?  Within 15 minutes, we were sold, as were just under $3000 worth of appliances from AJ Wright-- no-- AJ Madison.  And best of all, all of our appliances are the same brand, which is something I had really wanted, but was afraid we weren't going to be able to find (because of the microwave issue).  Now their handles will match, and they won't have differently colored stainless steel.  Plus, while I'm perfectly fine with having a Whirlpool fridge and a GE stove at our current house, I think that's because of our galley kitchen, where you never really see more than two appliances at a time.  The kitchen in the bungalow is much more traditional, so matchy-matchy is much more important.  So, here's what we got:

The Fridge:  Our requirements: At least 20 cubic feet of space, stainless steel front, automatic ice-maker, top freezer (because I don't like to stoop over and search for my ice cream), energy star, and right-side hinge.  The winner: "Frigidaire Professional Series 20.6 cu. ft. Top-Freezer Refrigerator with 4 Half-Width SpillSafe Shelves, 2 Humidity Controlled Crispers, Quiet Design and Energy Star Rated: Right Hinge."

The Microwave: Our requirements: Built-in to save counter space and allow for a hood over the range, not compact but not enormous, stainless steel front, decent wattage, no hidden controls (so we don't have to open the thing if we want to add time).  The winner: "Frigidaire Professional Series 2.0 cu. ft. Built-In Microwave Oven with 1200 Cooking Watts, 3 Auto Cook Options, Sensor Cook, 7 User Preference Options and One-Touch Options."

The Range: Our requirements: Electric with a ceramic cooktop (we're not foodies, so please no hate mail from the gas crowd!), self-cleaning, stainless steel.  Abby really wanted one with flat controls, but that wasn't worth the extra cost to her.  The winner: Frigidaire 30" Freestanding Electric Range with 4 Radiant Elements, 5.4 cu. ft. Quick Bake Convection Oven, Self-Clean, Auto Oven Shutoff and Storage Drawer in Stainless Steel"

The Range Hood: Our requirements: Okay, let's say "Abby's requirements," because I didn't really care if we had one or not; I'd rather have had an over-the-range microwave, which is cheaper than the microwave we got and takes the place of a range hood.  But alas, my wife is the decorator and assures me the kitchen will look much better with a hood, so there you go.  Abby's requirements: stainless steel, 30" wide to match the range, no supermod glass stuff.  The winner: "Frigidaire 30" Wall Mount Chimney Range Hood with 400 CFM Internal Blower, 3-Speed Centrifugal Fan, Halogen Lighting and Convertible to Recirculating"  Plus, we bought the convertible part so we can filter the air back into the kitchen, rather than installing an exhaust vent through the roof.

The Dishwasher: Our requirements: White.  Wha?  Yeah, Abby wants white because it is down with the white base cabinets and she wants a nice, straight white line down there.  Other requirements: quiet (or relatively quiet) with a stainless steel tub, lots of room inside, and controls on top so you can't see buttons when the door's closed.  The winner: "Frigidaire Gallery Series Fully Integrated Dishwasher with 5 Wash Cycles, 5 Wash Levels, 14 Place Settings, SilentDesign Sound Package, Effortless Dry System and DishSense Technology: White"

So there you have it-- our kitchen suite.  We've forwarded the info to John, our cabinet designer at Home Depot, and hopefully we'll be able to finalize our cabinets over the next couple days.  But for now, when we're giving our feet a rest at night, at least we can watch the Olympics instead of poring over home-improvement websites.

Nerves and Mascara: Lots of Both

So now I'm nervous.  You all know yesterday I went to Home Depot and designed the cabinets.  Well, this morning I talked with Abby, who's in North Carolina, and she had some tweaks she wanted to make.  I called Home Depot again, and John had an opening for this evening, so I found myself going up again just to make the changes ahead of my trip, which starts Tuesday.  It mostly worked out, although a couple of the cabinet changes we wanted weren't 100% possible because doors and drawers might not open fully due to interference from the range handles.  Or rather, the handles that might be on the range-- because we haven't yet picked out appliances.  John said Home Depot is really not happy about putting in cabinetry without knowing exactly which appliances are going in with them, which is completely understandable, because with appliances everything can go in exactly.  We just hadn't thought of that.  Now I've got about 38 hours left in the country, and I'm kind of freaking out about the appliance issue.

The updated cabinet plan, although it too will be tweaked before all's said and done.
Dare you to find the differences... and know what they mean! :)

With the current house, we shopped around and bought a few different brands from a few different stores; the fridge was a scratch and dent from Lowe's, the microwave was a clearance item from Home Depot.  No one notices that our fridge doesn't match our stove, because they're on opposite ends of a galley kitchen.  But the bungalow kitchen isn't the same; it's more square, and all the appliances will be in the traditional kitchen triangle design, more or less.  So mismatched appliances will be a lot more evident.  For instance, Abby wants a built-in microwave, and unless we want to spend over a thousand bucks on a microwave-- we don't-- we'll probably buy it from IKEA.  (It's got a funny Swedish name on it, but it's built by Whirlpool.) But I don't want to buy all of my appliances there, because for instance their ranges are at least $200 more than anywhere else.  And to top it all off, I keep thinking of my mother-in-law, who bought all of her appliances (and good ones, too) on Black Friday for under $2000 in this crazy sale at Best Buy.  Argh.  I just want more time, but the thing is we have to buy the cabinets between July 19-29 if we want to get the sale price from Home Depot, and that price is nothing to shake a stick at: we'd be saving just about $4000 off their regular prices, which are still lower than the other estimates we got.  

What we will NOT be doing on Tuesday afternoon.

So my guess is our three-hour layover in Charlotte will be spent poring over the laptop at different appliances from different stores, rather than gazing longingly into each others' eyes on the rocking chairs they have there.  (Okay, that wouldn't happen anyhow, but you catch my drift.)  I'm hoping we won't have to do too much Internet-shopping from London, but if we must we must.  Maybe I'll ask Mark and Rory if they have any ins anywhere where we can get contractor pricing or something.  Worth a shot.

Speaking of nerves and Mark and Rory, when I went by the house last night I noticed wetness downstairs-- right next to the brand-new retaining wall that has just past its moisture inspection.  It was dark, and I wouldn't have noticed it had it not been for Frank and Lisa's kids stepping in the wetness and tracking it around on the plywood.  Took some pics and sent them to Mark and Rory to ask what was up, and they both wrote back within about 20 minutes to say it was a combination of the porch plywood not being waterproof since it's not the real porch floor, and actual water being poured there on purpose the day before.  A) Glad it's nothing; and B) Really impressed with the communications skills of my contractors, who definitely did not need to get back to me in 20 minutes on a Saturday evening.  They're great-- I had even asked Mark earlier in the week if he would be able to bring a ladder by so I could cut down a limb on my tree at the current house that had broken in the storm a few weeks back and was now hanging precariously over the backyard.  He came over, looked at it, and said not to worry; he'd send someone over while I was gone to take care of it, and he'd fix the back gate too.

Wetness in the downstairs storage area.

Also a cool idea is Mark's to place some of the stones that were in the original underground retaining wall (that match the rest of the house) around the front side to cover the new cinder-block retaining wall, rather than just painting it.  I think it could look great, because then the same rocks would ring the whole place.  I also love that they're local rocks-- when you go out into the Glen you can find a bunch that are similar looking.  For now, the completed wall still looks nice (as in "done") from the front, although as I mentioned above, the porch hasn't been connected for good yet.

... and from inside (the guest room).

The finished retaining wall from outside...

And finally, nerves because more of our paint job is going on, and I'm not in love.  Actually, I kinda hate it.  Abby has a five-color design she assures me should work, and showed me similar designs online, but I'm not convinced yet.  I told her she has the say on color, and I just want tweaking and veto power (remember the main green debate?), but with the front door all finished, I'm reminded a bit of women who wear way too much eye makeup.  However, the columns still need to be painted, and my guess is once they're done, their dark green color will offset what is currently a way-too-bold front door.  I hope...  (Not to mention, I really liked the outline all white...)

Primed...

... and painted.

Hopefully, our house will not look like Christina Aguilera.