Living in a Fish Bowl

Not much has happened with the house since last I wrote, although a lot has happened in it.  My parents spent the weekend-- our first guests! --and helped us put a whole bunch of stuff away, emptying a lot of boxes and creating actual open space in the great room, rather than the huge pile anchored by our two enormous armoires and covered with plastic sheeting.  We put Lola's bed together, and decided to buy a new version from IKEA rather than putting together the identical one we bought from a couple off of Craigslist what seems like ages ago; it worked out, too, because my parents took the used one back to their place so the kids can use it when they sleep over.  Slowly but surely, the place is becoming livable.

Living in the house is definitely going to be interesting.  We have chosen to be in a fish bowl by buying the house that's pretty much at the center of the community-- and don't forget the 49 windows-- but at the same time, it'd be nice to, oh, I don't know, be able to change my pants in my own bedroom!  For the first four workdays this week, I would go downstairs to take a shower in the morning (the upstairs shower is still doorless), then come back up and grab clothes from my closet, then head to the upstairs bathroom to change.  One day I picked a shirt that was too wrinkled, so I came back into my bedroom only wearing pants, and a neighbor walked right by.  I'm sure all she saw was me standing there with no shirt on, but I'm also pretty sure by the look on her face that she was pretty sure I was naked.  Oh well-- that's what they get for letting exhibitionists into their fishbowl, right?  (Um, right?)  However, as of the weekend, all of that has changed, as we have had our cellular shades installed.  We got the kind that can be pulled up or down, so we can still have daylight in, say, the top two windows without putting on a show for the neighborhood.  The shades are in the three bedrooms, and should assuage my sister's fears of people watching the kids while they sleep.

The kids, by the way, are sleeping just fine.  The first night they slept with each other in Isaac's room, but ever since they've used their own bed. Lola's tickled pink about her new bed, and I'm sure she'll be even more so once Abby gets her built-in completed.  Isaac's still in his old bed, which will eventually be given over to the guest room once we get a new mattress and give him our current one, but his room's all decked out with the solar system on the ceiling, his toys already strewn all over the place, and his aquarium humming in the corner.  Ah yes, the aquarium.  Abby tried her darnedest to get that thing to stay in DC, but it's made its way over, which I'm happy about.  Having had one all through growing up, I really liked staring at mine as I was falling asleep, and I know I was much healthier for having had a giant humidifier in the room.  That said, we'll take much better care of it in the new place than we did in the basement; when I emptied the water there, it looked more like iced tea than something fish would want to live in.  Driving the six miles with the aquarium in my passenger seat was a lesson in how smoothly I don't drive; even when I tried the most babyish of rolling stops and starts, the couple inches of water I had left in there (with all 30-some fish wondering what the heck was going on) sloshed in a great example of what a tsunami might look like if the earth was placed in a car and driven up 16th Street...

The commute's not nearly as bad as I feared, although it's much better in the morning than in the evening.  In the morning, I'm getting up at 6 instead of 6:10, and I'm not making the kids' lunches-- at least not yet.  If I get out the door before 6:45, I can catch a Montgomery County Ride On bus right outside, take that to Silver Spring Metro station, and I get to work in Rosslyn by 7:40.  If I miss the bus, it's a one-mile walk to Forest Glen Metro station, which takes about 17 minutes.  Of the seven morning commutes I've had so far, I've missed the bus twice, but only once have I gotten to work late, and even then by only about ten minutes.  On the walk to Forest Glen, I see practically no one, which is weird.  That's not the same on the way home, though. Twice I've been timing myself to see which way walking from Forest Glen is the fastest, and each time I've been thwarted by pesky neighbors wanting to --gasp!-- talk to me!  Actually, it's great, because I'm making an effort to learn people's names, and there's no better way to do that than to actually meet them on a regular basis.  I'll admit that after living in our house in DC, there was one household on our block that knew everything about us, but we knew the names of exactly two people in their large family.  Yeah, after nearly a decade on the block.  Now you can imagine how embarrassing this was for me, since I grew up as the paperboy who at least knew the name of the head of every household on my block.  So this time around, I mean business, and started by going to the Homeowners' Association meeting on Thursday, and taking detailed notes not on the issues at hand (which are mostly about money), but about people's names and where they live.

So Susan and Ron, who moved here from Pennsylvania, I was very happy to talk to you two on the way home from work the other day.  And Amy, who just had a baby with her husband Tony, I'm sorry if I freaked you out by knowing your name (and saying it) twice as I walked by over the last couple of days.  And Bobby, who works as a wine specialist at Dean + Deluca, I hope you did well on your test, and will refer you to the winos that are my mother-in-law and her husband when they come by this weekend; and I'm definitely intrigued by your wife, because I can honestly say I've never met a woman named Lady Stacey. And Paula and Richard and Peg with the Easter egg tree and Minh and Janice from Australia and Miss Sally and her daughter Shelly and Jim and Susan and Carol and Lou (whose dogs are Diva and Pierre) and Brian and Laura (hey! I know two Brian-and-Lauras now!) and... well... you get the picture.  We may live in a fishbowl, but those things are made of glass and the fish can see out just as well as we see inside.  Abby and I want to live here for a long time, so it makes no sense not to know our neighbors.  So, neighbors?  Please don't get freaked out when I call you by name, because if I don't do it now, it'll be 2023 and I'll be asking my kids to find out the names of the people we've known since before we moved in.

So moving back inside the house, I guess there have been some small things going on.  All four new windows are supposedly in now.  One has been installed-- in the kitchen-- which is good, since any time the wind blew, the insulation that was there made a crinkly sound that reverberated throughout the whole level. I see one other one ready to go in up on the balcony, but have no idea where the others are.  The cabinets are not complete yet, but the last one has finally been delivered, so we are in the process of scheduling the final install.  Once that's done, they'll take back all the mistake cabinets, which will free up another huge corner of the great room.  The countertop is done, except we realized we needed them to drill four holes instead of two, based on our choice of faucets.  So I emailed them last night and am still waiting for a response.  As a result, the kitchen sink is still out of commission, so tonight I had to wash the dishes in the bathroom. It's gross to wash the dishes in the bathroom, but it's also very nerve-wracking to have to do it on a brand-new porcelain sink that is ridiculously shallow.  I was treating each dish as if it were bone china, not because of the preciousness of the dish, but because I didn't want the sink to get another chip.  Yeah, I said "another;" no idea how/when/why, but there's a tiny chip right on the inside corner of our upstairs vanity.  Already.  I guess it just follows us, since there's one in our upstairs sink from DC that's been there ever since I mistakenly dropped one of Abby's mysterious glass bottles from the medicine cabinet way back when. (Who'd'a thunk that the porcelain would break and the glass bottle would come out the victor in that contest?)

Tomorrow we're having the measure for the upstairs shower door.  If you'll recall, we turned down the $3000 custom door our contractor suggested, but Abby also turned down the perfectly good $700 one I found online because it had an edge on the side, and she wanted a perfectly frameless one.  So we're going to inch up a bit, and go for the Home Depot custom ones that are about $1500, after which we can take a shower in our own bathroom instead of running up and down the stairs to do it.  After that, hopefully the cabinets will be installed within the next few days, which will include the hookup of the dishwasher and range, and the ability of our contractors to install the range hood.  Next Monday we're scheduled for a Comcast install for Internet, cable, and a security system, although we're pretty sure none of it is going to work.  You see, we've been going back and forth with both Comcast and Verizon for weeks, trying to see if they actually provide service to us.  At first neither recognized our addresses, but then they did.  Now they want to just come out and do an appointment, even though Lee told us the windmill next-door was told they can't get service because no wires have been pulled for our side of the street.  If you can imagine, I'm trying to get Comcast to put my house on the same work order as theirs, to save us time as well as to save the Comcast guy from having to come out for no reason.  Comcast refuses to give me any information on an account that's not mine, even when I assure them I in fact want absolutely no information.  "Just look at their account, don't say a word, and see if they can physically get cable; if they can, great! Schedule the appointment for us; but if they can't, wouldn't it save us all the trouble?"  "I'm sorry, sir, but I can't give information out on anyone else's account."  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.   So Comcast is coming out on Monday, but the smart money's on us not having cable on Tuesday.

So that's the update for now.  Again, due to that whole not-having-cable thing, I can't upload pictures.  So I promise a buttload of pictures once everything's hooked up.  In the meantime, I've gotta run home and pack for my three-day Buffalo adventure that starts tomorrow and will hopefully include Duff's chicken wings, Anderson's lemon ice, and Alex Trebek. :)

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.

Video Entry

We've been away for a week and a half, and have plenty to report, but before I do, I figured I'd post the most recent video update.  Got home from Florida by 7, kids were in bed by 8, and I was in the house by 8:30 recording this.  Abby was definitely jealous that I got to see everything first, but she gets to go there today-- when it's light out-- and I have to wait for that until at least Thursday.  So, without further ado...

Hiatus? Not Likely

Tomorrow we head out on our Spring Break trip to Florida, four basement dwellers in search of some sun and sand before the final push.  And in the waning days before the trip, we had another small flurry of activity from our side, with only a smidge of movement on the other.  But I have faith that in the ten days we're out of state, our contractors won't be on vacation.  What I don't have faith in, however, is that we'll be devoid of all things house during our trip.

Last year, I distinctly recall tracking down the water company people while standing watching the ocean.  This time?  I may be dealing with plumbing fixture problems while standing on that same deck, only it'll be the very end of the process rather than the beginning.  Last year it was finding out we had absolutely no connection to municipal water whatsoever, and this year?  Who knows?  Although we have some inkling...

First off, Abby found out yesterday that the bathroom door in the basement doesn't clear the toilet, which is against code.  Never mind the fact that we wanted the toilet to have been placed in a location where, gasp, that wouldn't have been an issue.  Now it's an issue.  Contractor says they may have to move the door, although I think they should just move the whole wall a few inches into the mudroom.  Problem with that?  The walls were put up before the tile was laid, so there's no tile where the wall currently stands.  We do have extra tile, though, so that's a possible fix.  Time will tell how that problem is solved: ten days of time, that is.

Our downstairs shower door.  How very Euro...
(And for $3000 less than custom.)

We had a guy come out to measure the openings for our shower doors, and he came back with a completely, utterly ridiculous quote of $6,400 for the two doors together, including $3,400 for a custom door for downstairs that took into account the height disparity between the two sides of the shower wall.  I promptly wrote back to Mark: "tell the guy thanks but no thanks."  I went on Build.com and in about ten minutes found a perfectly good (fancy, actually) all-glass door with no edge, just like Abby requires.  It's a splash door, which is how Europeans do their showers a lot of the time.  That means it only covers about 75% of the opening-- where the water splashes.  Halfway across, there's a pivot joint in the glass that turns the window into a door when you want it open.  Simple, pretty, modern, and less than $500.  Rather than $3,400.  Upstairs is gonna be a little harder, because we haven't found anything online that has no edge, as Abby requires.  Or rather, all the un-edged doors are sliding doors, and Abby wants doors that swing out.  She went by Home Depot today to talk to someone, but no one was there.  She says she'll call them tomorrow... from the airport... we'll see...  But in the meantime, the downstairs shower door has already been ordered, so at least that's a job 50% done.

This is what $450 in door knobs looks like.

Also ordered is one of the two door knobs we're missing.  Still haven't picked front-door hardware, but it was simple enough to go onto Build.com and find the pocket door version of the knobs we got for the rest of the house.  Less than ten bucks, matches everything, done.  Hopefully by the time we get back, all of the doors will have been delivered, installed, and attached to hardware. We may not have a shower door upstairs, but at least we'd have a bathroom door!  I sat down on Wednesday in the Great Room and labeled the 20-some knobs we've already had delivered, since there are five different kinds (dummies, lockable ones, ones without locks, keyed entry, and a deadbolt), and Lola sat down with me to look at the boxes.  She was intrigued that her name was on three different boxes (two closet dummies and a lockable knob) and was downright thrilled with the idea that she'll have a lock on her door, "so I can lock Isaac out!"  Exactly what I was thinking...

Abby's Home Depot trip also had her finalizing our blinds order.  Yeah, blinds may be thought of more as decor, but think of a) how open our bedrooms are to people walking or driving by the south side of the house, and b) how old our stormless windows are.  (Actually, I was holding my hands near the windows the other day and found them to have not nearly as much of a temperature gradient as I had feared.  Bonus!)  Anyhow, the blinds we ordered are the cellular kind, that look like accordions and help not only with privacy (while allowing for light to come through) but also with efficiency, because they have an R-value of something-small-but-I'll-take-it.  What's also cool about them is that they'll be attached at the bottom, so they can be pulled up rather than down; that'll help because the top parts of the windows can be kept open while still getting privacy in the room.  Additionally, since they're custom, that means each one will fit the window perfectly, and will be installed professionally.  And hopefully that'll be done in about two weeks, just as we're moving in.

The couches on which Abby napped.

After Home Depot, Abby took a nap.  Sure, that sounds like not-so-big news, but it's the first time any of us has slept in the house, so there's that.  She napped on one of the sofas downstairs, which we arranged on Wednesday after having given Abby ample time to put a lot of our stuff away where it needed to go.  It still amazes me that the giant pile of stuff that came out of that storage pod has pretty much disappeared into all of the closet space downstairs.  (Although upstairs, that's a different matter... How is it that we have so many clothes?!)  

Our paperwork stuff is coming along as well; the mortgage refi hasn't moved, but our insurance rates are coming down, which is always a plus.  While we're gone, I expect to spend some time on the cell phone working both of these issues... just as I had on the beach in Delaware last year.  Hey, it'll be worth it!

In the storage area under one set of stairs.
There's TONS of room down there!

Anyhow, that's about it as my vacation begins.  I won't see the house for the next ten days, and hopefully once I do, it'll be completely and utterly livable-- although I still haven't heard anything about those damn windows that need to be replaced.  I'd say "fingers crossed," but I have said that way too much while writing this blog, and plus, doing that would give me weird tan lines on my hands, wouldn't it? ;)

Guest room closet, with door!

Moved, Just Not Moved In

The ZippyShell storage unit
that caused more than a few of our neighbors
to walk their dogs by our place this weekend :)

So it's official: Almost all of our stuff is now in the house.  We are currently still living in the basement, but our confines have suddenly become much more spacious.  Basically, we've got two mattresses, the cushions from our couches, our electronics, clothes for a week, toiletries, and foodstuffs here.  Everything else?  In Maryland.  I know, right?!

This weekend was really productive, thanks to my father-in-law and brother-in-law schlepping themselves up here for the weekend with their pick-up truck.  Between that tiny Tacoma and our Prius, we managed to get everything up, and didn't even have to cancel on two different birthday parties the kids had been invited to.  In fact, the parties really helped things, because they took the kids out of our hair for hours at a time on both Saturday and Sunday.  By the end of Saturday, we had put a huge dent in the basement, and by the end of Sunday there was so much stuff in the family room of the bungalow that we were having trouble moving around.  We basically put everything on the floor it needed to go on, and left it at that.  Once Monday rolled around, Abby spent the day dividing things up.  For instance, she put all the seasonal stuff (like Christmas ornaments and Easter baskets) in one of the storage spaces under the stairs, and all of the home improvement stuff (like paint cans and extra shingles) in the other.  She says that after having done that, it's clear we're not going to have a storage issue after all, which I still suspect we will.  

When looking at this photograph,
please imagine a high-pitched scream
going off at random intervals.

Getting the stuff out of the storage container was fun for us, because it meant progress on the house.  But for the kids, that was the most important thing we could have done-- screw moving, they wanted their toys back!  The squeal let out by Lola when she saw the giant garbage bag full of stuffed animals way back behind most of the stuff in there was likely audible across the Beltway. She insisted on carrying the bag out herself, even though it was bigger than she is.  And forget anything about not unpacking because of dust; by the time we left to come back to DC Saturday night, those toys were strewn around her room like nobody's business.  Surprisingly, she chose not to bring her Abby Cadabby (a Sesame Street fairy character, for those of you without small kids) back to DC with her, favoring a couple of small cat toys.  Guess quantity ruled over quality in that decision.  Meanwhile, Isaac was absorbed with his synthesizer (which I fully expect him to forget within a week, since that's what he did after we got it for him) and his BeyBlade spinny things-- they're tops, but with enough styling on them that saying they're tops just makes you a party pooper.  Whatever-- the kids were left to their own devices once the toys popped out of the storage container, which helped us get everything else out without  breaking anything!  (And yes, Abby's grandpa's enormous armoire got in, in one piece, without breaking anything else.)

We even managed to do an IKEA run midday on Sunday, although after all was said and done, I think it wasn't the best use of our time.  It ended up being no sweat to find the stuff Abby wanted, but we spent at least a half an hour in line, and since everything we got ended up being in long, flat boxes, I think we could have easily fit it all in the Prius with the seats folded down.  No matter: I am likely to have more than a few days of putting Scandinavian furniture together in my future, and I'm okay with that.  (We got each of the kids a new desk and a new bookcase, got flush-mount light fixtures for all the closets, and the same hanging fixture we've had in our DC kitchen for 9 years for our mudroom; hey, you stick with what you like!)

On Saturday, Abby met with the countertop measurer guy, and by the end of the weekend we got the plans for the project.  They told us it'll all be done within ten days, which means it should be installed before we get back from Florida.  That magic return trip will probably be when we physically move into the house ourselves, which should give the contractor and all the subs plenty of time (famous last words!) to finish what they've got left.  We had four doors delivered today, and the plumber "had free range" (Mark's words, not mine) of his stuff today, so a lot of that final stuff is being, well, finalized, even before we leave for the beach.

Can you tell there's a wood block mounted behind
this sconce?  I can't...

And the upstairs bathroom is also lighted now.

Other stuff has been done as well.  I bought this snazzy and probably overpriced thermostat called "Nest" that supposedly learns your habits and adjusts the temperature accordingly all by itself.  We had the bathroom sconces installed and the downstairs ones had to have wood blocks placed behind them because they didn't clear the mirror (that same damn mirror!) without them; amazed to see the guys actually painted the wood the same gray color as the walls to make it blend in.  Honestly, if Abby had not pointed it out, I wouldn't have looked twice at the way they were mounted-- see for yourself!

On the financial front, I did decide to go with the local lender and forget about having another place beat the rate.  I felt a bit slimy about it, and the fact that the guy's local makes it better.  I do have to dredge up all of our paperwork over at the house tomorrow, to make sure we have everything we need to allow the refi to proceed, but that shouldn't be a huge issue.  I also was pretty psyched when I remembered I could transfer our construction insurance policy into regular homeowners' insurance; doing that should cut our rate in half.  I checked for cable providers, and unless we go for a dish-- which is pretty much a non-starter-- it looks like we're stuck with Comcast.  Yuck.  I also put out feelers for a security system.  For our DC house, with three doors and only five windows on the first floor, the free promotional systems worked just fine.  This time, with only two doors but crazy numbers of first-floor windows, I think we're gonna have to pay a bunch up front to make sure we get all the windows tied in.  Plus, that'll ensure our kids won't be able to sneak out of their windows undetected once they're teenagers... right?  Right?

Speaking of the kids, I finally got in touch with a legal mind who helped us out with our schooling dilemma, and it seems I was right: our kids can keep going to their school in DC, even after we move.  According to this firm, the fact that we'll be paying property and income taxes in DC allows us to choose our residency, just like snowbirds in New York choose to be Florida residents for tax purposes, even if they spend more time in Buffalo than in Sarasota.  Abby had been freaked out, because even though I was telling her that was the way I thought it would be, without having talked to a lawyer, she was worried about things like inviting people over for play dates or having birthday parties at home.  Now that we have someone in the know that told us we're cool, we can relax and renew our DC driver's licenses, register the kids for their same school next year, and bring out those mothballed plans for Abby's-- er-- Isaac's Halloween birthday party extravaganza down in the Glen.  But that's October, and this is still March, at least for one more week.

We've definitely got our work cut out for us this week, but now it's almost all squarely on us.  Once the plumbing is done, I'm going to consider the house unofficially livable.  Sure, we've got no doors on the bathrooms, and a giant hole under our back door-- although I just got an email from Home Depot about two hours ago saying the new door has been shipped-- but it's really now our job to make sure the accoutrements of living in a house are in order.  By the time we get back from the beach, we will be able to live in this house, and I'll be damned if something I did (or didn't do) is gonna hold me up from that!  (That said, we probably do have to get an official Certificate of Occupancy from the county, but that's Mark's job, not mine...)

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.

The Look

The six miles between points A & Bungalow.

When we were driving to the house on Saturday morning, we took our usual route: Illinois to Georgia to Missouri to Sixteenth to Second to Linden.  Halfway through the drive, you're still pretty much in Petworth, where we have lived for the last nine-or-so years.  But when you turn right onto Sixteenth, you enter a new world; that of Shepherd Park.  If you're unfamiliar with that neighborhood, I can only describe it as one of the most attractive you can have while still being on a major street in a major city.  The homes are large and expensive, although not all grand.  Most are from the 1920s I'd guess, although there are a few conspicuous 1970s modern specimens that look like they'd be more comfortable on a cliff somewhere along the Pacific.  A few have turrets, a few have ivy-covered walls, and a most are brick of one color or another.  Dotted amongst these stately homes are at least two synagogues and an atheist gathering spot, as well as the back side of the old Walter Reed complex.  At one end is the side entrance to Rock Creek Park, and at the other is a traffic circle on the Maryland border with one of the District of Columbia boundary stones in the middle.  This is the top of the diamond, geographically and economically, where all of the east-west streets are named after plants, in alphabetic order of course, rather than after the obscure statesmen you'll find in the rest of the city.

Our former neighbor Angie's gorgeous Craftsman in
Shepherd Park.  I wonder if she knows her house
is now featured in at least two local blogs?

When I drive the six miles from one house to the other, I'm often taken to dreaming about living in one of those houses.  Maybe the one with the huge magnolia out front and the bay windows over looking the park.  Or maybe the one with the amazing slate roof and the arched doorways and the understated cars in the back that cost well into the six figures.  Or even one on a sidestreet near, say, the corner of Geranium and Alaska, where our former neighbors have a gorgeous Craftsman Bungalow.  I know I'd never be able to live in this area, because it's out of my tax bracket, but who doesn't like to dream a bit?  Well, I was dreaming out loud on Saturday morning, and I think I hurt Abby's feelings.  I probably went a bit overboard by mentioning all the imperfections of the house I did own: the fact there was no basement or attic; that we'd have little privacy; that we'll be a mile from a Metro station; that we won't have a garage; that we will forever have to deal with a homeowners' association and an historical society; that we have terribly inefficient windows and a loud HVAC system and a huge water heater and a tiny bedroom and will forever be shooing people out of our parking spots.  And we live too close to that tiny industrial area off Linden, and the Beltway can be really loud at times.  And suddenly, Abby was giving me the look.  You know the one: "Are you serious? Are we not a week away from finishing into a project we've spent two years on? And you're dreaming about these houses that are easily three times the price ours will be when it's all finished?"  Well, if you don't know the look, I know the look.  After all, I have experienced it many, many times in the nine-plus years we've been married.

I had to explain to Abby that, sure, things aren't perfect in the house, but they wouldn't be in one of these either.  She asked whether I'd take any one of these as an even trade with the Bungalow if someone offered. Of course they'd have to be ridiculous to offer.  I mean, the houses at the top of the street have all that, and are walking distance to the Metro to boot, for Pete's sake!  It would make no economic sense for me not to do that trade.  But the thing is, that's not an option, because I know the entire zip code came up goose eggs for us when we were searching for homes in our price range, or even a bit above it, back in 2011 when we were house hunting.  And the market has only gotten stronger since.  Plus, no matter how perfect the house, we'd still have to do tons of stuff to it to make it "ours," and who wants to go through that again?  My sister asked us Saturday night whether we'd do a project like this again, considering all we'd gone through.  We shrugged and looked at each other, and pretty much in sync said we would, but only once the kids had moved out.  My sister was incredulous.  We were unfazed.

No, the Bungalow is not my perfect house by any means.  But it's a heck of a lot better than this place.  No, it's not fair to compare a medium-sized single-family home in the leafy suburbs with an English Basement in the District, especially when there are four of you, but these four months have made me wistful for the days we had a dishwasher, when we could use the laundry facilities without having to knock or grovel, when we didn't have to duck to get into our own door, when our kids had separate rooms and ours was not a hallway between theirs and the bathroom, when one of us could go to sleep early and wouldn't be kept awake by the sound of the TV or the computer keyboard ten feet away, when we had a family-sized fridge and an microwave that didn't have to be plugged in with a retractable extension cord.  When we had a dining room table, and the kids didn't have to sit on the floor to eat dinner.  When the toilet wasn't on the wall behind the stove.

The Embassy of the Republic of Congo:
Who would not want to live in this place?

I'm going to love the Bungalow.  In just the past ten days, I've gotten really, genuinely excited about the place at least three times, and I'm itching to go back up there, since it's been over 100 hours now since I last visited.  I'm going to love the new space we'll have-- and not compared to the basement, but to the house we were last in at Thanksgiving.  I'm going to love being able once again to host friends and family when they trek up, down, or over to see us and/or our city.  I'm going to love the view of the glen when I'm making dinner, or the sound of my kids playing on my grandma's piano downstairs, or being able to let the kids play outside all on their own as a regular habit.  But it's like being married: I made my choice, but I'm not dead.  There's no reason I shouldn't be able to wonder what it'd be like to live in that building that houses the Congolese Embassy on Sixteenth and Colorado.  And just because I will fantasize about living in walking distance to the kids' elementary school or staying within the five blocks we currently are from a Metro station, it doesn't mean I won't completely get a kick out of seeing deer stand on their hind legs to eat from the century-old yews in my yard, or enjoy the moment when I realize I know the names of more than three of my neighbors.

So please, even if I complain, be it about any of the things above, or any number of other things I haven't mentioned this time around --cost and schedule overruns, anyone?-- know that I'm really, truly, honestly excited to live in this place, and to get this part of my life started already.  And the only thing I'm resigned to is the fact that I'll never stop giving Abby reason to give me that look.  You know the one.

Home.  Almost.