A New Perspective

I stopped by the house while I was out running errands this afternoon. It looks pretty much the same from the front as the last time I was there, but I took a picture anyway:
While I was there, my neighbor Francine drove up, so I intercepted her on her way into her house to ask her about some of the names I had dug up. I asked about John Poe, and she instantly remembered that his wife was named Glen. I told her that according to the records I saw, they were getting a divorce when they bought the house, and the house was subsequently sold by John and Patricia Poe, but she wasn't able to shed any light on that. She remembers Glen Poe living in the house with her mother and teenage son. She also remembers John Poe being a doctor, but didn't recall him being in the military.

So, here's my new theory: John Poe bought the house for his soon-to-be-ex-wife and their son. Even though he subsequently remarried, his name was still on the deed. I noticed that the deed for the sale by John & Patricia Poe to the Forsters in 1960 references the last will and testament of Glen M. Poe, so she must have passed away and ownership of the home reverted to John and his new wife. I'll have to do some more research to see if I can back any of this up...

Francine let me snap a few photos of the back of our house from her back yard. From here you can see the forms in place for the new foundation and some of the framing for our master bedroom on the second floor.
There is still a huge mound of dirt guarded by two bobcats taking up most of the back yard. I was glad to see all the tarps as we are supposed to get some wind and rain tomorrow.
Our friends' 3-year-old daughter is fascinated by cement trucks, so I've been trying to arrange a time when they can bring her by to watch one in action. Rob has been nice enough to alert me when the truck is expected to be on-site, but so far it hasn't happened at a convenient time. I hope it works out -- I'd love to see the dynamic between our little friend and the construction crew...

Aging in Place

This seems like an appropriate day to talk about getting older...

Our builders and architect suggested we consider modifying our main-level bathroom to include some "universal design" concepts for aging in place. The idea is to design your home so that you can continue to live there even after it becomes difficult to navigate stairs or if you need a walker or wheelchair to get around -- but without making it look like a nursing home. In the meantime, you will also be better equipped to accommodate elderly visitors with limited mobility, or, say, an accident-prone husband who might injure himself hang-gliding or windsurfing...

Although we are adding a second floor to our house, we will still have two bedrooms on the main level (one will be my home office, the other a guest room). And since we are investing so much in this renovation (both financially and personally), we like the idea of being able to live in the house as long as we want to. The only thing we'll really have to change in the bathroom is foregoing the tub/shower combo and just having a shower area that can be enclosed by a shower curtain. That leaves plenty of space to navigate the room and nothing to step (or trip) over to get in and out of the shower. We can install a handheld shower, and add a seat or bench later if needed.

In the Good Timing department, there was an article about aging in place and universal design in Sunday's Washington Post.

Speaking of bathrooms, Josh and I visited a couple architectural salvage places in DC over the weekend. The Brass Knob and its sibling, the Back Doors Warehouse, have hundreds of items salvaged from old homes and historic buildings, ranging from doorknobs to light fixtures to bathroom sinks to doors and windows. They had some cool stuff we may go back for later, but I was so horrified by something I saw there that I felt compelled to take this photo: Yes, those are toilet tank lids, in a spectrum of outmoded colors that are even more disturbing when you consider that not only did someone think to manufacture a toilet in that color, but someone else actually purchased it and installed it in their home, and yet another person tried to save it for posterity by donating it to an architectural salvage warehouse. Seriously, people, Just Say No to avocado green, lavender, peach, burgundy, or teal blue toilets (and matching bathtubs and sinks)! If you want to add a splash of color to your bathroom, buy some colorful towels or a fancy shower curtain or a gallon of paint. Then when the color goes out of style in 5 years, you don't have to replace your entire bathroom.

OK, that's the end of my rant. I'm sorry if I offended anyone with a colorful toilet...

Lost Wallet

I just got off the phone with the daughter of the man whose wallet was found in our house. According to the items in the wallet, his name was John C. Snider, Jr. (b. April 1917), and he lived in a house a block away. I looked up the address on the county website, and the house is owned by a woman whose last name is Snyder with an address in Georgetown (indicating it is a rental property). A directory search gave me a phone number for the address, which turned out to be a realty office, and I did my best to explain why I was calling to the woman who answered.

As soon as I told her the name of the wallet's owner, she said, "Oh my God, that's my dad!"

She grew up in this neighborhood and her family owned three different houses within a few blocks of one another -- one of which originally belonged to her grandparents. They still own two of them, which they rent out. She couldn't shed any light on how her father's wallet ended up in my house, but she thought my theory that it might have been found or stolen made sense. She did explain why her last name was spelled differently from her father's. Apparently, her paternal grandfather was very particular about his penmanship, and didn't like the way he wrote the letter 'Y', so he decided to spell his last name with an 'I' instead. (Back in those days, it was not unheard of.) Her father alternated between the two spellings, but she and her siblings went back to spelling it with a 'Y'. Mr. Snider/Snyder passed away in 1993. I emailed his daughter a photo of the wallet and contents. She was disappointed when I told her the drivers licenses didn't have any photos, but still curious to see all the items.

Hidden Treasure Inventory

I tried to take some close-up photos of the items that were found walled up inside the closet in my home office. I included a 6-inch ruler to give you a sense of scale -- as any good archaeologist would...

When they first found all this stuff, there were 4 packs of cigarettes, but apparently someone on the crew couldn't resist smoking 50-year-old cigarettes, so here are the three I ended up with. (The 4th pack was Kool brand.)
This bottle of 'Old Tucker' brand whiskey has a copyright date of 1937, and looks similar to the bottle in this ad from a November 1937 issue of Life magazine. This bottle is probably not quite that old. The company that made it, Brown-Forman, was founded in 1870 and is still in business. They own a variety of familiar brands, including Jack Daniels, Finlandia, Korbel, and Fetzer.
This wallet belonged to a man who lived on the next block over. It included several drivers licenses and car registration cards, along with a hunting license, a Gulf credit card, and a guest pass to the Biltmore Club in Washington, DC (which no longer exists). It's still a mystery to me how this person's wallet ended up in my house, but if I ever solve it, I'll let you know!
Another mystery: These keys belonged to a Dr. Clift P. Berger of Oakland, MD -- so how did they end up in my house? (That metal thing holding them open is part of a rifle. No sign of the rest of it, so far...) This tie isn't much to look at, but according to the label, it is "All Silk" and came from F.R Tripler & Co, New York, est 1886, which was a high-end men's clothing store on Madison Ave. From what I can dig up, it closed in the 1980s, but it had a good 100-year run!And then there were 3 pair of aviator sunglasses, in various stages of disrepair, along with an 4 cases. One case had this handwritten inside: 2nd Lieu John Poe; 247th Fighter Group; Andrews Air Force Base. We now know that John Poe owned this house from 1945-1960, so I am working on the assumption that all of these items were left behind by members of that household. If he was in the military, he may not have been around much -- and my neighbor remembers a woman living here with her mother and troublesome teenage son around that time, so the son may be our culprit. Or, maybe this was John Poe's secret stash?
Who would hide a can of shoe polish? This unopened can of Impregnite shoe polish ('For the Hand Impregnation of Shoes') was military-issue during WWII for waterproofing boots -- which explains the bland packaging.
This book was hidden up in the ceiling. The cover is splattered with foam insulation, but it was otherwise in decent condition considering it was published in 1947, checked out from the Arlington County Library on Nov 25, 1950, and has been hidden in our rafters for more than 50 years.
A quick flip through the book revealed why it was hidden. Many of the pictures have been cut out!I actually took the book back to the library -- mostly to see if they could tell me who had last checked it out -- but they said it had most likely been withdrawn from their system soon after it went missing.

This little bottle is one of my favorites. It was actually found in one of the crawl spaces under the house, but it appears to be older than most of the liquor bottles that were in that area. It has an Art Deco style to it, and the bottom of the bottle has a patent date of 1925. The shaker top has a little tab you can push back and forth to open or close the holes. It's too large to be a salt shaker, and the fancy bottle indicates it was intended for a woman. It may have been used for talcum powder or some type of cosmetic.
Well, that's it -- for now. If you have any information or theories about any of these items, please pass them along!

Booty Inventory

Since we don't have room to store all the 'artifacts' that our builders have found under the house, Josh and I went through most of it yesterday afternoon to see if anything was worth keeping. Here's the whole lot:
As you can see, the majority of the loot is various types of liquor bottles and cans, but it also includes some children's toys, a leather knife holster, and a blue plastic bottle of Mennen Baby Magic. The little men are made of wood and can be stacked upon each other's shoulders, just like this toy. The colorful sticks are toy arrows, and the gray wooden thing above the men is the fuselage of a toy B-29 bomber, like the Enola Gay. There was also an old tennis ball can and the crumbling remnants of a National Geographic Magazine (not pictured)

Most of the beer bottles are National Bohemian, or "Natty Boh," which has been brewed in Baltimore since 1885. It became the official sponsor of the Baltimore Orioles in 1965, and must have been a favorite of someone who lived in our house. There were about 24 Natty Boh bottles in this lot.
The cans were in poor condition, but you can see that someone certainly liked to drink all different brands of beer. Notice that these pre-date the pull tab -- you had to use an opener to punch holes in the top in order to drink it.
We 'de-accessioned' (recycled) most of the rusty cans and beer bottles, but kept most of the toys and more unusual bottles. We'll have to set aside some display space in our new house for all these pieces of its history.

Booty Call

Here's an email exchange I had yesterday with Rob, our project supervisor:

Rob: Tomorrow in the afternoon would be fine to come by with the sinks. We have also unearthed more booty for you guys. See you tomorrow.

Naina: OK, I'll come by tomorrow afternoon to drop off the sinks and pick up the booty. (Would that be a 'booty call'?)

Rob: Yes, yes it would.

(We are both happily married, and Rob has a good sense of humor, so I was assuming he wouldn't take my response as anything other than a punny joke. He later told me he laughed out loud when he got my email.)

The house had already changed since yesterday afternoon. The second floor was now walled in with SIS panels -- Structural Insulated Sheathing -- that have a layer of foam insulation built right in. Rob had my "booty" waiting for me on the front porch: an old nail barrel, a crate full of liquor bottles, and a bag of odds and ends, including a toy rifle and wooden arrow shafts.
All this stuff was in the crawlspace under the back of the house. I hope to have some time this weekend to sort through all of it, clean it up, take photos, and figure out what to do with all of it. I still have a huge box full of bottles and other items that were unearthed from the other crawlspace under the front porch to contend with as well. When I asked them to save anything they found for me, I had no idea there's be this much junk! Well, as they say ,"One man's trash is another man's treasure." Maybe someone will want all these old liquor bottles and cans...

After Rob helped me unload the sinks and put the "booty" in the car, I took a quick tour of the house. The stair area is a little more defined now -- there's a landing, anyway:
And you can see the doorways for the new bathroom and the front bedroom (which used to open directly onto the living room)The upstairs is only accessible by ladder, so we'll have to wait until they build the stairs to get photos of that area. At the speed things are going, it may be sooner than we think!

A Day for the Record Books

Well, that's not as exciting as it sounds. I went to the county courthouse yesterday afternoon and spent some time looking through the old land record books to research the previous owners of our house. Not an easy task, it turns out. I may have to go back when I have more time, but here's a brief rundown of what I dug up...

Dec 21, 1927
Sold by Brumback Realty to B. Francis Saul

May 10, 1932
Sold by Lyon & Fitch, Inc. (our neighborhood is called 'Lyon Village') to Maria M. Clark

Dec 29, 1939
Sold by Maria M. Clark to Frank & Grace Clark

Sept 3, 1941
Sold by Frank & Grace Clark to John & Gladys Taylor
(coincidentally, my grandmother's maiden name was Gladys Kaylor)

July 27, 1945
Sold by Felix C. Rozier to John & Glen Poe, who were getting a divorce
(not sure why they bought the house together...)

April, 1960
Sold by John & Patricia Poe to Rudolph & Barbara Forster

Jan 29, 1963
Sold by Rudolph & Barbara Forster to Henry & Evelyn Borden
The Bordens lived in the house until they died. Evelyn passed away in 1993, and her daughter sold the house in 1994. There were two other owners before we bought it in 2003.

There are still a few holes to be filled in, but it seems like the Poe family was responsible for the items that were found walled up inside the closet. One of the pairs of aviator glasses was in a case with John Poe's name and Andrews Air Force Base written inside, so he must have been in the Air Force, which would explain why my neighbor said the father wasn't living in the house. But if he had a trouble-making son, he would have to have been a product of the first marriage, since any children he had with his second wife would have been less than 5 years old in 1950 -- way too young to be hiding cigarettes and checking out library books on military aviation. I'll have to chat some more with Francine now that I have some names. That may jog her memory.

I stopped by the house on the way home and snapped a quick photo of the progress.

Naina Has Two Mommies?

I was checking my silly poll results the other day and noticed that two people had responded "I'm your mother." I had assumed that one was my mom and the other was Josh's -- or that mine had voted twice -- but now I have learned the true identity of my 'other mother.' It's my sister, Sonia! Apparently, she was miffed that there was no "I'm your sister" option, so she chose the closest thing available. And you thought I was a little odd...

Second floor

One of the Steves (our builders) emailed this photo to me around noon today. They've already started framing the walls of the second floor!We had a busy weekend working on various renovation-related issues, such as finalizing the window specs, looking at plumbing fixtures, and shopping for bargains at the Expo Design Center, which is going out of business.
We ended up buying three bathroom sinks there, which are now sitting in the back of our car as we have no place to store them. I'm hoping I can hand them over to Rob sometime soon so he can keep them on-site until they are ready to install them. Still, it was probably well worth it as we saved a lot of money that we can put towards more noticeable finishes like tile, cabinetry, and faucets. Who pays attention to the bathroom sink?

We are supposed to get rain and/or snow tomorrow. I hope that doesn't cause any problems...

I Heart our Builders

Since it's Valentine's Day, and I found out yesterday that our builders are reading this blog (even though I didn't send them the link -- maybe they read about it on my Facebook fan page?), I thought I'd give them a shout out. SAI Contractors was awarded the 2008 Capital Contractor of the Year Finalist Award (for Green Remodeling - Entire House) by the National Association of the Remodeling Industry (NARI) Metro DC Chapter. This was the second NARI award SAI Contractors received in 2008. The first was a Regional Contractor of the Year Award for Entire House under $250,000, selected from applicants from 7 southeastern states from Virginia to Florida. Congrats!

This also confirms that we made the right choice in going with SAI. Our architect has been very happy working with them, and even one of my neighbors commented yesterday that she was impressed with what she had seen over the past couple weeks.

Maybe this award will inspire them to update their website -- it could use a little more information... (hint, hint!)

Linoleum Layers

Well, back to the more interesting, archaeological aspects of the project. In the kitchen, you can now see 4 layers of linoleum. Under our marble black & white diamond pattern is an avocado green layer, then a cream-colored layer with multicolor specks, and then a brown geometric pattern. (Who knows -- there could be a whole 7-layer dip of linoleum levels here!) The floor was pretty dirty, so I couldn't get a good photo. Next time I'm in the house I'll see if there's a broom handy.
There was also a huge box full of stuff they found in the crawl space under the front porch. Most of it was beer bottles and cans of malt liquor that may have been tossed there by the original builders, but there were also some toys and a couple old flower pots that seemed more recent. I'll try to take some photos, but first I'll need to clean them up a bit. I'll probably recycle most of the beer bottles, and just save the more interesting/well-preserved items. Fortunately, our crew seems to be a bit more careful with their trash. I noticed they were using our recycling bin for all their cans and bottles and even putting it out by the curb on trash day, and all the cigarette butts were collected in a glass jar on the front porch. If someone renovates the house again years from now, I'm hopeful that they won't find a bunch of trash circa 2009.

As for progress on the house, they were still working on the foundation out back:
And had already started framing the new walls for the main level and the floor of the second level. This used to be the bathroom and part of our bedroom, but the new walls indicate where our staircase will go (the windows will change):
And out front, the guys were hard at work stretching a fabric tube over a very long section of perforated plastic drainpipe for the waterproofing. (The idea being that the fabric would keep dirt from getting in and clogging the pipe.) I remarked that it was a shame Josh wasn't around to see this, as I'm sure he would have been highly amused and made some off-color comments. The crew admitted that they would be doing the same if I hadn't been there. Bummer!

Framing & Foundation

It was 72 degrees yesterday, which is about as common here in February as it is in August. (Or, if you are unfamiliar with DC summers, as rare as an ivory-billed woodpecker.) I thought I'd swing by the house while I was out running errands and take a few quick photos of the work in progress.
I was spotted by Steve, one of our builders (both of whom are named Steve), and he invited me in for a tour of what they were doing. Not only did he make me wear a hardhat, but Rob insisted on taking a photo.
Anyway, they had two crews at work -- one framing the floor for the second story:
...and one pouring the concrete for the foundation underpinning.
This was the first time I'd been in the back yard since we moved out. It hasn't really been accessible since there's always been a dumpster filling up the driveway, and the back door isn't really an option:
This time there was a big cement truck in the driveway, so we had to bushwhack through my neighbor's landscaping to get around it. I somehow managed to get concrete splattered all over my jeans as we were passing, which everyone found very amusing. Well, they were headed for the laundry, anyway.

It turns out the family room and back porch were not original to the house but added some time later, so there is no foundation underneath. I knew the family room was a later addition since the finishes were different from the rest of the house, but had assumed it was originally a sleeping porch or some other type of structure that was later enclosed and finished, not an addition. The strange thing is that there's a house a few doors down with the same floor plan, and they have a family room and mudroom just like ours. I am perplexed by this...

It was a little disconcerting to see the yard in its present state, which is essentially a big mound of dirt guarded by a couple Bobcats:
I'm sure the previous owners who had the whole yard professionally landscaped would have been horrified.

Our architect and her husband arrived just as I was leaving. I took one last photo on my way to the car so you can see how the house changed just during my short visit:
Then I was off to CVS, Safeway, and the gas station in my concrete-splattered jeans. I did get a few strange looks, but maybe people thought they were the latest trend in designer jeans and were wondering where they could get some. If you see a bunch of teenagers at the mall wearing jeans spattered with a gray, chalky substance, that's all thanks to me!

Setback #1

I'm sure this is just the first of many setbacks we will encounter during the construction process -- and we've already dealt with several during the design, engineering, and permitting phases -- but it's particularly stressful because the builder found several areas of mold in the walls of the house. It didn't come as a huge surprise, since the house is over 80 years old and has had various water-related issues even during the 5 years we occupied it. But this particular issue will cost us time and money to resolve, and it's something that I consider to be far more serious than Josh does, which means he's not going to want to invest much in dealing with it. Ugh.

Raze the Roof

I stopped by the house on the way to the library yesterday, and the roof was mostly gone! Thanks to the spray foam insulation we had installed a few years ago, the house did not feel completely open to the elements, but there were several places where you could look up and see the sky (or at least a tarp).
I didn't venture too far into the house as there were still guys walking around on the roof -- and the occasional chunk of debris falling to the floor. Here's the view from just inside the front door looking straight back through the arch into the dining room and family room.

The sound of jackhammers could be heard from the basement. Paul (the guy in the photo above) told me they were digging up the basement floor to do the foundation work and waterproofing. I did not think it would be a good idea to wander downstairs to take photos of that. So far, no other artifacts (or dead bodies) have turned up, but I wouldn't be surprised if something was unearthed during the foundation work, since they'll also be digging around the exterior of the house. One other interesting thing we discovered was this strange metal tank above the closet in my office (next to the bathroom).
There were pipes running down to the basement from the other side, so our builder thinks it might have been an auxiliary hot water tank for the bathroom. It appears to say "Electric Hild" on it, but I haven't found any information about that name.

Anyway, my subsequent trip to the library's Virginia Room was not all that fruitful. Even though I called first to ask, it turns out they do not have archival property records there. I'll have to make a trip to the Land Records Division of the county offices later this week to get that information. The lady who managed the Virginia Room was fascinated by all the stuff that was found in the house (I brought it along) and encouraged me to come back once I had done my research with the county records. She even suggested creating an exhibit at the library if I was able to learn anything interesting about the items. We'll see...

We had a meeting with our builders and architect this morning to discuss all the items they need us to make decisions on ASAP. They are interconnected, so each decision will affect the others -- which doesn't make it any easier. I think we've got a handle on the windows, but we'll need to educate ourselves a little more about some of the other issues, including mold abatement and stucco options. I thought I learned a lot of esoteric information working for Discovery, but it pales in comparison to all the things I need to know about now...

I Heart Josh

Since Valentine's Day is coming up, I thought I'd share this story with you, which is actually related to the renovation...

My old roommate, Marcy, and I used to bring each other cheesy souvenirs whenever we traveled anywhere. One such item Marcy gave me was a glow-in-the-dark keychain that said "I (Heart) JOSH" Since it was rather large, I never really used it for anything, but it remained in my desk drawer until a couple years ago when I needed a keychain for the spare key to our house. Much like those oversized restroom keys they hand out at coffee houses, I figured houseguests were unlikely to walk off with our house key if it was on such a large and potentially embarrassing keychain.

Well, the day we moved (a week ago), I got a call from Rob, our project supervisor, asking if I could leave a key for him somewhere so he could get into the house and start work first thing the next morning. Since I still needed my own key, my only option was to leave him the spare. I left it with a note apologizing for the keychain.

When I stopped by the house a few days later, I asked Rob if he needed my key as well. He said he'd already had duplicates made, and that he got some funny looks from the guy at the hardware store when he handed him the key, still on the I HEART JOSH keychain, and asked for 3 copies. We all had a good laugh over that.

I saw Rob at the house again on Friday, and he said his wife had asked him who the heck Josh was. Apparently, she had come across a pile of stuff he had emptied out of his pockets and saw the keychain. Hopefully she believed his explanation...

The funny thing is Rob and Josh have never met. I'm sure they will, eventually. Who knows? Maybe once Rob meets him, he'll decide he actually does "heart" Josh... ;-)

Treasure Theories

I went by the house Friday afternoon to pick up our 'treasures' and say a quick hello to our architect and builder, who were meeting there. The house was completely gutted at this point, so you could stand in the dining room in the middle of the house and see clear through to all 4 exterior walls. I took this from what used to be our pantry/mudroom looking through the family room and into the office:
Even the built-in bookshelves and mantel in the living room had been removed.
They had already donated all our kitchen appliances to the Habitat Restore and moved the kitchen cabinets down to the basement, which was also completely gutted.
The landscaping around the house had also been relocated to the back yard, making the house look kind of naked from the front.
These guys work fast! Apparently, the roof is coming off next week.

Everyone was fascinated by all the stuff that had been walled into the house for more than 50 years. I asked Rob where they had found it, and it turns out it had been inside the wall of the closet in my office. I had speculated that it might have been inside a closet wall, since our closets are lined with cedar panels. It's possible that there were originally shelves or cubbyholes inside the closet that were covered up when the cedar lining was installed at a later point in the house's history. Or, someone could have created a hiding place by prying loose one of the panels…

When I left, I took my bag of treasures to my next-door neighbor's house. Francine inherited her house (which was built at the same time as ours – around 1925) from her uncle, who was the original owner, when she was a teenager and has lived there for more than 60 years. Her memory for names isn't great, but she told me some interesting stories about some of our predecessors. In the 70's and 80's the family that lived there was traumatized when their daughter married the leader of a Hare Krishna group from Germany and renounced most of her worldly possessions.

In the 60's, the house was purchased by a wealthy family for their son and his new wife. Apparently, the wife, who was from England, had been the family's maid, but the son got her pregnant, so his parents married them off and moved them into the house. It sounds like it was not a very happy union. Francine described the husband as a "psychopath" and said she once heard loud music coming from next door and looked out her bedroom window to see him performing some kind of crazy ballet dance up and down the driveway. He made his wife play tennis with him all the time, even during the final stages of her pregnancy. His family eventually had him committed to the Pratt mental hospital in Baltimore.

In the 50's, a woman lived there with her mother and son. Francine liked both women, but said the son was "wild" and always getting in trouble. Once, while staying at a hotel, he flew into a range and threw everything out the window of his room. His father was a "crazy doctor" who lived in DC – it wasn't clear if they were divorced or just lived apart for the sake of convenience (although DC isn't exactly far away).

So I think our treasure trove was left by the son. He must have hidden his cigarettes and booze in the wall of the closet so his mother and grandmother wouldn't find them. I suspect some of the other items may have been stolen or found. The wallet belonged to a John C. Snider Jr. (b. 1917), who lived on the next block over, and the key case had a card inside identifying them as the property of Dr. Clift P. Berger of Oakland, MD (or maybe he was the father?). One of the glasses cases, which contains a cracked pair of aviator sunglasses, has this handwritten inside: 2nd Lieu John Poe; 247th Fighter Group; Andrews Air Force Base. Josh thinks the writing looks more like a kid's wishful thinking than an actual Air Force pilot's, so maybe that was his name.

The library book, which was found in the ceiling, is a 1947 edition of Young America's Aviation Annual. It was checked out from the Clarendon Branch of the Arlington Public Library on Nov 25, 1950. After flipping through it, I can see why it was hidden in the rafters rather than returned to the library – many of the photos have been cut out!

I'm hoping to get to the library this week to do some research on the previous owners of our home and see if any of the names and dates match up. Maybe they still have a record of who checked out that book…

Decisions, Decisions

Now that we're out of the house and settling in to our apartment, it's time to get back to seemingly unending process of making decisions. If you have ever been involved in a home renovation project, you were probably just as overwhelmed with the astounding number of details you had to sweat as we have been -- everything from windows to appliances to insulation to doorknobs. Once we grasped the enormous scope of decisions we'd have to make, our first decision was to start working on them ASAP. We were hoping that focusing on green products would narrow down our choices, but now there are so many options available that we still have our work cut out for us.

One thing that has worked in our favor is that Josh and I have relatively similar tastes and priorities, so at least we generally agree with one another. And when we don't, one of us can usually get the other to go along with what she wants... ;)

To make the process more manageable, we've been trying to focus on one thing at a time. We spent a good part of last summer looking at kitchen appliances, and we've already found countertop material and tile that we like. We spent many a Sunday afternoon going to open houses last year so we could get ideas for what we liked and didn't like. We mostly saw stuff we didn't like -- spec houses tend to be pretty bland and mostly the same, with beige travertine bathrooms and stainless steel and granite kitchens. Not quite our cup of tea... Most of the realtors we encountered were surprisingly helpful when we admitted we weren't actually interested in buying the house -- just looking for ideas for our own renovation project. They referred us to builders, interior decorators, and financing specialists, and even suggested other open houses we might want to check out.

One realtor suggested we visit a tile store in Old Town Alexandria (about 15 minutes from our house) called Architectural Ceramics, so we made a trip down there in October and were blown away by all the beautiful tile they had in their teeny showroom. Better yet, one of the designers there was in the process of becoming a specialist in green products, so we worked with her over several Saturday morning meetings to come up with tile strategies for our 3 bathrooms, kitchen, stairs, and laundry room. It was a huge undertaking in itself, but she did wonders helping us find tile we liked within our budget -- including several green products. We filled in the remaining blanks when we were in California for Christmas by visiting Fireclay Tile in San Jose. If we had an unlimited budget, we would have happily tiled our entire house with what we saw there. But, since we aren't bajillionaires, we selected a few decorative accent tiles for our first-floor bathroom and the stairs. It's going to be gorgeous!

After changing our minds several times, we eventually settled on soapstone for the kitchen countertops. That satisfied our requirements of maintaining the period look of the house, choosing an acid- and heat-resistant material, and using a natural stone that is locally mined here in Virginia.

So, now that we have appliances, countertop, and tile taken care of, what's left? Windows, cabinets, kitchen & bathroom fixtures (sinks, toilets, tubs, faucets), hardware (towel bars, doorknobs, drawer pulls), light fixtures, roofing material, paint colors, outlet & light switch placement, and more! No rest for the weary...

Buried Treasure

I stopped by the house this afternoon to drop off the building permit and plans with Rob, our project supervisor. New addition: storage pod on the front lawn (for all the doors, light fixtures, and other items we want to save and re-use). Missing: the entire interior of the right side of the house. They had already demolished the interior walls and ceilings of all three bedrooms and the bathroom. Here are some photos, starting with the front bedroom:
The middle bedroom, looking through what used to be my closet:
The bathroom. I was afraid to ask why they still had toilet paper and air freshener in there...
And what used to be my office. I think that's the original insulation on the floor. When we had spray foam insulation installed a few years ago, they couldn't reach the back part of the house with their equipment so they had to leave the old stuff in place.
They had also removed all the kitchen cabinets, exposing some old wallpaper. Dig that Parisian scene! Not so much the brown floral print...
But the coolest part was that the workmen had discovered a stash of 'treasures' hidden in one of the walls that dated back to circa 1950 (the house was built in 1925). It included 3 pair of aviator sunglasses, a whiskey bottle, a can of Impregnite shoe polish ("For the Hand Impregnation of Shoes"), a man's wallet and keys, a pipe, 4 packs of Kool/Kent cigarettes, a tie, and a book on military aviation that is extremely overdue from the Arlington Public Library. I didn't have time to take a close look at all the stuff, but Rob promised to save it for me, along with any other artifacts they unearthed during the demolition or foundation work. When I have a chance to look through the wallet and find out who it belonged to (someone with the initials J.S. Jr), I'll ask my neighbor, Francine, about him. She's lived in the house next door for about 60 years, so she's bound to remember something about the previous occupants of our house.

Inauguration

OK, this has absolutely nothing to do with our renovation, but I thought some people might be interested in hearing about our inauguration experience, and I figured I might as well post it here...

My sister, Sonia, informed me at Christmas that a friend had managed to get inauguration tickets from her Congressperson so the two of them were planning to fly out and stay with us for several days in late January. Unfortunately, a few days beforehand, her friend's grandfather fell ill and she had to fly to Arizona instead. She called her Congressperson's office to see if Sonia could pick up her tickets, but they said no. Sonia decided to come anyway and just go with Josh and me (who didn't have tickets.)

Monday (Jan 19th) night we took the Metro to Josh's parents' house near Eastern Market, which is just a few blocks east of the Capitol building. The Metro was packed with people, as were all the bars and restaurants around Eastern Market. We had dinner with Josh's parents and then went to nearby tavern for dessert and warm coffee drinks. We didn't sleep much that night. We heard sirens, buses, revelers, and general traffic all night long -- and the coffee drinks probably didn't help much either.

We got up at 7 am the next day (Jan 20) and wolfed down some toast and a few sips of OJ (we didn't want to deal with port-a-johns in below-freezing weather) before bundling up and heading out on foot for the Mall. It was very cold outside (high: 31, low: 19), and the wind chill made it feel even colder. Because the parade route ran along the north side of the Mall, those who wanted to attend the inauguration ceremony were told to approach the Mall from the south. By the time we got near the Capitol, the streets were so crammed with people we could barely move. There were huge lines for the ticketed areas, and the streets were lined with buses, volunteers, vendors of Obama memorabilia, and law enforcement/military types. We kept walking and walking in search of an actual entrance onto the Mall, but it seemed to be completely fenced off. Here was the scene by the USDA building around 9 am:

It turned out they had already closed off the entire Mall by that point because there were so many people. We ended up walking all the way to the Washington Monument, which is about 1.2 miles from the Capitol, and made our way through the throngs to a spot on the hill right near the base of the monument. Here are Josh & I waiting for the ceremony to begin with part of the Monument in the background (Josh is wearing his "I'm gay for Obama" button):

To get a better sense of where we were, take a look at the second photo on this page. It was taken from the top of the Washington Monument, directly above us. We had a decent view of the Capitol as well as one of the many Jumbotron screens set up along the Mall, so although we were too far away to see anything in person, we could watch the ceremony on the big screen. Here's our view of the actual swearing-in:

It was so cold that we had to march in place for the 3 hours we were standing there in order to keep warm. My hands and feet actually hurt from the cold! Many people around us were doing the same thing, so imagine this whole sea of hoods and hats bobbing up and down. Even though we were cold, tired, and over a mile away, it was still an incredible experience to be there in person with 2 million other extremely excited people. The crowd went wild whenever Obama was on the screen, and the sight of Dick Cheney in his wheelchair was greeted with the sound of hundreds of thousands of people booing. I almost felt sorry for him...

After the ceremony was over, we realized there were nearly 2 million people between us and Josh's parents' house, so we turned around and headed in the opposite direction towards our house in Arlington. It was surreal walking down major DC streets with no cars but hordes of people. It felt like a scene from some epic, post-apocalyptic movie. We crossed the Potomac (which was frozen over) by walking right down the middle of the Roosevelt Bridge:
We stopped at a pizza place in Rosslyn around 2:30 for a much-needed lunch, rest, and bathroom break and finally made it home around 4. All told, I think we walked about 7 miles, not including the 3 hours of marching in place...

Before Sonia flew back to California, we paid a visit to the National Portrait Gallery to see the original Shepard Fairey "HOPE" poster, which is actually a collage of different types of colored and patterned paper. Very cool: