Notice two things — the dusty haze and the gleaming, astroturf-free porch.  Hooray for the astroturf being gone forever!

While they were all doing that, Frank and I were able to focus on the front yard.  You may remember that we’re going for a front yard that has no grass but instead has edible plants (all of the herbs we relocated from the back yard) and flowers.  We posted about it here and here.  It was looking a bit scraggly and we needed some fall/winter color.  So we focused on that while everyone else worked on the steps.  It was great to be able to have both going on simultaneously.  It would otherwise have taken us 3 full days to accomplish the same amount, and when the astroturf was still there, improving the yard didn’t make enough of a difference just like when the front yard was scraggly, removing the astroturf wouldn’t have been as big of an improvement.  However, getting both done at once was wonderful!

Here’s the end result.  We’ve got mums that will keep coming back for fall color, pansies that will provide color all winter long, and lots more bulbs up front for springtime color.

Yesterday we bought a weeping cherry tree on a whim.  We got it half off, so it’s much more mature than what we expected to buy for the front yard.  They were a bit incredulous that we’d be able to get this 300 pound tree (with root ball) home in the Matrix, but it was just fine.  When we got here, a bunch of neighbors came out and helped Frank carry it up the steps and into place.  Even though it was already dark, the weather was gorgeous so he stayed outside and got it planted right away.  We can’t wait to see it blossom in the spring!

We were happy to see that the weeping cherry had not been stolen when we woke up this morning.  It’s pretty heavy, so we should be ok.  But it’s always good when things aren’t stolen.  Unfortunately we can’t say the same for our second rue plant.  Our neighbor cautioned us that rue is very popular (for some reason) and that every time she planted it, it was stolen.  We weren’t that attached to it — it was just something that we relocated from the back yard.  But sure enough, a couple of months after she warned us, one of our rue plants was dug up in the middle of the night.  Well, last night it happened again with the second one.  I think it’s kind of humorous that with all of the plants we consider more valuable (all of the established herbs), this silly little rue is what thieves go for.  But Frank, of course, is livid that someone would come and dig anything out of our yard.  The good thing is that we don’t have any rue left for the taking.  I guess we won’t be buying any more…

Hi, Frank here – I just want to give a word of thanks to our neighbors for helping us get the tree out of the car and up into the yard.  Special thanks go to Mr. McLaughlin, who is not afraid of moving a 300 lb tree around.  The people in the nursery had us pretty scared about killing ourselves, the tree and our car.  But within minutes of our pulling up if front of our house, Mr. McLaughlin was there with a hand truck and his brother.  We pulled the tree our of the car and onto the hand truck, and five of us hoisted the tree and cart into position in the yard.  If it weren’t for Mr. McLaughlin, I fear the tree would still be sticking out the back of the car.

• 2007 – we purchased the house from the estate of Henrieta Walker.
• 1961 – the house was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Walker.
• 1959 – 1961 – two different owners occupy the house for about one year each.
• 1911 – 1959 – the house is occupied by its original owner, Garner Whiteman, who was a Chemist working for the Department of Agriculture.
• 1911 – The house was built by the developer Harry Wardman as part of a large group of row homes built between 1910 and 1914, and bounded by Spring, 14th, Monroe and Holmead Streets.
• c 1800 – 1910 – The area was a farm, eventually sold by Mr. Holmead to Harry Wardman.

But what about all the time before that?  Forests, Native Americans, Dinosaurs?  I have been thinking about this because I  just finished digging a pit in our back yard nine feet long by three feet wide by three feet deep.  I wondered how long all of that dirt had been there as I cursed the rocks in my path.  There were very clear layers of sediment that I was passing through and we figured they must have been at least thousands of years old.  Here’s a little of what I’ve learned of the history of our back yard.

First, though, an important point about our location, just east of Rock Creek Park.  All the rock in Rock Creek Park is the remains of a giant mountain range.  What is now the Appalacian Mountains was once as big as the Alps, but over millions of years it has eroded to what is there now.  At the eastern edge of this range sits Rock Creek, and the high ridge that the creek follows is the remnaints of the eastern edge of that mountain range.  This is important to our back yard because this mountain range was a natural barrier to the ocean which, at many time in the past, covered our back yard.

In periods where the Earth was cool, water was locked up in glaciers, ocean levels were lower, and our backyard was above sea level.  When the Earth warmed and the oceans rose, we were under water again, and a new layer of sediment was deposited on our backyard.  Every cycle of cool and warm created another layer of gunk for me to dig down into.

• 237 million years ago (mya) – It was a long drive to the beach for us, because we would have had to drive across North Africa to get to the ocean, about where Lybia is now.  Along the way our car may have been stepped on by Traissic period beasts, such as the Placerias.
• 200 mya – 14,000 years ago – North America broke off from Pangea and our backyard drifted northward from near the equator to its present location.  Now that Africa was not there to protect us from rising oceans, our backyard was continually flooded and dried out again, leaving deposits of silt, clay, and microscopic sea creatures.  Rocks from the mountains that are now Rock Creek Park were tumbled along the coast line, made smooth, and dropped in layers to get in my way millions of years later.
• 14,000 – 10,000 years ago - Humans made their first visit to our backyard some time during this period, coming from Asia across the Bering land bridge and quickly spreading throughout N and S America.  - did they hold our first barbeque?  I hope they had vegiburgers.
• 10,000 years ago – c 1650 – I don’t know much about what the Native Americans did in our backyard, if anything.  There were a lot of mosquitoes, even then.  Our backyard sits on fairly high ground overlooking the swamp that is now our nations’s capitol.
• c 1650 – c 1800 – ??? I need to do some more research, I guess.

Our backyard is part of what geologists refer to as the Atlantic Coastal Plane, which extends from NYC down to the Yukatan Pennisula, and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Appalacians, or in our case, to that high ridge line just west of Rock Creek.  In some places the sediment deposits are 13,000 feet deep, and I only had to dig three feet.  So I don’t know exactly how old that layer of gray crud is at the bottom of my pit, but each layer I could see correspods to one ice age.  Ice ages come along evey 15,000 years or so, and I saw many, many layers.

Here’s a look at the before:

On Saturday, our contractor, Mike, came over to take a look at the plans and figure out how much he’d charge for the job.  He came back on Wednesday to help Frank with the demolition.  They cleared all of the junk from our first demolition out from under the porch.  Then they emptied off our “white trash porch”.  On Thursday Frank went to work and Mike took down the entire wood structure all by himself.  I didn’t think to get a picture while he was working, but his progress was amazingly fast.  The roof was gone by 11 AM.  The whole second story was gone by 2 or 3 PM.  And the rest was gone, and all the debris cleaned up, by the time Frank got home from work around 6 PM.  Here are photos from the beginning of Friday that show the progress on Thursday:

On Friday, Frank took the day off again and he cleared all the rubble while Mike jackhammered the concrete slab — while it was suspended 4 feet in the air!  We thought, based on the amount of wire mesh that was holding the paved backyard in place, that there would be sufficient wire to help support the structure as he jackhammered it away from the 6 supporting piers.  We were pleased to find that there was rebar wired to the wire mesh, so Mike felt safe enough standing on top while he jackhammered.  At the end of the day, I came home to find this!

Today I had to work again.  When I came home, all of the rubble, including the staircase, was gone.  They were held up a little bit because they found some errors in our drawings.  But they problem solved on their own and determined where the footers needed to be, so they even started digging out the footers.

That 3rd picture is taken from the kitchen door.  It looks like a whole different backyard!  Now we just need to get the inspection scheduled, have the footers inspected, and then Mike will be back to put the deck up.  He doesn’t expect it to take long.  So it looks like we’ll be having Frank’s graduation party on our new back deck!

These same photos and a couple more are on our website.

http://www.frontdoor.com/Buy/Blazing-a-Trail-Urban-Pioneer-Neighborhoods/2231

In case the link above does not work, here is a PDF version of the article.

Just a little less green in the house!

We were very happy that the end result came out as well as it did. If it hadn’t, we might still be asking ourselves why we spent SO MUCH time on that one project. Way back last summer we had decided to remove the window trim rather than trying to strip it in place or just paint it. This had several benefits. First, stripping the paint from the individual pieces is much easier than trying to get paint out from all the little spaces between the pieces in place. Second, the previous owners had tried to do some repair of the walls around the windows because of damage from water or settling, but they had done a poor job. Removing the trim would allow us to do a proper repair of the walls. And third, the spaces around the windows were very drafty because of the way the “new” windows (I’m guessing they are about 20 years old) were installed in the old openings. Removing the trim would allow us to insulate the old weight pockets and seal up all the cracks that were letting air in.

So here are the steps we took, from start to finish, and very rough estimates of the time spent. Keep in mind that we started this process in July 2007, intending it to be done before we moved in.

This shows the progress of our garden, which we’ve been thinking about, planning for, and working on for the past 4 months. We started working the soil on a warmish day in February. We also started our seeds inside in February. Then it stayed cold, so the seedlings couldn’t be moved outside. By the time they could, many of them had died off and others were just emerging. We supplemented our own seeds with seedlings from the farmer’s market, re-tilled the soil and mixed in our own home-grown compost, built planter boxes, strung trellises made of netting, planted seedlings and more seeds, and installed a drip irrigation system. Now that the rains have stopped and the sun is out, we expect the garden to start taking off!

Enjoy the photos.

So, finally Presidents’ Day weekend came and we were ready.  We spent the week assessing our equipment, ensuring that we had enough primer and paint, and making a plan.  Saturday morning, we got up and started the final prep work.  Frank patched long cracks that had emerged since we last worked on the walls.  And I spackled parts of the wall that had never been filled in and washed off the sawdust.  Then, all of a sudden, I looked up and saw Frank scraping away the wallpaper near the baseboard.  Evidently it had gotten loose farther up than where we had originally scraped.  But he kept scraping.  And kept scraping.  And suddenly, in one smooth motion, the putty knife and Frank’s arm had traveled up as high as he could reach — scraping off the wallpaper and paint in one clean 2″ wide stripe.  Uh oh.

So, he kept scraping, vowing that he’d stop as soon as the wallpaper seemed to be really solidly stuck.  But soon it was apparent that he needed to go all the way.  Now, we both saw a silver lining in this — there had been huge overlaps in the wallpaper, which left several seams that showed through the coats of paint.  We had tried sanding them out and patching them, to no avail — they were still going to be visible. So, at least this way those seams would disappear.  And it wouldn’t take too long.  Right?

Well, a short while later we noticed that there were actually 2 layers of wallpaper.  Now things started to make more sense.  This house was so solidly constructed that we thought it was very suspicious that some of the wallpaper pieces overlapped by nearly a foot.  It turns out that that was a shoddy job on top of a nearly perfect original wallpaper application.  Our faith in the original workers was restored.  We were shocked to see that we could make out a faint pattern in the original wallpaper.  Suddenly this daunting task became very exciting!

As Frank scraped, I started washing the wallpaper backing off the wall to expose the original wallpaper underneath.  I felt like I was uncovering ghosts as I worked, and revealing a piece of history.  It was actually quite fun.  (Yes, I did just write that.)  As I washed, whole sections of the pattern would emerge and the details were quite evident while the paper was wet.  We decided to preserve a small section, and the rest got scraped off.  So now the wall is down to bare plaster, which is pretty cool looking by itself.

But, as exciting as old wallpaper is, we did eventually tire of this project.  So, on Monday we went out and bought a new car.  Some people might just sit and watch TV or maybe go for a walk.  Us?  We bought a car.

As impulsive as this might sound, it was actually the result of a month-long shopping process.  We found out in early January that the Jetta was finally giving up the ghost.  The check engine light came on, indicating that the car needed all sorts of valves and filters and repairs — to the tune of $4,000 or so.  Plus the $1,400 for the air conditioner that we never fixed last year.  Plus the windows that didn’t go up and down any more.  Plus the numerous plastic parts that had broken off the interior and were lying around on the floor.  Since the car was only worth $3,500 (in perfect condition), and since its registration was due to expire in February and we didn’t think it would pass inspection, we had to say good bye — and fast!  We squeezed in several car shopping trips in January, and finally came home with a new Toyota Matrix on Monday.  We can haul a lot of wallpaper paste in the back of the new car. 

So, our front entry way is still a mix of green, white primer, and raw plaster.  And now the stairwell is raw plaster and old wallpaper.  And we have no idea when we’ll patch the walls (again) and prime (again) so we can paint (finally).  Maybe we’ll just try to find a reproduction of that original wallpaper and restore the hallway to its former glory.  (Probably not, though…) 

But at least we have a car I can drive!

You can see pictures of the wallpaper discovery process here, along with photos of the curtains we made at Christmas and our fireplace (just to break up the monotony, in case you don’t find old wallpaper as cool as we do).  Pictures of the car to come…

You may remember that our renovation was delayed by a month or more because of a problem with the HVAC system. We ripped out the radiators (with much remorse) because refurbishing that system and adding central air would be too expensive. However, once it got cold, we found that our new forced air heating system didn’t work. At all. It was trying to heat the house with air conditioning, to no avail. At the time, we had no insulation in the attic, cold air rushed in from around every door and window, and there was nowhere to escape. So, in early November, we hid out a friends’ houses, ate in restaurants a lot, and generally minimized our time at home. Fortunately the heat started “working” the day before the pre-Thanksgiving party, so all of our guests were relatively comfortable. I say “working” because the heat had to be on all the time, pumping out what felt like air conditioned air to us, just to keep the house at 65 degrees. Out of fear for our electric bill, we turned the heat off and dressed like Eskimos and cuddled with the kitty cats to keep warm.

When our fingers weren’t too frozen, we spent all of our spare time seeking out any and all drafts and spraying expanding foam insulation into cracks. We also called about insulation, but because there was a tax credit for insulating your house before the end of 2007, there weren’t any 2007 openings left and we had to wait until early 2008! We bought honeycomb window shades from Next Day Blinds (they were delivered within the week — not exactly “next day,” but still very fast). And we made plans to sew insulating curtains that would serve as a barrier in the front and back of the house, where we’re only separated from the elements by a single layer of bricks and a thin layer of plaster.

Oh, and we bought a fireplace.

The fireplace is vent-free, which means it doesn’t have a chimney so all of the byproducts vent into the house. Normally we wouldn’t be ok with this, but the fireplace is nearly 100% efficient so it doesn’t put out anywhere near the byproducts of our old fireplace in the condo. Plus, the vented models (the ones that use chimneys) are only around 75% efficient, so they are actually wasteful and they pollute the outdoor air more (although they have a nicer, more orange flame). The fireplace was ready for pick-up in mid-December and we had our contractor on call, ready to drop everything and come install it as soon as it was ready so we could strip down to just a few layers in the house. Mike came and installed the fireplace in one day — working from early morning until late at night, and when he left, we had heat! Of course, the next day we left for our Christmas voyage and didn’t get to enjoy the heat until we got back around New Year’s, but at least we knew we’d be warm when we got back!

On January 2nd, the insulation folks came and our house immediately got warmer. In mid-January we hung up the curtains we sewed at my parents’ house, and we noticed a big difference from that as well.  (Living room on top — open and closed, dining room on bottom.  The living room curtains will eventually all have the band — we just haven’t finished that piece of trim yet…)

Now it’s been a couple of months, and the HVAC folks have been back several times to “fix” the heat. The last time they came seemed to do the trick, but we actually still don’t bother to use it. The fireplace is sufficient to heat the whole house and it offers a much nicer heat than the forced air. Our gas bill remains surprisingly low and the fireplace operates on a thermostat, which we turn on when we get home from work and off before we go to bed. Since the house is so much tighter, the warm air stays inside for most of the day. So, the kitty cats don’t freeze and we don’t suck up a lot of resources keeping our house warm — it took a long time to get here, but eventually it ended up being a win-win situation.

We ate well, played a rousing game of Mexican Train Dominoes, visited the Air and Space museum out by Dulles airport (but forgot the camera), and even finished up some house projects! Photos are online here.

In between pre-Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving we moved the final truckload of stuff out of the condo, patched and painted some final holes in the condo walls, salvaged a bookcase that NYAC was going to get rid of, and unpacked all of our books to make room for another houseful of guests.  We closed on the condo the day before Thanksgiving.  In hindsight, perhaps we shouldn’t have been so hasty to move our closing date up.  My dad tore his plantar fascia in the bottom of his foot before coming down to DC and had to hobble up and down stairs on crutches in order to use the bathrooms.  Had we hung on to the condo, at least he could have relaxed there on one level…  Fortunately he survived the weekend with no accidents on the stairs, although he was very relieved to get back to his one-story house!

Somehow we managed to make the house presentable enough for our crowd of 18 and we even got our heat working in time for the party.  We were pleased to find that the set-up of the dining room and living room is as perfect as we had hoped it would be and that we can fit a whole lot more people into our new space.  We missed a lot of our regular pre-Thanksgiving folks (you know who you are!), but we are confident that we can have a nice big dinner next year — there’s plenty of room for eating AND for sleeping! 

Happy Thanksgiving to all, and enjoy your “other” Thanksgiving dinners!

September 29th — We decided to sell the condo.

September 30th — Kristen left for Little Rock, where she helped her colleagues put on their annual conference.

October 1-4 — While Kristen is in Little Rock, Frank gets started packing the condo so we’ll be ready to move.

October 5-6 — Kristen and Frank finish packing.

October 7 — Mike, Sam, Chip, Hussein and Nashua helped us move the majority of our stuff to the house, leaving only the big furniture in the condo to help it sell.  Unfortunately we have no pictures from the move, but we couldn’t have done it without everyone’s help.  It took us 5 hours from start to finish.  Afterward, we had our first dinner in the new house, with Chip, Gina and Eloisa here to enjoy it with us.

October 8-11 — We prepare the condo for sale, finishing all of the nagging little projects we had never had a chance to complete.

October 11 — The condo is officially on the market (link to the listing is below).

October 12 — We sleep in the house for the first time (but leave the cats in the condo)

October 13 — The cats join us at the house and Charlie holds our first open house.  Cousin Matthew is our first official post-move-in dinner guest.  (We bought food at Whole Foods and promised that the next meal would be homemade.)

October 14-17 — We unpack the kitchen and start living in utter chaos…digging through boxes constantly and showering in the basement.  On October 16, Amy, Sam, Jenny and Lauren come over for a housewarming / thank you dinner.

October 18 — We try to leave for Chicago, but are thwarted by bad weather and drive back from BWI to sleep at home.  The kitty cats are very happy to see us.

October 19 — We successfully fly to Chicago and have a great time at Diana and Bill’s wedding.

October 20-21 — We spend the weekend with family in Chicago and have nice visits with Auntie Ro, Aunt Nita and Earl, and Kathy and Kenny.  Frank leaves for DC on the 21st.

October 22 — Kristen flies to Minneapolis.

October 23-24 — Frank unpacks and settles in a bit more and Kristen goes to an anti-tobacco conference.

October 25 — Frank’s parents drive down to DC for a visit en route to FL.  Kristen returns home at 11 PM.

October 26-28 — Frank’s parents work hard from early in the morning until late at night.  With their endless help we manage to get the kitchen completely unpacked, the garden ripped out and ready for winter, the dining room, living room, and office painted, bulbs planted for next year, and a lot of the house cleaned up.  Thanks again!!!  We also got an official offer on the condo on October 27th, which we accepted, so we became “under contract” about 2 weeks after listing the condo.

October 29-31 — Mary and Ben finally come to DC at the same time and visit us.  We also ran out of candy on Halloween because we had so many trick-or-treaters, so we turned off the lights and went out to dinner.

And if the past week is any indication, November will probably be more of the same!  The good news is that every day we make a bit more progress toward making the house liveable.  There have been some set-backs (more to come on those), but each day we can see marked changes that help keep us motivated to do more.  We haven’t been taking house pictures lately, but we’ll try to do that soon.  At this point, once things change they’re going to be that way for a long time, so we’re not in such a rush. 

We had a lot of rain in DC last week.  During the day on Friday it got pretty heavy at times.  It was then that our gutter downspout decided it had had enough.  My father noticed that there was a big puddle outside the basement window – something you never want to hear when you have just finished your basement.  I went outside under the back porch to check it out.  It turned out that the house was not in any danger from the water because thankfully the ground slopes away from the house.  But normally all the water from the roof goes down one downspout and into a cast-iron pipe that drains into the ground.  Near the bottom of the downspout, where it meets the cast-iron pipe, there are two elbows that direct the water into the pipe.  They were rusted and had finally fallen off on to the ground, and all that water was now filling up under the porch instead of going down the drain pipe.

The good news was that the water was still being relatively behaved.  There was a lot of water coming out.  I put a 5 gallon bucket under the broken downspout and it filled up in about 20 seconds.  With 600 sq ft of roof, even in a moderate rain you get a LOT of water.  So all this water was travelling under the porch, cascading down the steps that lead to the basement door and going down another drain before it could come in the house.  A sane person would have said “The house is in no danger right now.  I should leave this alone and address it when it stops raining.”  But I’m not that smart.

I tried to put the rusted elbow sections back in place and a 12 foot section of the downspout disconnected and water started to pour all over the first floor porch (and all on top of my head).  Now we had a problem.  I had stayed relatively dry until now because I could work from under the porch, but now I had to run up to the first level and work in the freezing cold rain.  Luckily I had seen that the downpout was in trouble last week and I had bought a few new elbow pieces and some metal screws already.  Kristen brought them and the tools out to me and I got to work.

I noticed that whoever had installed the downspout had made two mistakes.  First, they didn’t secure the downspout sections together with a screw, which is why it fell off and drenched me.  Second, they had installed the downspout sections upside down, so that the lower spout fit inside the upper spout, and water sloshed out of the connection on its way down, which has caused the 1st floor porch deck to rot in that corner.  There was nothing much I could do about the upside down problem at this point, so I reattached that section and secured it with a screw.  Now we were at least back to only the original problem, but I was already soaked from head to toe, so I figured I might as well keep going. 

Back under the porch I went.  Remember how the downspout sections had been installed upside down?  That meant that my elbow sections didn’t fit on to the end of the old downspout.  I was eventually able to use a hack saw to cut away at the rusted end of the old spout, get the elbows attached and the water once again directed down the drain pipe.  The crisis was averted, the submarine and crew were saved and ready to fight on for another day.

It’s a bittersweet moment for me (although Frank is very happy about it).  I am relieved about what this means for our finances, but the condo holds a lot of very happy memories for me.  Nine years ago, as Frank was sitting at the settlement signing all the closing documents, I was on a plane on my way to Uzbekistan.  (Well, given our delays, I was probably sitting at TGI Fridays in National Airport, but you get the point.)  In the few letters and emails we exchanged during my first months of Peace Corps, Frank wrote about settling in to the condo and I thought about just how different our lives were.  Three years later, we got together and shortly thereafter I started thinking of his home as an extension of my own.  In the early stages of our relationship we chose paint colors together and spent sleepless nights around Christmas 2001 painting the condo those nice warm colors.  A couple years later he solicited my opinions again as he re-did the kitchen and bought our oh-so-comfy couch.

We have hosted countless parties and meals at the condo and have some really great memories with family and friends there.  Before the wedding, we lovingly built those fabulous bookcases into the master bedroom (and unfortunately painted the bathroom that bright blue…but even that has a story to go with it).  And of course, there’s the infamous spice rack!

The condo was quiet, cozy, sunny, and most of all, home.  But there were no more projects to take on, no potential for composting or creating a huge garden (although our tomatoes last summer were incredible!), and it was time to move on.

We’ve spent the past two days at the new house with Frank’s parents, eliminating the dust and getting rooms painted.  And slowly this house is starting to feel like home and the condo feels like the past.  I didn’t expect that to happen so quickly, but I guess since we’re both here (and so are our kitty cats), that’s what really makes our home.

So, we’re looking ahead and already scheming for countless parties and ways to welcome you all here.  It’s a bit rough around the edges right now, but we’d love to have you come by or stay over.  And soon we’ll start filling up the memory bank with lots of happy times at the house to add to all those happy years in the condo.

I know we are behind in our pictures — and right at the most exciting part.  Soon we’ll have our desk and computer back and will be able to get pictures up.  But we hope you’ll come visit soon and see for yourself what we’ve been up to.

So using instructions from the Internet and $12 worth of equipment from Radio Shack, I was able to get the phone and DSL working in about 90 minutes.  If only I had thought of this before, we could have had it all working 10 days ago!  It’s not much, but it made me feel good.

Not pictured are the toilets and sinks that went in this week.  Yep, that’s right.  No more toilet / multi-purpose sink out in the open in the basement!  Does it look to you like we’ll be moving soon?

Enjoy!

Highlights from the photos include:

• My dad drilling through his hand as he created a safety rail on the second floor balcony (not the act of, but the aftermath) — and then returning to work (no rest for the weary!)
• Us de-greening the second story
• Cabinets filling the dining room (later joined by appliances)
• Us stripping and sanding the final piece of window trim (yes, there is still a lot of other trim to strip, but this was a small victory — all of the wood against the wall in the living room is just for the living room windows)
• Garden shots
• And every room as we left it before heading off on vacation — please please please let there be some changes between now and when we get back!

We’ll have lots of non-house-related things to post about once we’re back!  Hooray!

The end of the stripping and sanding is in sight — we are working on the living room windows now and then have to do the dining room windows and one long board from the master bedroom. Oh, and the railings and newel post. And a couple doorways. My mom came down last weekend and stayed through Monday afternoon — tirelessly sanding and removing paint to help push us ahead. Thanks Mom! There’s no way we will finish all the rest this weekend, but we’re hoping to be done with stripping and sanding by the time we leave for our vacation in mid-August. We’ve decided not to bother with the French doors that we’re putting in the basement — they were relocated from the living room and will just stand as a testament to the green until we get a chance to address them.

It looks like we’re pushing back our estimated date for renting the condo again. We had been hoping for August, but then pushed back to September 15th because of our vacation. Now I’m not sure that September 15th is realistic — we’re probably looking at October 1st now. The good news is that the house has passed all sorts of inspections and pretty soon they’ll be starting to do the finishing work that will make it look like it’s getting ready to live in. The electrical inspection is done, so someday soon we will have outlets (hooray, no more extension cords crisscrossing the house!), working light switches (right now we have a switch for the basement lights and have to use a circuit breaker to turn the living room and dining room lights on and off — there are no other lights in the house), and lights in every room. The plumbing inspection is done, so soon we will have running water and luxuries like sinks and toilets. We also passed the gas line inspection, although they did find a leak right before the inspector came — not sure what’s up with gas in this house! For some reason the gas meter is no longer attached, but we’re sure that eventually they’ll do something about that…

Photos of the progress over the last couple of weeks are now up on the site.  The highlights are that the kitchen door and window have been moved, Frank fixed an old fashioned window, my mom came back to help, and the plumbing was put into the basement.  Enjoy!

If you want some arugula, let us know…we’ve had enough for this year.

A couple of weeks ago we traveled to NJ and we picked up an old sink at an antique shop.  This sink, which would easily have sold for over $400 in DC (based on the sinks we priced here) was just $65 there.  So we bought it and brought it down, hoping we’d still like it once it was here.  On Saturday I worked on rejeuvenating the finish to remove some of the old scratches while my mom and Frank stripped paint and my dad sanded woodwork.  I’m excited to say that the sink looks great!  It’s an old J.L. Mott sink made in Trenton, NJ in 1928.  It’s slightly younger than the house, but I’m really glad to be reusing an old sink — part of both the green renovation and the historic renovation.  In doing a little bit of internet research, it appears that we got a real gem.  J.L. Mott is the “Mott” of Mott Haven in New York and appears to have been well-known for very high quality sinks and tubs, at least according to this link.  Here you can see photos of NYC subway stations dedicated to Mr. Mott.

We’ve added the pictures from this past weekend to the website.  In addition to the photos of the sink, there are paint colors, garden products, and the results of the stripping/sanding process on one door.

First of all, a huge thank you to my parents for coming down this weekend and getting us over the hump.  We have been stripping paint intensively for over a month, and still there’s no end in sight.  It’s been very frustrating…particularly since we still have to sand the varnish and stain off all the stripped pieces of wood, our contractor is pressuring us to have the wood finished ASAP, and each piece of molding takes HOURS to complete.  My parents came and made it so that other work could get done while stripping was still happening.  So, while my mom and I stripped on Friday, Frank and my dad cleaned up the massive amounts of junk everywhere and got us organized (no small feat!).  Then, while I spackled the walls and my dad sanded, Frank and my mom stripped paint.  After that, we took turns washing walls and painting primer, while paint continued to be stripped.  It felt great to have some progress be made both with the paint stripping and other projects that have been lingering.  The best news is that on Saturday we got the compost bin assembled and have begun composting.  Photos of the weekend’s work will be posted later this week — we didn’t bring the camera today for the “after” shots.

Here are the links to the photos we’ve posted.  Of course, you can always access them from the “family” or “friends” sections of the website.

June 10, 2007 – The fruits of our gardening labors
June 16, 2007 – Photos of the kitty cats, house progress, and Debi and David’s visit
June 22, 2007 – Status of the house before we left town for NY and NJ
June 23, 2007 – Mandi’s 30th b-day and our visit to NYC
June 24, 2007 – Celebrating my b-day in NJ with my parents
June 25, 2007 – What the contractor did while we were away
July 1, 2007 – Frank’s nephew, Nick, came to help out

Stay tuned for photos from this weekend — you won’t believe the massive changes in the house!  I’ll post those photos by the middle of this week, so check back soon.

This is bound to be a strange process.   

DCRA (the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs) is the agency that issues permits.  They have an on line application thing on their web site.  When I tried to do that it said there was a hold on our address.  So I called, and they said that I need to call Metro and speak to Jack XXXXX.  I said, OK, who is Metro? Is that a DC agency?  They said, you know, Metro, the subway.  I said That Metro?  What’s that about?  She said You must live near a Metro station or bus stop.  I said Doesn’t everyone?  She said I guess so.

So I called Jack.  Jack was surprised to hear from me.  He said to tell them that my work will not affect the Metro.

And that’s as far as I got.

In other news, Frank’s sister, Denise, was just recognized on the Leonard Lopate show on WNYC (NYC’s NPR station).  An essay she wrote on breaking up made it into the top 20 in a contest.  You can see the title (though sadly, not the essay) here.  It was a great birthday present for her to see this listed today (her b-day).

As far as the house goes, we are *still* stripping paint.  Frank’s nephew, Nick, is coming down from NY this weekend to give us a hand.  (We’re also hoping to go see the movie Sicko and to go to the Folk Life Festival while he’s here.)  The contractor has moved the 2 fireplaces, divided the closets, and hooked up most of the electrical.  Next up is the plumbing, and then he can start on finishes.  We expect to move by the end of July, so if you know of anyone who wants to rent an awesome 2-bedroom condo in a fabulous location, let us know! 

We spent last weekend in NY and NJ, visiting Frank’s family, celebrating Mandi’s 30th birthday, and visiting my parents.  The 19 hours we spent in the car were worth it because we felt like we finally got to catch up with everyone…something that has become quite a luxury for us these days!

Frank called me from the house at around 8:30 to tell me that the one of the houses across the street was on fire. The street was full of fire trucks (including the ladder truck from the fire station by our condo) and there was smoke coming out of the upstairs windows. He said all the fire fighters were running around and were sawing the bars off the windows so they could get inside. Fortunately no one was hurt and we saw the house today and it didn’t even look like there was much damage (from the outside anyhow). The upstairs windows are boarded up, but the family was outside and they said they were doing ok. No word on how the fire started.

So then Frank went to the house to let the ADT guy in to install our security system. They were just about to decide that we would hold off on installing ADT until the renovations were done when they noticed the basement door was wide open and there was broken glass on the floor. Yep, someone had broken into the house. Whoever it was got about $1,200 of our tools and painting supplies. But luckily Frank had brought his big toolbox home on Tuesday morning and our contractor hadn’t left any of his tools there. And even more luckily, I hadn’t left the camera there. (I have accidentally forgotten it twice, and was very stressed out about it both times.) We knew we were extremely vulnerable since the house is a known construction site and we are not there overnight, so we were half expecting something like this to happen. It’s funny, the back door didn’t even have a lock on it at that point, but the thieves broke in to the basement instead of walking in on the first floor. Now, of course, we have a deadbolt on the back door and the security system is all hooked up. Too bad ADT didn’t come last Friday when they were supposed to… The funny thing is that they stole the $80 weedwacker that we had just repackaged to bring back to the store — it didn’t work! But they didn’t steal the $20 replacement one that we bought (and use). Somehow just knowing that makes me feel a little bit better.

Then of course there was good news on the needle exchange front. This is just a first step in a long process, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.

The Washington Post also ran an editorial in yesterday’s paper regarding needle exchange. Let’s hope all this positive momentum continues.

The final piece of news is related to the donations that keep pouring in to PreventionWorks. We got over $20,000 in response to the NY Times article mentioned below. People’s generosity and support for this cause have totally overwhelmed me. We got a check for $10,000, a check for $5,000, and a check for $1,000, in addition to over 30 smaller donations. And it keeps coming! This is really encouraging for the future of PreventionWorks as its leadership changes.

In a more mundane update, we’ve got photos on the website of our house progress.  I split them up into 3 different slide shows.

Progress between April 24 and 27 is here, along with photos of Amy and Zoe who came for a visit.
My parents’ visit and photos of the aftermath of our contractor’s first day are here.
Photos after the contractor’s second day of work are here.  He works EXTREMELY fast!

And, the photo we’ve all been waiting for…

The awnings are gone!!!  And so is the chain link fence.  I can’t wait until we’ve re-done the porch in its original style, with wood railings and big wooden columns.

It’s really hard to be leaving the field right as all this positive momentum is building.  If the ban is lifted, I’m sure I’ll find my way right back into the world of needle exchange.

In other news — the contractor has been working for 2 days and already the bathroom is completely gutted, the wall is down between the kitchen and dining room (the studs are there today, but will likely be gone soon), the fireplace has been moved to the living room, the basement walls have disappeared, and most of the pipes are gone.  My parents were here this weekend and they helped us get the awnings off the front of the house, strip lots of the trim paint, and remove the chain link fence from the front of the house.

We’ll post pictures ASAP.

In other website updates, we posted pictures from our trips to Bull Run Mountain Farm (to pick up the seedlings we planted) and to Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge.

Next on the list at the house:

• getting the chain link fence out of the front yard
• taking down the awnings in the back (the baby birds on the lower awning are about ready to fly away)
• stripping paint inside (we’ll use the heat gun in conjunction with Peel Away — a supposed environmentally friendly paint remover)
• putting up a trellis in the back yard to hide the cinderblock wall and support string beans and climbing flowers
• planting the various flower and vegetable seeds we’ve picked up

The contractor, designer, and cabinet manufacturer all met at the house at 8 AM on Wednesday of last week to make sure everyone is on the same page before the work starts.  The contractor had a great idea — switching the places of the kitchen door and window so the kitchen counter can extend all the way to the wall.  This sent everyone back to the drawing board, but is probably going to be a really positive change.  We are hoping work will start this week.

This means we need to get in gear with paint stripping, choosing new paint colors, and painting.  The contractor can probably have all the work done in 4-6 weeks, and we want the place to be all painted by the time he’s ready to refinish the floors.

Yesterday we took the day off work and spent the whole day jackhammering. We figured a weekday would be better than making so much noise for a third weekend in a row. I’d say we’ve got about 75% out now (not including the path, which will be taken out at a later date). Of course, we have to finish this weekend, but at least it won’t take us both Saturday and Sunday to get the job done.

What did we do with all that concrete? We dumped it down into the back of the garage. We are planning to shorten the garage to its original size since the new addition is not going to last much longer and we’d rather have the yard than an enormous garage. So, we’ve got our own fill to use — perfect because it doesn’t go to a landfill and we don’t have to pay to fill in the enormous hole.

Frank’s parents came to visit last weekend and let lots of light into the house by washing the windows for us and getting rid of a lot of the plaster dust.  They also revealed the wood floor that was underneath the linoleum in the kitchen and managed to break up enough of the concrete in the backyard that much of the chain link fence came out.  Unfortunately we have no pictures of all the work they did while they were here.  However, we do have some pretty pictures that Frank took while he and his parents toured the Hillwood House gardens.

Behind the scenes, we’ve chosen a designer (Mathilda Cox, who was our friend Rich’s designer many years ago) and a contractor (Mike Phoenix, who comes highly recommended by Frank’s boss).  We’ve been meeting with Mathilda regularly and are waiting for the final quote from Mike so work can begin.  In the meantime, we’ve picked out all of our appliances so we’re not holding up the process.  I have to admit that I am glad that the appliance selection process is behind us.  I hate shopping and shopping for appliances is almost as bad as shopping for jeans!  We still have to shop for things like faucets and shower fixtures, but we’re putting that off because it won’t hold the process up for us to wait a bit on that.

We’ve also made decisions on our cabinets.  Cabinet Discounters is definitely the place to go for cabinets!  Their service is excellent and their cabinets appear to be extremely high quality.  We’re going to be getting cabinets made of “Lyptus,” a fast-growing plant that looks great as a cabinet door.  Apparently the plant can be chopped down and within 10-15 years it will have completely re-grown. 

This weekend we spent a bit of time back at the house.  On Saturday morning we went to a neighborhood clean-up day and helped pick up trash on 14th St. near our house.  We got to meet some neighbors and learned about a government program that will give grants of $25,000 to businesses on 14th St. to fix up their facades and attract more customers.  We are looking forward to seeing some of the stores move their security bars inside as that will really improve the look of the street.  There are also grants for technical assistance to help business owners respond to changes in the local demographics so they can weather the changes rather than go out of business.  We should be able to see some of the results of the program as early as this summer.

After the clean-up day we went to the house to strip paint and remove some molding.  We did that for a few hours and then had to go home to take a nap.  We had every intention of going back to do more work at the house, but ended up going out to dinner with Mary instead.  (She had been staying with us all week and was due to leave Sunday morning.)  On Sunday we got up to say good bye to Mary, then went to the house and spent a couple of solid hours stripping paint and taking down the old French doors.  Around noon we left to go to Frank’s cousin’s British antique car show.  We then went to visit a “green house” in Takoma Park and then returned to Schipegan North to strip more paint before going out to dinner at Temperance Hall with Tani and Rich.

All in all it was a busy weekend.  We’ve got a lot of paint stripping ahead of us, but after that (and before we start painting everything), the majority of the work will be left for the professionals.

I wasn’t able to upload our preliminary kitchen drawing today (something about file type not being appropriate), but maybe Frank can figure out how to put it on our blog so you can see our plans.  In the meantime if you’re curious, we can email the file to you.

We officially closed on Thursday but then had to go back to work. So, Friday began our weekend of deconstruction work. (Deconstruction is the “green remodeling” term, but really what we did looks pretty much like demolition.) Frank and I closed on our home equity loan at 9 AM on Friday and shortly thereafter headed to the new place to get started. You can see all the pictures here. Links to some of the key sections are below. 

We’d like to thank our amazing crew from this weekend, without whom we never ever could have even dreamt of getting this much work done!  Thanks Mom and Dad Degan, Amy, Mary, Ben, Sam and Katie!!!!!

Day 1

• We began in the kitchen – Frank’s #1 priority.
• My parents arrived and helped us get the paneling, cabinets and counters out.

Day 2

• Frank, my dad, and Mary started with my #1 priority — getting the awnings down.
• Amy and I tore out the basement ceiling.
• Mary and Amy exposed gorgeous wood floors under the carpet on the stairs and in the master bedroom.
• Ben and my mom surrounded themselves in dust and knocked out all the plaster in the kitchen.

Day 3

• The dining room mirror came out. Then we discovered a gas leak, so we took a long lunch break while we waited for Washington Gas to come and shut off the gas to the house. My parents left to go home after a long weekend of helping us. We could never have made so much progess without their help!
• Then Sam and Katie came over to help knock out the closets in the basement.

We’ve met our neighbors and we think that as wonderful as this house is, the best part about moving is going to be the great street we live on. People hang out on their front porches and everyone knows everyone else by name. Everyone is extremely friendly and welcoming and we feel at home already!

We’ve also started to learn a little bit about the people who owned the house before us. They moved there in 1961. They put the rooms in the basement shortly thereafter, because we found a newspaper from 1962 in there. The husband was a landscaper (which might explain why the backyard is concrete), and he died around 17 or 18 years ago. We had suspected that perhaps the woman’s husband had died and title of the house transferred to her at his death, and it turns out we were right. The woman who sold the house to us was their goddaughter, and she lived with them for much of her childhood and adolescence. We also learned that the big cinderblock wall in the back yard was put up to protect the neighbor children from the big German shepherds running around in our backyard. (It’s on our property, and the neighbors wouldn’t be sad to see it go.)

The next door neighbors are great! On the left (the house with the flamingoes), the family has lived there since 1968. They had 6 children that grew up in that house, and their whole family comes and spends as much time there as possible. There are grandkids who play in the back yard and the front yard and who greeted Frank with a cheerful, “Hello, Mr. Frank!” this morning. They are great kids who clearly grow up in a house filled with love and plenty of adult supervision. Tonight we sat on the porch for a half hour or so, and were thrilled to see the kids running and riding their bikes up and down the sidewalk. No video games or TV watching for those kids! We look forward to getting to know that family and watching their (grand)kids grow up.

On the other side, the neighbor has lived there for 6 years and she showed us around inside her (recently fixed up) home. It gives us great inspiration to see what lies in our future…especially as our house sits under a thick layer of white dust right now.

Today Frank met with a contractor, a locksmith and ADT. Tomorrow we have a designer coming and a couple of radiant floor heating people. And there are more contractors coming the rest of this week. We’ve done most of the demolition work, so now we’re ready for someone to come help us design the new space and get started on the bathroom. We’ll post more pictures when we’ve got more to show. And we’ll be at the house all day on Saturday and probably from 10 or 11 until 2 or 3 on Sunday if you want to come give us a hand. It’s lots of fun!

We did it! We closed on the house!

The closing went well and we headed straight to the house to do a little happy dance inside before going to work. It’s going to be tough to focus on work today, but we’ll have plenty of time to be thinking about the house — we’re going to be there from dawn ’til dusk every day this weekend.

If you’re in town and want free beer and vegan pastries, come on over. We’re going to be ripping out the kitchen (great for pent up aggression), removing the awnings from the front of the house, cleaning decades of dirt off the moldings, and whatever else comes up. It promises to be a great time.

We’ll post pictures of the progress soon. The best thing is that the owner was able to get all of the furniture and stuff out of the house. We have no idea how she got it all done, but it’s all gone and we have a clean slate to work with.

Now we’re trying to figure out how much of the above stuff we can fix right away while still redoing the kitchen and bathroom and ripping up all the concrete in the backyard.

This weekend we’re going to visit one of the neighbors who renovated his house in a historically accurate fashion. We’ll find out what he did, who he used, and hopefully get some great pointers.

We are officially “under contract” and we’re very excited! We had to move the closing date from May 2 to March 30, but that’s ok because it leaves less time for the deal to fall through. It’s going to be a BUSY spring for us, though! With scrambling to design the changes we want to see in the house, identify contractors to redo the kitchen and bathroom, and select and buy materials and appliances all while trying to make this a “green” renovation, we’re going to be busy! Not to mention that Frank is writing his thesis and taking a course with a lot of reading and I’m teaching ESL in the evenings! But it’s been almost 2 years since we lived a hectic life like this (before the wedding), so it’s about time for it to happen again. We’re looking forward to getting started! Our inspection will be Saturday morning and then everything will start happening very fast.

(Let us know if you are itching to do any heavy lifting or help with painting!)

This is all very sudden and definitely not premeditated. Two weeks ago we visited my friend Katie in the place she just bought. There are a couple of houses near her that are for sale, and Frank thought we should buy one and rent it out as an investment. So, last weekend we drove around the neighborhood and looked at the outside of houses that had signs just to get a feel for what was available and what the neighborhood was like. We liked what we saw, so Frank made an appointment to go look at some houses with his friend Charlie (who’s a realtor) on Thursday during lunch. Around 2 PM, when I was in the middle of a very stressful final push to get a grant done, Frank called to tell me all about this perfect house he had found! I couldn’t talk about it right then, but that night we stayed up REALLY late with Frank telling me all about the woodwork and the solid construction and the historical significance and all that. We went to see it yesterday and I fell in love with it too. So we made an offer! We’re coming in 20% less than the asking price, so I’m not sure if they’ll accept our offer. But the house needs a lot of work (which we’re excited about, of course), so we think our price is fair. We really hope this works out. We should know this week!

You can see photos of the house here. The woman who lived there for the past 17 years died last fall and the house has been on the market since December. We are hoping that we can live in our current place for a month or two while we fix it up. The plan is to rent out our current place when we move to the new place (if we move to the new place). But if that’s not financially feasible, we may just sell it.

This store is based in the UK, but it’s good for ideas.
I particularly like the look of this dining room table.
This is a nice side table that can expand into a lot of seating space.
We could build a sideboard like this into the dining room and it would look great!
This table and chair set is interesting. I think the chairs are a bit too tall for my taste, but it would be quite a distinctive look.

Kitchen

This kitchen is quite similar to what we already had in mind.
I like this one.
This one is nice too.

Bedroom

It’s good that the mission style furniture I like seems to go well with Arts and Crafts designs.
Bedroom 1.
Bedroom 2.
Bedroom 3.
Bedroom 4.

Accessories

Handles and hinges.
Resource Books and Reference Information

A list of books by category.
A brief history / introduction to the movement.  It’s interesting to read how similar the Arts and Crafts movement is to our lifestyle.
An intro to Arts and Crafts (aka “mission” or “craftsman”) furniture.
A brief guide to decorating in Arts and Crafts style.  The focus is on wood — not painted, but stained.
Book to look for in the library.

Kitchen and Bath Studios in Bethesda.  They will help design if we are getting our cabinets from them.

Putting radiant heat on the first floor would have the advantage of being more efficiant than radiators, more comfortable, and cheaper to operate. 

It should be relatively easy to install.  We’ll have to take out the ceiling in the basement, but that’s no big loss.  We would probably need either a new boiler or a new water heater or both.  I’m not positive about the condition of the existing heating equipment.  At a glance they looked to be 80s vintage, and probably are in decent condition.  Whether they would be adequate to power a radiant floor system, plus domestic hot water, plus the existing radiators on the second floor, I don’t know.  I will assume not. 

Assuming there are no surprises above the basement ceiling, we would run the PEX tubing back and forth between the floor joists.  Since we will be gutting the kitchen anyway, we can do the bathroom above as well.  Added bonus!

There is great information here: http://www.radiantcompany.com/

National Building Museum Gree Building Exhibit: http://www.nbm.org/Exhibits/greenHouse2/greenHouse.htm

National Kitchen and Bath Association: www.nkba.org

American Institute of Architects: www.aia.org

Amicus Green Building Center – 4080A Howard Ave. Kensington, MD 20895-2465 http://www.amicusgreen.com - Products, services and showroom of green building resources.

Natural cork, or something with a cork backing, so it will be soft on the feet.

The only thing I can think of now that we would need is a replacement volute (scroll-shaped thing) for the capitol at the top of the column between the living and dining rooms.  The column is Ionic. 

I think it is a bit odd that the architect, Albert Beers, decided to put these columns in this house, since they don’t really match the style of the rest of the house.  We are pretty sure that there originally were matching columns between the living room and entry way, but they were removed when the french doors were added.  We plan to remove those doors. 

It seems like there were two places where Beers decided to “mix it up” in each house by adding some whimsical element.  There seem to have been a multitude of different styles for the fireplace surrounds and columns in each house.  Despite the fact that they are most likely original to the house, I don’t think they are terribly appropriate, and I wouldn’t be too sad to see them go.  It think if Beers and Wardman were around today they would agree.  Some more research may be necessary.

http://www.reelmowerguide.com/

http://www.rainbarrelguide.com/where_to_buy_rain_barrels.html

Worm Composting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermicompost

http://www.earth911.org/master.asp?s=lib&a=organics/composting/wormcompost.asp

http://www.css.cornell.edu/compost/worms/basics.html

Rat-Proof Yard Composting:

General Composting Info:

http://www.compostguide.com/

http://www.cleanairgardening.com/accessories.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compost

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_composting

They also installed a circulating pump on the hot water line, so that when you turn on the tap, you don’t have to wait until the colled water that has been sitting in the pipe has been evacuated before you start getting water.  On the other hand, you don’t want this running all the time, because then you are running hot water all over the place all the time, wasting energy.  So they installed motion detectors in the bathrooms.  When someone walks into the bathroom, the recirculating pump kicks on and delivers the hot water to the tap before you turn it on, which saves water.  In our house, the distance between the boiler and the taps will be pretty short, so maybe we wouldn’t need a recirculating pump at all.

I would like to use all PEX piping for all the water in the house.  We will be starting out with only one bathroom and the kitchen (not counting the basement “bathroom”, but we plan to add two full bathrooms at some point in the future.  So we should design the manifold with connections for the additional bathrooms now, if that makes sense. 

I would also like to leave open the option of putting some sort of solar device on the roof at some point.  So maybe wae can leave an open conduit between the basement and attic where pipes or wiring could be installed later without having to open any walls and messing up the new kitchen and bathroom.

If we purchase an Energy Star certified refrigerator by May 31, 2007, we can get a $100 rebate from DC.  http://www.dceo.dc.gov/dceo/cwp/view,a,3,q,601835,dceoNav,|32974|,.asp  Rebate Form

 POLICY COVERAGE                    AMOUNT     PREMIUMS
 Dwelling                           473,000    1,124.62
   Other Structures Protection      47,300
 Personal Property Protection       354,750
   Personal Property Reimbursement Provision
 Family Liability (Each Occurrence) 300,000    42.00
 Guest Medical (Each Person)        1,000
 Deductible  $1500   
TOTAL PROPERTY ANNUAL PREMIUM       1,166.62
Quote from Travelers (Geico):

POLICY COVERAGE                    AMOUNT     PREMIUMS
 Dwelling                           472,900    
    Personal Property Protection       331,030
   Personal Property Reimbursement Provision
 Family Liability (Each Occurrence) 500,000    
 Guest Medical (Each Person)        5,000
 Deductible  $1000   
TOTAL PROPERTY ANNUAL PREMIUM       $1412 
$1192 with discounts.  Need to call them back when these are installed.

• Building Permits
• Plumbing Permits (Supplemental)
• Electrical Permits (Supplemental)
• Mechanical Permits (Supplemental)

Plumbing, electrical and mechanical permits can only be obtained by licensed and bonded plumbers, gas fitters, master mechanics, and master electricians.

Since we are not changing the footprint of the house, we should not need to obtain or modify a plat.  This may be required to build a deck, however.

Neighborhood Zoning:  As of Jan 17, 2007, the block is currently zoned as R-5-B, which allows for rown houses to be converted to condominiums.  ANC-1A passed a resolution asking the zoning commission to rezone it as R-4.  The hearing was set for Feb 8.  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HolmeadVillage/message/616

• R-5-B Permits matter-of-right moderate development of general residential uses, including single-family dwellings, flats and apartment buildings, to a maximum lot occupancy of 60 percent, a maximum FAR of 1.8 and a maximum height of 50 feet.
• R-4 Permits matter-of-right development of single-family residential uses (including detached, semidetached, row dwellings, and flats), churches and public schools with a minimum lot width of 18 feet, a minimum lot area of 1,800 square feet and
  a maximum lot occupancy of 60 percent for row dwellings, churches and flats, a minimum lot width of 30 feet and a minimum lot area of 3,000 square feet for semidetached structures, a minimum lot width of 40 feet and a minimum lot area of 4,000 square feet and 40 percent lot occupancy for all other structures and a maximum height of three stories/40 feet. Conversions of existing buildings to apartments are permitted for lots with a minimum lot area of 900 square feet per dwelling unit.

The Homeowners Center on the DC web site has more information: http://dcra.dc.gov/dcra/cwp/view,a,1342,q,635750,dcraNav,|33420|.asp

On 3/15, spoke to someone from Connell and Schmidt Builders.  They called me to talk about trash hauling, but it turns out that they also do design/build work, speciallizing in the Columbia Heights, Petworth and Mt Pleasant areas, and have expertise in green building and alternative energy.  I asked them to give me a call back to discuss our project.

Archive

I had been thinking that the complexity of our renovation required the services of an architect.  My idea was that the architect would coordinate the design of not only the kitchen and bath remodel, but also the “infrastructure” needs – new electrical, plumbing and heat (and maybe AC).  After doing some research on architects I think I have concluded that this would be overkill for our project.  We are not planning to change the structure of the house, there will be no additions and no walls moving.

I think the better way to go is to find a contractor that specializes in design/build.  They will do all the same things, but most of the choices of materials and finishes will be up to us, or we can hire an interior designer.  The contractor will supply the project management.  My feeling is that actual design work will be fairly minimal.  We know what we want in the kitchen and can design that ourselves, maybe with a little help from an interior designer.  The batchroom is pretty small, and won’t need much in the way of design.  Electrical, HVAC and plumbing can be left to the experts

It is also possible that we can serve as our own PM and manage the contractors ourselves.  This will save money, of course, but may be too demanding of our time.  If possible, I would prefer to have one point of contact for scheduling, finding sub contractors, contracts and payment.

So the first main task will be to find and hire a general contractor.

National Association of the Remodelling Industry – Metro DC Area Chapter: http://www.narimetrodc.org NARI DC Magazine articles of interest

• Landis Construction Corporation (DC based): www.landisconstruction.com (submitted request for info via website on 3/5)
• Kingston Custom Builders: www.kingstonbuilders.com
• Case Design: www.casedesign.com
• Elite Remodeling: www.eliteremodeling.com
• C M Wright: www.the-wright-homes.com (not much info on their site)
• Mark IV Builders: www.markivbuilders.com
• Windsor Design/Build: www.windsordesignbuild.com (sent email on 3/5) (talked to Michael 301-417-2700 x104 or 240-388-8942 on 3/6 and planned to set up a meeting at the house.  Asked Charlie for help in getting permission from sellers.)
• Sun Design – Remodeling Specialists: www.sundesign.com
• Schroeder Design/Build: www.schroederdesignbuild.com
• Wentworth, Inc:

Concrete recycling -

DC – http://www.recycledaggregates.com/ Seems to be geared toward commercial uses, but may accept residential concrete debris.

Alexandria – http://www.hilltoplandfill.com Site was down, but ad says they accept residential.

Aggregate & Dirt Solutions, LLC
Capitol Heights MD 20743
Claims to do Green Waste Disposal

http://www.wbdg.org/design/greenspec_msl.php?s=017419&print=1 – This is a guideline for developing and negotiating a disposal plan with your contractor before work begins.

From the EnviroYellowPages – trash haulers in DC.  Would probably need to call many to find one willing to recycle all of the waste.  http://www.enviroyellowpages.com/listings/USA/DC/74eae256146df6ac3d2c9db5916e8e6a/

I was thinking Tenleytown Trash might be a good place to start, since they have the contract with the condo building.  But we’d need to make sure they recycle construction debris.

http://www.mwcog.org/buildersrecyclingguide/search.htm

Electrical Contractors:

• JKJ Electric: www.jkjelectric.com