Another Brick in the... Patio

Our houseguests arrived at 3 am this morning, so I didn't get much sleep last night. My friend Kinnari is in town with her husband and two young boys for her sister's wedding, which is on Saturday. (Josh and I are also friends with her sister, so we're going to the wedding, too.) We had to scramble to get the house ready for guests -- and reasonably child-proofed -- but that forced us to unpack and take care of a lot of things that we might have otherwise let slide.

I was hoping to sleep in this morning, but the landscapers were back bright and early to work on the brick patio in the back yard. They weren't able to find new bricks that matched the old ones, so we decided to create a pattern that blended the old and new. First, they spread a layer of gravel in the big hole they dug out yesterday. (I took these photos from the master bedroom, so there's a bit of a window screen effect...)
Then they covered the gravel with a layer of crushed rock and a layer of sand.
And then they started laying the brick on top of that.
They worked until about 5:30 and finished the whole 12x15' patio. Not bad!
They also regraded the yard and tilled in some new topsoil.
Unfortunately, they did not clear everything out of the driveway, so we STILL can't park there! They'll be back tomorrow to finish up the yard and fill in between the runners on the driveway, so maybe by tomorrow evening we'll actually be able to park in our own driveway. It's the little things in life...

Before & After

Rob asked if I could send Steve B some before and after shots of the house for a presentation he was giving today. Since I went to all the trouble to pull them together, I thought I might as well share them here.

Here is the front of the house:
The side view:
The back of the house:
The kitchen:
And the main level bathroom:

Landscaping

Rob came over at 7 am today to take care of a few final touches on the house. He knows we aren't early risers, so we arranged that he'd let himself in with a key. Now, I've gotten to know Rob pretty well over the past six months and I trust him completely, but there's still something a little disconcerting about knowing that someone is working in your house while you're in bed. So, while I'm usually happy to stay in bed until 7:30 or 8, I woke up without an alarm at 6:30 and hopped in the shower. By the time I got dressed and went downstairs, Rob was cheerfully painting our closet doors. He'd brought Max -- a former/new SAI employee -- with him, and put him to work outside reinstalling the gate on the side of the house.

Around 8 am, the landscaper showed up, as did a huge moving van for our neighbors across the street. Another neighbor on our block moved out yesterday, so there have been a lot of big trucks and moving vans on our street over the past few days.
The landscaping company is called Meridian Landscaping, and they will be weeding, regrading, and reseeding our back yard, installing a brick patio, and diverting the water from our downspouts into the planting beds.
I took this from the master bedroom window -- hence the screen -- but it gives you an idea of where the brick patio will go.
Rob and Max finished up around 11 and said their goodbyes.
We haven't seen the last of Rob. He'll be back next week to give us the manual for our house and touch up the floors. I think we still have some final inspections coming up as well.

I had to go up to Silver Spring in the afternoon for a series of meetings at Discovery, but it didn't look like the landscapers had done much more than dig a pit and some trenches while I was gone. I'm sure there will be more landscaping activity tomorrow, and possibly the next day.

Shop 'Til You Drop

We spent most of Saturday shopping for items we needed for the house. Josh has been eager to get some bar stools for the dining room, but we can't afford the Stickley stools that match our dining table and chairs, so we ended up going in a completely different direction. We bought these stools for $50/each at one of those unfinished furniture stores and will stain them ourselves to match the oak panel on the back of the bar. Rob left us the wood stain he used on the panel, so even though the stools are not oak, we should be able to get a pretty close match.
We are also in desperate need of window treatments -- especially in the bedrooms -- and bath towels. We hit Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware, since they were both having big sales and we like a lot of their stuff. I discovered that Restoration Hardware's "Silver Sage" towels are a perfect match for the master bathroom.We also found some drapes we liked for the master bedroom, but they didn't have them in stock at the Alexandria store, so we had to drive up to the Tyson's Corner store and buy them there. By then it was 8 pm, so we grabbed a quick dinner in the food court and caught an 8:40 showing of the latest "Harry Potter" movie.

We had to get up very early on Sunday morning as Rob had arranged for the plumber to come at 7 am. (No he doesn't hate us -- that was just the only time he was available.) He needed to install a new tub filler in the master bath (Rob determined that the original one was defective) and figure out why the water wasn't draining out of our new dishwasher. Rob still has all the owner's manuals for our kitchen appliances and everything else they installed in the house, which he is supposed to organize into a binder for us -- but in the meantime, I've had to download them from the Internet when something crops up. (At least we figured out how to get the microwave to heat things in 30-second bursts.) Unfortunately, most of the troubleshooting tips for the dishwasher were beyond our capabilities.

Brian (the plumber), and his assistant, Bob, showed up a little after 7. They made short work of installing the new tub filler, but could not see what the problem was with the dishwasher. Brian asked how many times we had run it and what kind of soap we used. I said we'd only run it once and used regular Cascade powder. Then he told us a story about how he once ran out of dishwasher detergent, so he put a little bit of Palmolive soap in the cup, turned it on, and took his dog for a walk. When he got home, there were 3 feet of soap suds on his kitchen floor. It sounded just like one of those scenes you see in sitcoms or silly movies, but rarely seems to happen in real life. The fact that he is a plumber and really should have known better made the story all the funnier.

Anyway, we finally figured out that the plug had never been removed from the hose that connects the dishwasher to the garbage disposal. Since we re-used our old disposal, he had assumed that the plug had already been removed, but in our old kitchen, the dishwasher was on the opposite side of the room from the sink, so they weren't connected. Brian knocked out the plug, and we were all relieved to hear the sound of water draining out of the dishwasher. Yay!

After doing laundry, sweeping up all the dirt and debris that the movers tracked into the house, and unpacking a few more boxes, we went over to the apartment in the afternoon to pick up the rest of our stuff. We still had to empty out the refrigerator and two storage closets, retrieve our houseplants, and clean up. We only managed to do about half of that before we filled up the car, so we went home and unloaded the car, and then I dropped Josh back at the apartment to get his bike and drove down to Target to do some more shopping for essentials like toilet paper and window shades. By the time I got home it was after 8 pm, so we had some dinner (Lebanese food, of course), did some more work on the house, and collapsed around midnight.

After taking Thursday and Friday off, Josh had a heck of a time getting ready for work this morning, since his regular routine is completely thrown off by the new house. It will take some getting used to -- especially the whole upstairs/downstairs thing. The truck arrived soon after he left to retrieve the empty storage pods, so we have our driveway back for one day. Tomorrow Rob will be back -- "bright and early" -- to take care of some final issues and supervise the landscaping. They'll be weeding, re-seeding, and regrading our back yard and installing a brick patio off the back stairs. I have a series of meetings at Discovery tomorrow afternoon, so I may miss most of it, but I'll try to get some photos in the morning before I leave.

Outside the Box

Our new driveway was roped off until Thursday, but we still haven't had a chance to use it because Friday morning our storage pods were delivered. We had three of these suckers packed full of our stuff, and that was the only place we could put them.
The Verizon guy also came back Friday morning to get the rest of our phone jacks working. After he left, Josh and I tried to get some work done before the movers came back to help us unload the pods. As I was sitting at my desk, something caught my eye outside. There was a one-armed man walking around the back yard and talking on his cell phone. Normally, I would have been a bit concerned, but he kept looking up at the roof, so we guessed he was here to investigate why we had a waterfall coming off the side of the house during the torrential rains on Thursday (which was witnessed by both Rob and Steve W). I emailed Rob just to be sure, and he confirmed that the one-armed man was indeed one of Attila the Roofer's guys.

The same three guys who moved us out of our apartment came back around 1 pm to help us unload the pods. After living without all that stuff for 6 months, it was hard to believe it was all ours. The books alone turned my office into a cubicle!
Even though our old kitchen was pretty tiny, we sure had a lot of kitchen stuff. Josh had his work cut out for him trying to figure out where to put all of it.
We even had boxes stacked up in the bathroom, just to get them out of the way.It was good to have our living room furniture back. It's the only furniture we have that is really nice enough to go with our new, improved house. I mentioned to our neighbor, Alan, that a lot of our old furniture seems a shabby now in comparison to the new surroundings, and he said that it sounded like the Diderot Effect -- a sort of internalized "keeping up with the Joneses." Now that we have a new house, we will feel compelled to buy all new furniture to go with it. Of course, our bank balance will keep us from succumbing too far to the whims of Diderot...
The master bedroom looks a bit nicer with a bed in it.
As does the front bedroom upstairs. We have houseguests arriving Tuesday night, so we need to get all the bedrooms set up by then.
Our 50-inch TV used to dominate the family room -- and completely overwhelmed our apartment -- but now it actually looks kind of small. We were initially planning to put built-in cabinetry on either side, but that was scrapped for budgetary reasons. We'll have to come up with something else to do with the space.Josh treated our new soapstone countertops with mineral oil. Boy, are they green!
After several hours of unpacking, we invited our friends Rob and Diana and our neighbor Alan over for dinner Friday night to help us make a dent in all the leftover Lebanese food. (We made a valiant effort, but there was still a ton of food left.) Alan is moving to Alabama this week -- his wife and son have already left -- so we offered him our moving boxes. While we are very sad to see them go, at least the timing worked out such that as we unpack our boxes, we can just walk them across the street to Alan's house so he can pack them with his stuff.

Home Sweet Home

Lots of catching up to do! Let's start with Wednesday. Rob called in the late morning to tell me he had good news and bad news regarding the final inspection. The good news was that the inspector said it was fine for us to move in on Thursday. The bad news was that we did not pass the inspection. The not-so-bad-news was that there were just 3 issues to be remedied: we need to provide documentation showing that the windows in the bathrooms had tempered glass; the balcony railings are more than 4" apart and didn't meet code; and the back yard still needs to be regraded. All of these things should be taken care of by the end of next week, so we should be fine.

I went by the house in the afternoon. Just as I got there, Ian was leaving. He had finished grouting the tile in the master bath, and caulking in the kitchen and on the stairs, so his job was finally done.
I was going to put the finish coat on my birdhouse, but the painters had taken the poly with them. Rob said they were coming back that evening to do some touch-up work, so he'd ask them to bring it back. Then we went over the punch list and created a new one of all the pending items and both signed off on it. The old punch list has so many notes and additions and water stains that it was barely legible.
The SAI trailer was gone, as were most of their tools and equipment. Just this lone tool box in the back yard remained.
That evening, Josh and I packed up a few things and brought them over to the house. The painters were there doing their last round of touch-ups. Then we went back to the apartment and stayed up until 1:30 am packing and getting stuff ready for the movers.

Thursday morning was sunny and humid, but not terribly hot. The movers showed up a little before 9 am, and started loading the truck.
We used the same movers as we did to move out of our house. They were able to get everything in to our apartment, so we were fairly confident that they'd be able to get everything back out, even though it was a different crew. My desk and the sofa were the most challenging.
It took a few tries, but they did eventually get the sofa out the door, around the corner, down the stairs, and into the truck. Once they had finished loading everything up, we followed them over to the house.
Rob was there trying to hide in the kitchen so he wouldn't have to leave.
Actually, he was taking care of all the last little details for us -- like installing a shelf in the kitchen cabinet. Emanuel, the Verizon guy, was also there setting up our new FiOS phone, TV, and Internet service. Josh did a good enough job on installing the outlets that he was able to get the TV set up.
And the Internet and TV running in my office. The phone was a little trickier, but by the end of the day, we did have one functioning phone jack.Halfway through unloading the moving truck, the skies opened up and it rained like it was monsoon season in Bombay. It couldn't have come at a less convenient time, but since it hadn't rained for weeks, we really needed it.Our sandy beach in the driveway quickly developed a shoreline to go with it.
The movers took a break and we offered them some cold drinks and pizza, hoping it would stop soon enough, but of course it kept raining until they were done unloading the truck. Still, they did a pretty good job of keeping everything dry as best they could.

Once they were done, we got to work unpacking and setting up the TV components and my office. Steve W and his son Ben showed up around 5 to help out. They brought us a traditional Jewish housewarming gift of a broom to sweep the bad spirits away, salt to add spice to our lives, and flowers from Steve B, who was unable to join us. Steve W happens to know the catering manager for Lebanese Taverna, a local chain of restaurants, so she showed up soon after with enough food for 30 people. We were joined by Rob's wife, Addie, and Steve's wife, Efrat. Then John showed up with his wife, Elsa, and their 5-month-old baby boy, Petro. It was quite a party! We had a great time -- it was nice to be able to just relax and hang out with everyone.
From left to right around the table: Josh, Rob, John, Steve W, Elsa & Petro, Ben, Efrat, Addie.

And now, I must go to bed, as I am utterly exhausted. I'll try to get caught up tomorrow....

John in a Box

Here is the aforementioned photo of John posing as a corpse inside the storage bench he made for our back porch last week.
Of course, John is physically incapable of not smiling when he knows someone is taking a photo of him, so he looks like he died happy, with his trusty drill in his arms. Rob took this photo on John's cell phone, so it took several steps to get it from there to my cell phone to my computer, but I think it was worth the effort. (What do you think, John? I know you are reading this!)

Anyway, I stopped by the house for 2 minutes this afternoon to drop off a check, and was delighted to see our balcony railing being installed. Rob was trying to warn them in his fluent Spanglish that there was electrical wiring for the lantern in the wall underneath, so they should be careful when attaching it to the outside of the house.
They also poured the concrete for the piece of walkway at the bottom of the stairs. I was concerned that we wouldn't be able to get to the front stairs, but they handily solved that with a sturdy plank. Our driveway and runners have also been poured.
I came back later in the afternoon to see what had transpired today. Inside, the cleaning crew was hard at work making our house look shiny and new. They are from Fresco cleaning services, which is a green company, so there was no chemical smell from their cleaning products -- and the house looked great.
Now that all the detritus has been cleared out, you can see what the kitchen looks like.
During the preliminary inspection last week, they were told we needed to have drywall installed on all the exterior basement walls, so they put that up today. Not sure if it's much of an improvement, but it will be one less step for us when we get around to finishing the basement.
Upstairs, the built-ins in the master bedroom have been put back together and the knobs installed on the cabinet doors.
Ian came today to finish tiling around the vanity in the master bath. I guess he'll have to come back tomorrow to grout.
I'm not sure what this is on our toilet paper holder, but I sure hope they're not using it!
Here's the view of the balcony from inside the front bedroom. It has the same Mexican tile as the bathroom on the main level.
And this is the view from the balcony. It will take me a while to get used to even having a view, since we couldn't see much from our house when it was just one story. It's cool to be able to see all the way down our street.
By the way, they've reduced the price on that yellow craftsman bungalow on steroids two doors down from us and are also offering it for rent. So, if you'd like to live in the biggest house on the block (it's double the size of our house!), you can either buy it for a cool $1.89 million, or rent it for a mere $11,000/month. What a bargain! This house has been on the market for over a year now, and at this rate, it doesn't look like it's going to be occupied anytime soon.

So, here's what our house looks like with the balcony railings. I think it adds a certain je ne sais quoi, n'est-ce pas?
Tomorrow is the final inspection. Fingers crossed that we pass!